Congress·In Committee·S. 1104

WATCH Act

Animal Research: New Rules for Foreign Labs

Mar 25, 2025·View on Congress.gov·Read full text

This bill is one vehicle in a longer effort. See the full story across every version.View effort →

Next up: A senate committeeNo action in 15 months

The WATCH Act was introduced in the Senate and is currently being reviewed by the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. There are no upcoming votes scheduled at this time. The bill is in the early stages of the legislative process.

Legislative Progress

Senate

House

President

Law

Could go either way

The bill has strong bipartisan support from both Republicans and Democrats in the Senate. While many bills fail to move past the committee stage, the focus on oversight of tax dollars often gains traction.

How we got here

This bill’s path across every version that has carried it.

Reintroduced
Reintroduced from S. 2397 (118th), which died when its Congress ended.
S. 2397 (118th) →

Key Points

This bill requires foreign laboratories that receive money from the National Institutes of Health to follow U.S. animal welfare rules. Currently, these labs use American tax dollars but may not face the same oversight as labs located inside the United States.
The government would conduct inspections every three months at these overseas facilities. These checks will make sure the labs have proper committees to oversee animal care and keep accurate records of how animals are treated during experiments.
If a foreign lab fails an inspection, it will get a chance to fix the problems. However, if the lab refuses to improve or continues to break the rules, the government will stop their federal funding and cancel their research contracts.
The public will be able to see which labs passed their inspections. The Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare will post these certificates online so people can track which foreign facilities are following the law.

Impact Analysis

Govbase has not yet run an impact analysis on this legislation.

Milestones

2 milestones2 actions

Mar 25, 2025Senate

Read twice and referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.

Sent to a congressional committee for expert review. The committee decides whether this bill moves forward.

Mar 25, 2025

Introduced in Senate

The bill was officially filed and given a number. It now enters the legislative queue.

No votes or news coverage recorded for this bill yet.

Source Information

Document Type

Congressional Bill

Official Title

WATCH Act

Bill NumberS 1104

Congress119th Congress

ChamberSenate

Latest ActionRead twice and referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.

Data Sources

Congress.gov

Official legislative information

Read Full Bill Text

Sponsor

Cosponsors

(6)

D: 3R: 3

Analysis generated by AI. Always verify with official sources.