Posted March 11, 2014
The attorneys general for the states of Alabama, Iowa,
Kentucky, Nebraska, and Oklahoma, have joined Missouri’s lawsuit challenging
California’s egg production standards, according to a Feedstuffs article
available here.
The
lawsuit, filed by Missouri’s Attorney General Chris Koster, was filed in U.S.
District Court in Fresno on Feb. 3.
The suit challenges the California law set to take effect in 2015 which
requires eggs sold in the state to come from hens raised in cages that allow
enough space to lie down, stand up, turn around and fully extend their
limbs.
In 2008, the ballot initiative, California Proposition 2,
was approved by voters with 63.5 percent for the initiative and 36.5 percent
against. In 2010, California legislators
expanded the law to ban the sale of eggs from any hens not raised in compliance
with California’s animal care standards.
The amended complaint, available here,
was filed on March 5. Andrew Hirth,
deputy general counsel for the Missouri Attorney General, said the next status
conference with the Judge is on June 12.
“We can’t have our farmers and ranchers at the whim of
California’s voters, and that’s why we filed the lawsuit,” said Nebraska
Attorney General Jon Bruning in a report by NPR available here.
According
to the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), the Ninth Circuit Court
of Appeals recently rejected a similar argument over “California’s ban on force
feeding birds to produce foie gras, and the sale of products from force-fed
birds.” The court held that the law was “will
within the state’s broad authority to enact humane laws and prevent animal cruelty.”
“Producers from all of these states can sell into
California as long as they adhere to reasonable and safe animal husbandry
practices,” said Chris Petersen, an Iowa pork producer and member of the HSUS
Iowa Agriculture Council. “California is
not asking anything more of out-of-state farmers than in-state producers.”
For more information on animal welfare, please visit
the National Agricultural Law Center’s website here.
