7 U.S.C. § 2134
Section 2134 · Valid license for dealers and exhibitors required
Amended 3 times on record
Applied in 12 court decisions — leading case People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals v. United States Department of Agriculture (2015)
Most recently applied in Animal Legal Defense Fund v. Vilsack (March 2016)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
No dealer or exhibitor shall sell or offer to sell or transport or offer for transportation, in commerce, to any research facility or for exhibition or for use as a pet any animal, or buy, sell, offer to buy or sell, transport or offer for transportation, in commerce, to or from another dealer or exhibitor under this chapter any animals, unless and until such dealer or exhibitor shall have obtained a license from the Secretary and such license shall not have been suspended or revoked.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
Amendments
1976—Pub. L. 94–279 substituted “in commerce” for “affecting commerce” in two places.
1970—Pub. L. 91–579 inserted references to exhibitors, offers to sell, and offers to transport, and substituted references to animals for references to dogs and cats.
Effective Date of 1970 Amendment
Amendment by Pub. L. 91–579 effective one year after Dec. 24, 1970, see section 23 of Pub. L. 91–579, set out as a note under section 2131 of this title.