NPPC Welcomes Biden Administration Siding with Farmers on Prop 12

The National Pork Producers Council welcomed a Supreme Court brief filed by the Biden administration in favor of ag groups regarding California’s Proposition 12.  The state law seeks to ban the sale of pork from pigs that do not meet the state’s arbitrary production standards, including pork from pigs raised on farms outside of California.

NPPC assistant vice president and general counsel Michael Formica says, “We commend the Biden administration for taking action to stop ill-considered ballot initiatives like California’s Proposition 12.”

In a joint brief to the Supreme Court filed earlier this month, NPPC and the American Farm Bureau Federation argued Proposition 12 violates the U.S. Constitution’s commerce clause, which restricts states from regulating commerce outside their borders.  The brief states that Proposition 12 “will require massive and costly changes across the entire $26-billion-a-year hog farming 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.”

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