Livestock industry gets vulture-killing authority with minimal federal oversight

What it does

This bill allows livestock producers and their employees to kill black vultures that are causing or reasonably expected to cause death or injury to livestock, without needing a federal permit under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. Producers must report their kills annually to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service using a form the agency will develop within 180 days; poison is prohibited as a killing method.

Why we flagged it

The bill's core function is to carve out a narrow exemption from federal migratory bird protection law for a specific industry (livestock production). It is not a broad wildlife management reform but a targeted liability shield for one sector.

What the text implies

• The bill creates a self-reporting system with no independent verification or enforcement mechanism—producers report kills after the fact, with no requirement to prove the vulture was actually causing livestock damage or that non-lethal alternatives were attempted.
• Annual reporting does not prevent killing; it only documents it. A producer could kill dozens of vultures and report them all in January with no consequence if the report is filed late or incomplete.
• The 'reasonable belief' standard is subjective and unverifiable—a producer need not demonstrate actual livestock loss, only their belief that a vulture will cause loss, creating a low threshold for lethal take.
• The bill does not require coordination with state wildlife agencies or the Fish and Wildlife Service before killing, only after-the-fact reporting, removing real-time oversight.
• Black vultures are a federally protected migratory species; this bill effectively delegates population management to individual producers without population-level monitoring or sustainability safeguards.

Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.

Who it affects

Livestock producers gain a concrete economic benefit (reduced predation losses without permit costs), but the bill removes federal oversight of a migratory bird species, shifting management authority to individual producers with minimal accountability. The reporting requirement is weak (annual, post-hoc) and does not prevent killing—it only documents it after the fact.

Who stands to gain

• livestock producers
• agricultural operations

Named in the bill

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Migratory Bird Treaty Act, black vulture (Coragyps atratus), livestock producers, Emergency Livestock Feed Assistance Act of 1988

Where it stands

26 cosponsors: 25 Republicans, 1 Democrats.

• Mar 27, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
• Mar 27, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Natural Resources · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on Natural Resources”
• Jul 15, 2025 — Markup held in committee · Congress.gov: “Committee Consideration and Mark-up Session Held”
• Jul 15, 2025 — Reported out of committee · Congress.gov: “Ordered to be Reported in the Nature of a Substitute by the Yeas and Nays: 22 - 18”

Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.

Money around this bill

1 lobbying clients named this bill on 3 disclosure filings across 2 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $720,409 in lobbying spend. A filing names 37 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.

More lobbying clients named this bill than 0% of bills with at least one filing.

John Rose, the sponsor, reported $19,000 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.

• American Farm Bureau Fed — $720,409 on 3 filings

Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 17, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.