Without comment, the U.S. Supreme Court refused on Monday to hear a meat industry challenge to California’s voter-approved Proposition 12, which proponents call “the world’s strongest farm animal protection law.” Prop 12 requires farmers to give sows, veal calves, and egg-laying chickens more room to move about and bans shipments of pork, veal, and eggs produced outside of California if the animals are housed in conditions that do not match California’s standards.
The Humane Society of the United States, active in the passage of Prop 12 in 2018, said the Supreme Court rejection of the appeal by the North American Meat Institute, a trade group, was a significant victory for the rights of states to regulate businesses. “The meat industry should have focused on eliminating its cruel caging of animals rather than filing hopeless lawsuits trying to overturn extraordinarily popular, voter-passed animal cruelty laws,” said HSUS lawyer Rebecca Cary.
Another attempt to invalidate Prop 12 is in the hands of the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco, the same court that ruled against the Meat Institute lawsuit. Filed by the National Pork Producers Council and the American Farm Bureau Federation, it also contends that Prop 12 violates the so-called Commerce Clause of the Constitution, which puts the federal government in charge of interstate commerce. Farmers throughout the nation will have to remodel their barns, a costly undertaking, because of Prop 12, say the lawsuits.
“We expect a decision this summer,” said an NPPC spokesman. The appeals court heard oral arguments in April.
Voters approved the precedent-setting “cage-free” Prop 12 by a landslide 3-to-2 margin in 2018. It was the second time in a decade that Californians voted by referendum to give food-bearing animals more elbow room. The Humane Society said Prop12 “is the strongest law in the world addressing farm animal confinement.” In 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a challenge to a Massachusetts referendum that set similar limits as Proposition 12. The Massachusetts law is scheduled to take effect in 2022.
Parts of Prop 12 took effect in 2020, giving more space to egg-laying hens and veal calves. The rest of Prop 12 is due for implementation at the start of 2022, when eggs will have to come from cage-free hens and breeding sows will be freed from “sow crates” that limit their movement.
“We are disappointed that our petition [for a Supreme Court hearing] was denied,” said the Meat Institute. “We will be considering other options to protect consumers and producers from Proposition 12, which will cost both millions of dollars, according to economists and the state of California’s own analysis.”
The 2020 provisions will have little economic impact, but “much more substantial impacts will come from the second part of Proposition 12 implementation on Jan. 1, 2022, when cage-free egg standards and breeding-sow standards take effect,” said University of California analysts. Consumers would spend an additional $960 million for table eggs and $174 million more for pork in 2022. Egg prices could rise by $1.94 a dozen and pork by 14 cents a pound, the analysts said in a report to the California Department of Food and Agriculture, which is in charge of implementing Prop 12.
The CDFA will accept public comment through July 12 on its proposed regulations to put Prop 12 into action.
With 38 million residents, California is by far the most populous state. It is the leading U.S. producer of fresh fruits and vegetables, but much of the meat and eggs in its grocery stores come from other states.