Over the years, state and local governments across the country have approved various laws aimed at limiting the harm to animals raised for food.
Here in California, voters approved Proposition 12 in 2018 to set more humane standards for confining farm animals.
Several other states have similar laws on the books, with Oregon and Washington requiring cage-free eggs. States as varied as Florida, Michigan and Massachusetts likewise ban the use of gestation crates that force pregnant pigs to stay in small metal confinements so restrictive they can’t even turn around.
California and Massachusetts are among the states that go further, banning the in-state sale of animal products that rely on the use of battery cages, gestation crates and veal crates.
Which makes perfect sense: if the idea is to limit the harm to farm animals, why allow the sale of animal products that entailed the use of practices banned in-state?
Despite Americans being very much a meat-eating people, many understandably have an aversion to the idea of factory farming and unnecessary cruelty toward animals. Hence, many states have taken the path California has.
But these changes have always had their critics, mainly from the ag sector but also grocers, who argue such policies increase the cost of animal products and that bans on the sale of eggs, pork and veal from confined animals is unfair to farmers who don’t want to or don’t have the means to comply with laws in other states.
Clearly, the cost arguments haven’t been persuasive, with people reasoning the slightly higher costs are worth the improved treatment of farm animals. And so opponents have pivoted to the federal government for help, arguing states shouldn’t be able to ban the sale of non-compliant products from other states.
In 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court tossed a legal challenge making this very argument about Prop. 12 in National Pork Producers Council v. Ross.
Which leaves the critics with few options. So now there’s the Save Our Bacon Act and the Food Security and Farm Protection Act in Congress, which seek to nullify state and local laws like Prop. 12, which set standards for animal products from other states.
Rep. Ashley Hinson of Iowa argued in a statement that the Save Our Bacon Act “reaffirms livestock producers’ right to sell their products across state lines, without interference from arbitrary mandates.”
While there are critiques that can be made about such policies, these aren’t arbitrary mandates, but targeted policies with pretty easy to follow rationales.
She continued, “This legislation will stop out-of-touch activists — who don’t know the first thing about farming — from dictating how Iowa farmers do their job.”
Well, Californians approved these standards with about 63% of the vote. In Massachusetts, it was even higher, with 77.64% approving their “Act to Prevent Cruelty to Farm Animals” in 2016.
That’s hardly indicative of this trend toward more humane treatment of farm animals being merely the result of out-of-touch activists. And sure, most Californians and whatever Massachusetts residents are called probably don’t know the first thing about farming. But they can reason their way through whether or not they think something is more or less cruel to animals and whether they want their respective states to draw the lines somewhere.
Which speaks to old-fashioned federalism. Under our Constitution, states have great latitude to do their own thing. You know, that whole “laboratories of democracy” idea. Let Iowa do what makes sense there, let California do what makes sense here.
“Regulating animal welfare is not an enumerated power of the federal government,” wrote Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky on X explaining why he opposes these proposals to override state laws. “Whether I agree with those laws or not, it’s not my place to nullify them.”
Federalism is worth defending. So is the idea that we should treat farm animals better, if for no other reason than that harming sentient beings is usually wrong.
Sal Rodriguez can be reached at salrodriguez@scng.com