Many in animal agriculture are searching for an answer to California’s Proposition 12 and related state legal guidelines, however one proposed repair for it, the Ending Agriculture Commerce Suppression (EATS) Act, doesn’t appear to be that resolution.
In reality, Chelsea Good, the Livestock Advertising and marketing Affiliation’s vice chairman of presidency and business affairs, mentioned the EATS Act was “useless on arrival.”
Good talked about Proposition 12, and potential methods to nullify it whereas talking on the 2024 Animal Agriculture Alliance Stakeholders Summit on Could 9 in Kansas Metropolis, Missouri.
The EATS Act, launched in 2024 by Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kansas, and Rep. Ashley Hinson, R-Iowa, was designed to counter Proposition 12 and related legal guidelines which solely enable the sale of pork from farms that don’t use gestation crates and eggs from farms that use cage-free laying methods. Mashall and others have mentioned California has no proper to manage how agricultural manufacturing is completed in different states, and that Proposition 12 violates the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Structure.
Good defined that when a problem to Proposition 12 went to the U.S. Supreme Court docket, nearly all of the justices discovered that there was no violation to the Commerce Clause, and that there was no protectionist intent.
Nevertheless, Good mentioned, the courtroom did rule that Congress does have authority below the Commerce Clause to preempt state regulation affecting interstate commerce.
The standing of the EATS Act
The primary congressional try to preempt Proposition 12 was the EATS Act.
“Has this been a super-popular, uncontroversial piece of laws? It’s been widespread with some however it’s additionally been actually controversial. There are a lot of detractors, some on the left don’t prefer it as a result of it got here out of animal welfare and (they) wish to be very delicate to animal welfare. They’re additionally typically massive followers of poll initiatives,” she mentioned.
However there’s a clear divide on the political proper, Good famous.
“Most Republicans wish to repair the scenario … however we have now some inside that celebration, particularly the far proper, they’ve loads of considerations on what (this does) to state rights sooner or later. There’s additionally questions on that non-public proper of motion and if the invoice is just too broad. I feel the EATS Act is useless on arrival,” she mentioned.
Exterior of Congress, many of the EATS Act’s most vocal opponents have been the animal rights neighborhood, which Good mentioned isn’t shocking. But in addition against it’s the Group for Aggressive Markets (OCM), which has a fairly large following of livestock and poultry producers.
Good mentioned OCM is making “this bizarre China argument,” which she doesn’t “get.”
A press launch from OCM regarding its stance on the EATS Act doesn’t particularly clarify that argument, however it does say the absence of guidelines like Proposition 12 “Would create an setting during which massive Chinese language companies … can simply increase throughout all 50 states with out having to adjust to state legal guidelines that defend rural communities, American farming households and shoppers.”
Strengthening Antitrust Enforcement for Meatpacking Act
Realizing the EATS Act is poised to go nowhere, Good mentioned an different to it’s wanted.
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, in September 2023 proposed such an alternate, known as the Strengthening Antitrust Enforcement for Meatpacking Act.
She mentioned it was “barely extra focused” than the EATS Act, together with having a carve-out for animal well being points.
To date, Good mentioned, Hawley has failed to achieve any co-sponsors, main her to conclude it’s not the reply to Proposition 12, both.
Answer nonetheless in sight
After mentioning the dismal response to Hawley’s invoice, Good confirmed an image of U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and Home Agriculture Committee Glenn “GT” Thompson.
Of Thompson, Good mentioned: “He’s dedicated to discovering a resolution to this, and I do know GT and I feel he’ll.”
And of Vilsack, she mentioned: “He’s additionally actually involved about this. He mentioned in a listening to that 12% of the market is altering the foundations for the whole market, and if Congress hasn’t figured it out, it will likely be chaos.”
Whereas the 2 are from differing political events, they share a “lockstep” imaginative and prescient to counter Proposition 12, and Good is optimistic they are going to work collectively to do exactly that.
