Donna Lupardo and Michelle Hinchey Still Oppose SARA
Albany ag committee chairs Donna Lupardo and Michelle Hinchey have for years let the Shelter Animal Rescue Act languish. With the legislature back in session, they have no plans to change that.
The Scoop New York is a newsletter dedicated to companion animals and the New Yorkers who care for them, from Buffalo to Brooklyn. NYC ACC KILLS, published by TSNY, enumerates and memorializes adoptable cats and dogs who were nonetheless exterminated by Animal Care Centers of New York City.
It’s mid-January, which means Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature are in the early days of the 2025 session.
Lawmakers left Albany last year batting .000 on bills to ban devocalization surgeries and protect renters with pets from discrimination by insurance companies. They also took a pass on multiple bills to help law enforcement keep companion animals safe from killers and abusers.
And state legislators could not be convinced to revive the Shelter Animal Rescue Act — SARA — which would require New York animal control facilities to release companion animals to qualified rescues, rather than kill them.
SARA is ostensibly revenue neutral, in that its implementation would cost taxpayers nothing. In practice, however, SARA would go a long way toward lifting the burden on New Yorkers who devote themselves do doing the job that pro-kill “shelters” like Animal Care Centers of New York City won’t. That is, to get 100 percent of companion animals that enter their facilities into permanent homes — rather than, say, placing six out of 10 with rescues and adoptive households and destroying the rest.
SARA’s passage would also mean New York taxpayers would no longer subsidize the wholesale extermination of homeless cats and dogs.
SARA has in prior sessions had bipartisan support, with Democrats and Republicans signing on as sponsors. But for years it has been held up by two legislators: Binghamton Assembly Member Donna Lupardo and State Senator Michelle Hinchey of Kingston.
Lupardo and Hinchey, both Democrats, chair their respective houses’ agriculture committees, which SARA and other bills pertaining to animal welfare must clear before progressing to an eventual vote by the full Assembly and Senate.
When SARA reached their committees in 2022, Lupardo and Hinchey killed it without taking a vote. They have indicated no interest in revisiting that decision in the years since, and that silence is echoed by their fellow legislators and Governor Hochul.

The Scoop New York asked Lupardo and Hinchey if they might sponsor SARA themselves this session, and whether they would — unlike in prior years — allow SARA to come to a vote in their committees. If they don’t intend to support SARA this year, TSNY wanted to know why.
We asked Lupardo, who in 2013 sponsored a bill similar to SARA — the Companion Animal Access and Rescue Act (a.k.a. Oreo’s Law) — why she to this point has declined to support SARA.
We asked Hinchey whether campaign contributions from the New York State Animal Protection Federation, an Albany-based kill pound lobbying group that opposes SARA, may have affected her position. TSNY also asked if Hinchey was aware that NYSAPF certifies animal control facilities as “no kill” when they in fact routinely kill healthy, adoptable animals.
Lupardo and Hinchey did not answer our questions. Rather, Hinchey’s office sent TSNY the following statement on behalf of both lawmakers:
The issue of shelter animals remains a priority for us as Agriculture Chairs, as these animals deserve thoughtful and effective solutions. The now inactive SARA legislation of 2021 hasn’t been reintroduced by the sponsors in recent years, making it ineligible for committee review because the bill does not exist within the current legislative system. We have actively engaged with all interested parties to discuss key concerns and explore ways to strengthen the goals of the bill, and we’ll continue to do so.
When a lawmaker declares an issue a “priority,” that normally translates as “Issue x is a priority to me until you go away.” Evidence suggests that is the case here.
If Lupardo and Hinchey thought “shelter animals” important, it doesn’t track that they would fail year after year to support legislation that would protect those animals from being exterminated en masse on their constituents’ dime.
And of course, the ag committee chairs’ opposition to SARA is a major reason, if not the main reason, SARA has been “inactive” since 2022.
Instead of pledging to protect cats and dogs at no cost to taxpayers, and end the attendant terrorizing of New Yorkers who care about homeless animals, Lupardo and Hinchey opted for cynicism.
Cats and dogs, meanwhile, will continue to suffer and die at their behest.
The Scoop New York will continue to follow the progress of animal-related bills throughout the 2025 legislative session, which ends in June.