Sen. Moran wins AVMA Advocacy Award

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AVMA leadership presented Sen. Jerry Moran of Kansas with the 2014 AVMA Advocacy Award on Dec. 12, 2014, for championing veterinary medicine in Congress.

Sen. Moran
Sen. Jerry Moran

During the 113th Congress, which ended in January, Moran was one of the leading co-sponsors of the Veterinary Medicine Mobility Act, a bill that gives veterinarians the ability to carry and use controlled substances beyond their clinics to treat their animal patients. Thanks to his efforts, the bill passed unanimously in the Senate in January 2014 and was signed into law by President Barack Obama last August.

Moran has also been a reliable advocate for the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility, which will be a biocontainment facility used to study foreign animal, emerging, and zoonotic diseases that threaten U.S. animal agriculture and public health. The facility received $404 million for its construction in the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2014, one of the many AVMA appropriations priorities the senator endorsed.

Moran co-sponsored the Veterinary Medicine Loan Repayment Program Enhancement Act in the last Congress, calling attention to a program that helps place veterinarians in areas of the country where they are needed most in exchange for loan repayment. Although this bill did not move, the senator has indicated his intention to champion the bill once again in the new Congress.

The senator spoke to AVMA members and veterinary students at various events, including the 2014 AVMA Legislative Fly-In, at which he told attendees that one of his two daughters is studying veterinary medicine at Kansas State University.

Moran is one of seven congressmen and congresswomen who have been honored with the AVMA Advocacy Award. It is given annually to an individual to recognize his or her contributions to advance the AVMA’s legislative agenda and advocate on behalf of the veterinary profession.