The U.S. government filed a brief to the Supreme Court supporting the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) and Farm Bureau challenge to California’s animal housing law, Proposition 12. In an amicus brief, Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar said California “‘has no legitimate interest in protecting’ the welfare of animals located outside the state,” quoting a previous Supreme Court decision. “Voters in pork-producing States must determine what constitutes ‘cruel’ treatment of animals housed in those States — not voters in California,” the brief said, quoting a 1935 Supreme Court decision, Baldwin v. G.A.F. Seelig Inc. Of note, Senate Ag Committee Chair Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) previously called on USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack to support California’s Proposition 12 before the Supreme Court.
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Prelogar’s brief noted the U.S. “takes no position on whether petitioners will ultimately be able to prove that Proposition 12 unduly restricts interstate commerce” under the Supreme Court’s Pike v. Bruce Church Inc. decision. But at this stage, “petitioners have plausibly alleged that Proposition 12 will have substantial adverse impacts on the interstate pork market,” her brief said, urging the Supreme Court to reverse the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision to dismiss the ag groups’ challenge, and remand the case to the appeals court. “If petitioners prove those allegations, then those burdens are ‘clearly excessive in relation to’ what petitioners allege to be insubstantial or non-existent ‘local benefits,’” she said.
Background: Farm Bureau and NPPC are challenging the constitutionality of California’s Proposition 12. The state law seeks to ban the sale of pork from hogs that don’t meet the state’s arbitrary production standards, even if the pork was raised on farms outside of California. AFBF and NPPC argue Proposition 12 violates the constitution’s Commerce Clause, which restricts states from regulating commerce outside their borders. The brief states Proposition 12 “will require massive and costly changes across the entire $26-billion-a-year industry. And it inescapably projects California’s policy choices into every other State, a number of which expressly permit their farmers to house sows in ways inconsistent with Proposition 12.”
Timeline: The Prop 12 case will be heard Oct. 11.
