2025 Oregon Legislature - Final Report

The Oregon Legislature concluded its 2025 regular session on June 27. Humane Voters Oregon engaged on numerous animal-related bills during the session, helping to pass several good bills and defeat several bad ones. Unfortunately, some promising proposals did not succeed this session, but we hope they will be back in future sessions. While no particularly harmful bills were passed, a few that we would have preferred not to see advance did make it through the session.

Here are the highlights:

Good Bills Passed

• HB 3020 will prohibit betting on greyhound and other dog races, regardless of where the race takes place. The Oregon Legislature previously made dog racing illegal in Oregon, but businesses licensed through the Oregon Racing Commission, a state agency, are one of the primary ways that people can still bet on animal races, including dog races, in other states and foreign countries. By facilitating betting on dog races, Oregon has helped enable an industry that abuses and neglects dogs by confining them in cramped quarters and subjecting them to drugs and injuries. HB 3020 will end that starting July 1, 2027. Thanks to everyone who helped support this bill by submitting comments in response to our action alert in January!

• HB 3932 will ban recreational and commercial hunting and trapping of beavers on public lands in watersheds designated by state regulators as having water quality problems. That will be good for animals living in the watersheds because the dams beavers often build have been shown to improve watershed health, in part by filtering pollutants and creating streambank vegetation that helps keep water cool. The bill will also be good for beavers because fewer of them will be killed for sport and fur. Thanks to everyone who helped support this bill by submitting comments in response to our action alert in May!

• HB 2978 will improve state efforts to provide wildlife highway crossings to prevent vehicle-wildlife collisions that harm both animals and people. Among other things, the bill will require increased collaboration by the Oregon Department of Transportation and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to provide for wildlife highway crossings.

  
  

Bad Bills Defeated

• HB 2403 would have brought back special taxing districts to raise money for "predator control" that kills cougars, bears, coyotes and many other animals, often with cruel methods such as traps, snares, gassing of dens and shooting from helicopters and planes. The bill passed one House committee but, as a taxing measure, had to go through the House Committee on Revenue, which declined to give the bill a hearing. Thanks to everyone who contacted their legislators to oppose this bill in response to our action alerts in March and April.

• Several bills (HB 3153, SB 349, SB 412 and SB 769) would have allowed resumed hunting of cougars with dogs (having dogs chase a cougar until the cougar climbs a tree for a hunter to shoot at close range), which Oregon banned by ballot measure in 1994. After a public hearing on one of the bills, they all died without moving forward. Thanks to everyone who took action on this issue in response to our action alert in February.

• HB 3124 and SB 776 would have directed more killing of cougars and coyotes to supposedly increase deer and elk populations. Thankfully, these bills died without a hearing.

• HB 2691 would have prohibited labels for plant-based foods from implying they are made of meat or eggs, directed some state agencies not to purchase plant-based foods, and excluded plant-based foods from certain food programs. This bill also died without a hearing.

Good Bills That Didn't Pass

• HB 2557 would haved banned raising and selling farmed octopus for human consumption. We supported this bill because octopuses are highly intelligent animals and should not become another animal subject to the extreme confinement and other inhumane conditions of factory farming. This bill received a public hearing but did not advance after that.

• SB 80 would have prohibited new and expanding large confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) in areas with known groundwater contamination. We supported this bill to better protect groundwater from manure pollution and because large CAFOs are particularly bad for animal welfare. This bill also received a public hearing but did not advance after that.

• HB 2980 would have create a "wildlife stewardship" program in Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to promote nonlethal management of human-wildlife conflict and support wildlife rehabilitation centers. This bill was approved by a House committee but died in the Joint Committee on Ways & Means, which must approve all spending measures.

• HB 3143 would haved funded nonlethal approaches to human-wildlife conflict specifically with respect to beavers. This bill also was approved by a House committee but died in the Joint Committee on Ways & Means.

• HB 2970 would have banned the hunting of bobcat and lynx with dogs. Unfortunately, the bill did not receive a public hearing.

• HB 2977 would have increased the transient lodging tax from 1.5 percent to 2.75 percent to help fund wildlife conservation work by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife as well as other programs including the wildlife stewardship program proposed by HB 2980. Against long odds, this bill was passed by two House committees, the full House of Representatives and a committee of the Senate. Unfortunately, the bill fell victim to some procedural maneuvers by opponents at the end of session that prevented a vote by the full Senate before the deadline for the legislature to adjourn. Thanks to everyone who took action on this issue in response to our action alerts in May and June.

For a complete list of the bills we were tracking and their outcomes, go here. To see the full text of a bill, along with the legislators who sponsored it, the history of the bill, scheduled proceedings on the bill and other information, click on the bill number in our list, or the bill number above if it is part of our summary.

What You Can Still Do

To see how your legislators voted on any bill that received a vote, click on the bill number above and then "Measure History." The history will show the votes, if any, by the full House and/or Senate. The history will also show if the bill received a "work session" in a committee. If it did, you can click on that link to see how committee members voted. If your legislators cast a good or a bad vote, please thank them or ask them to do better next time. If you don't know who your legislators are, you can find out by clicking here and entering your address (you have one state representative and one state senator). When you write or call your legislators, be sure to let them know you are a "constituent," meaning you live in the area they represent and vote on whether they are elected or not.

Coming Soon

Stay tuned for our Legislative Scorecard. We will show how all legislators voted on animal related bills during the 2025 regular session and whether they took other significant action to either to help or hurt animal welfare. Our scorecard will also show how legislators have done throughout their time in office.

Also coming soon is a special session of the legislature recently called by Governor Tina Kotek to address transportation funding issues. While that may not seem animal related, the transportation package that failed in the regular session had funding for wildlife highway crossings, which we will advocate for again in the special session.

Thank you for helping us advocate for animals!