Joni Ernst and Roger Marshall support the EATS Act
By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com
U.S. senators are leading legislation to counter California’s Prop 12.
Sens. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and Roger Marshall (R-Kansas) are co-leading a group of senators by introducing the Ending Agricultural Trade Suppression (EATS) Act.
Legislators took this action after the Supreme Court ruled against a meat industry challenge to Prop 12.
Rep. Asley Hinson, from Iowa, is introducing the same legislation in the House.
Under the EATS Act, “the government of a State or a unit of local government within a State shall not impose a standard or condition on the preharvest production of any agricultural products sold or offered for sale in inter-state commerce…” the bill says.
That’s what California’s Proposition 12 does.
Prop 12 prohibits the sale of pork, eggs and veal that aren’t produced according to California’s standards.
Voters in that state voted in favor of the move in 2018 and it became law in 2022.
In the case of pork, for example, Proposition 12 requires 24-square-feet of usable floor space per animal to all gilts at breeding, weaned sows, and gestating gilts and sows.
California represents about 15 percent of the U.S. market for bacon and other pork items.
This can lead to increased production costs.
The National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) estimated farmers would have to invest about $3,500 per sow to be compliant. And that cost would be passed to shoppers.
The organization “supports developing a long-term solution to Proposition 12 that ensures affordable, healthy products remain available to all Americans,” the NPPC said.
By imposing this law, California is harming the ag sector and consumers, Senator Ernst said.
The law “puts the regulatory burdens on the backs of farmers and racks up the price for consumers at the grocery store,” she said in a statement. “And the EATS Act will prevent such actions from crushing our Iowa producers.”
Animal rights groups oppose the EATS Act.
California’s Prop 12 protects animals and the EATS Act would remove those protections, The Humane Society of the United States says.
The EATS Act presents a shocking threat to animals, consumers, workers, the environment and states’ rights,” Kitty Block, president and CEO of the Humane Society, said in a June 15 statement. “Designed to wipe out state laws that ban the cruel immobilizing confinement of egg-laying hens, mother pigs and baby veal calves, it defies the common values consumers expect the food industry to uphold.”