What does the PETS Act of 2006 mean to Colorado?

On October 6th, 2006, the President signed into law the Pet Evacuation and Transportation Standards Act of 2006 or PETS Act.  This law amends the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act to ensure that state and local emergency plans address the needs of individuals with household pets and service animals following a major disaster or emergency. (Service animals are pets that assist people with disabilities including sight, hearing, and mobility assistance animals.) The PETS Act followed a year after the devastating 2005 hurricane season that resulted in catastrophic damages along the US Gulf Coast.  Hurricanes Katrina and Rita demonstrated clearly that the safety of people and animals are closely connected and that local and state emergency plans protect people by helping to protect animals.  Thousands of people and their animals were displaced and endangered with many lives lost (both human and animal) and thousands of pets permanently separated from their owners in the confusion.

The PETS Act has three main impacts:

1. Requires state and local emergency plans to include provisions for people with household pets and service animals and allows the federal government to withhold grant funding for non-compliance. 
2. FEMA is directed to include expenses related to companion animals under their cost-sharing programs with states and local communities during major disasters (FEMA generally provides 75% of disaster costs during Presidential disaster declarations.)
3. The PETS Act allows FEMA to budget funding to help develop state and local capabilities, but does not provide specific funds for that purpose.

What does our state and communities need to do to comply with the PETS Act?  Luckily in Colorado, we had already started a serious statewide effort to address these issues well before the 2005 hurricanes.  State agencies, non-governmental organizations, and many counties are working collaboratively on these issues aided by the Colorado State Animal Response Team (COSART) program, a government-private partnership developed as a program of the Colorado Veterinary Medical Foundation.  In 2004, COSART provided training throughout Colorado to help communities begin to develop animal emergency plans and to help establish County Animal Response Team (CART) programs throughout Colorado.  During the 2005 hurricanes, COSART helped organize Colorado’s animal response both in our state and on the Gulf Coast.  In addition, COSART is working with state agencies to finalize a section of the CO emergency plan that will address animal issues. 

There remains a great deal of work, however, before Colorado is compliant with the PETS Act.  Each county in our state must develop animal components for their emergency plans and we must create the capacity to realistically support both local and state plans during emergencies.  This includes animal evacuation, transportation, sheltering, veterinary care and more.  This effort will take resource commitments from our state, local communities and donations in support of the CO SART program from individuals and the private sector. 

You can download a copy of the PETS Act here.

Colorado SART contact information:

• Kevin Dennison, DVM, Director, Colorado SART
• Colorado Veterinary Medical Foundation
• 303-539-7633 (office)
• 1-866-854-SART (7278) toll free
• 303-318-0450 (fax)    
• 303-895-1138 (cellular)
• KevinDennison@colovma.org