White House, 26 Attorneys General Urge SCOTUS to Overturn Prop 12
Opponents to California’s Proposition 12 have circled the wagons in preparation for oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 11.
The Biden administration, the U.S. Solicitor General and the attorneys general from 26 states are urging the high court to overturn a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision that upheld California’s novel law that bans the raising or importing of pork, veal or eggs to California if the animals are confined.
California voters approved Proposition 12 with 63% of the vote in 2018, and the law went into effect Jan. 1 of this year. Specifically, the law established minimum space requirements based on square feet for veal calves, breeding pigs and egg-laying hens. It banned the sale of products from those animals if they were “confined in a cruel manner,” defined as in areas below minimum square-feet requirements. The rules applied to California producers and those outside the state who wished to sell their products in California.
The case, National Pork Producers Council v. Karen Ross, the Secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture, focuses on the regulation of animal food production outside of California. NPPC, the American Farm Bureau Federation and the attorneys general argue the law violates the Interstate Commerce Clause and general constitutional restrictions against “extraterritorial regulation.”
In an amicus brief, Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar argues that AFBF and NPPC have stated a valid claim that Proposition 12 violates the constitution and will create burdens in interstate commerce. “Other States might well condition in-state sales on even more square feet of space per hog, or on compliance with requirements concerning animals’ feed, veterinary care, or virtually any other aspect of animal husbandry. The combined effect of those regulations would be to effectively force the industry to ‘conform’ to whatever State (with market power) is the greatest outlier.”
The brief filed by the attorneys general states California consumes 13% of the nation’s pork and imports 99.87% of the pork the state consumes. The attorneys general argue the “entire impact of Proposition 12 will be visited on out-of-state producers that, though they have no vote in California, must remodel their farms (or reduce their herds) to comply with the law.”
“Under no circumstances should the state of California be allowed to dictate to Missouri farmers and ranchers how they can raise and confine breeding pigs, egg-laying hens, and veal calves,” Missouri Republican Attorney General Eric Schmitt said in a statement. “Further, California is attempting to impose their will on Missouri farmers and ranchers by threatening to deny entry into the California market if those farmers and ranchers don’t comply with their pointless regulations. Missouri’s farmers and ranchers have been tending to their land and livestock for generations, they don’t need Californian politicians telling them how to do their jobs.”
States represented by the attorneys general are Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming.
Last year a brief to persuade the Supreme Court not to hear the case was filed by The Humane Society of the United States, Animal Legal Defense Fund, Animal Equality, The Humane League, Farm Sanctuary, Compassion in World Farming USA, and Animal Outlook. Those groups contend the Pork Producers’ argument uses a “dormant Commerce Clause” to stop in-state sales of certain pork products from “animals confined in cruel and unsanitary conditions that threaten the health of California consumers. … Because that prohibition applies only to sales inside California, moreover, producers outside California are free to confine animals however they choose for products sold outside the state.”
