(Radio Iowa/Brownfield) – Congresswoman Ashley Hinson says she believes the Senate may accept a proposal that would override a California law that does not allow pork sold in California to come from hogs raised in tight spaces. In 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the law, which basically requires eggs, veal AND pork to come from animals that have enough space to turn around in a pen. A bid to nullify California’s law was included in the Farm Bill that passed the House last week.
“It clearly passed out of the House in a bipartisan fashion,” Hinson said, “so that, to me, signals that there is bipartisan support for the Farm Bill with this provision in it.” And Hinson says officials in both the Trump and Biden Administrations have voiced concerns about California’s voter-approved Proposition 12. “Secretary Rollins said that the current policy around Prop 12 is unsustainable,” Hinson said. “Prior to this administration, Secretary Vilsack also agreed that Prop 12 was unsustainable and needed to be overturned.”
In May of 2023, the U-S Supreme Court ruled California’s regulations did not impose substantial burdens on interstate commerce, but suggested the National Pork Producers Council and the American Farm Bureau could lobby congress to intervene. Hinson says her “Save Our Bacon Act” that was inserted in the Farm Bill ensures pork producers are not subject to out-of-state mandates that disrupt interstate commerce.
“I think it really threads the needle on protecting states’ rights while still making sure we’re reaffirming livestock producers’ rights to sell their products across state lines,” Hinson said. Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman John Boozman supports Hinson’s proposal, but he says there’s not a single Democrat in the Senate who would vote for it, so he’s trying to develop an alternative that could win Senate approval.
(Reporting by Brent Barnett, Brownfield Ag News)
