Senate committee passes bill requiring USADA horse racing enforcement plan

The U.S. Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday passed a bill that included an amendment requiring the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, a private non-profit company known as USADA, to prepare a presentation about how it would implement an “anti-doping program” for horse racing, according to the sponsor of the amendment.

Sen. Tom Udall, a Democrat from New Mexico who has been critical of horse racing’s regulatory structure in the past, attached the amendment to a bill that re-authorizes funding for USADA’s role as the drug and medication regulator for most of the U.S. Olympic teams, a position it has held for a decade. The amendment calls for USADA’s horse racing enforcement plan to be presented to Congress within 180 days, according to Udall.

While the amendment was added to the bill by unanimous voice vote, a separate effort by Udall to attach a bill establishing USADA as the enforcement agency for a set of uniform medication rules in the United States was withdrawn after the committee indicated that it “was not prepared to accept this amendment,” Udall’s office said. The bill has been submitted to Congress by Udall in the past without advancing to a vote.

The amendment giving USADA an inroad into Congress is a victory for supporters of a federal bill introduced in the House that would give the company the authority to oversee the national regulation of racing’s medication and drug rules. That bill has been introduced three times in the past five years without advancing to a vote, but indictments unsealed this week alleging a conspiracy by more than two dozen trainers, veterinarians, pharmacists, and others to manufacture, distribute, and administer illegal substances has provided new impetus to the effort.

Supporters of the federal bill in the racing industry have seized on the indictment to re-establish momentum behind the bill, roughly one year after the sport began to receive national attention due to a spate of deaths at Santa Anita Park in Southern California. The House bill received a hearing in a subcommittee last month, but its path forward still remains uncertain.