Of the many sizzling cases on the Supreme Court docket this fall, one case has the potential to alter American breakfasts for years to come: National Pork Producers Council v. Ross.
The court will decide whether California voters should be allowed to dictate how farmers in Iowa and Minnesota produce pork. If the court sides with California, it could make it even more difficult for consumers to bring home the bacon.
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The case hinges on the legality of Proposition 12, a ballot measure passed by California voters in 2018. Prop 12’s main advocates were vegan advocacy groups led by the Humane Society of the United States. They sold the policy as a modest reform to farming practices to make the raising of pigs more humane. In practice, it will ban the sale in California of more than 95% of the pork produced in the United States.
The policy outlawed the use of maternity pens, which are used to house sows while they are pregnant. Farmers and veterinarians use these individual pens to keep sows safe while birthing because hormonal sows can become violently territorial before giving birth. Maternity pens also slow the spread of disease between vulnerable sows and allow for individual care and feeding.
It’s a system so popular that almost all pork farmers use it.
Yet Proposition 12 bans maternity pens, effectively requiring barns to house sows in group pens, increasing the risks of violence and disease spread between sows.
This isn’t the first time California passed an absurd law against the guidance of experts. And typically, we would just sit back and watch California suffer under its own absurd policies as we have while watching them fill up their cars with $6 and $7 gas or unplug their vehicles during rolling blackouts.
But Proposition 12 is different: It reaches outside of California into other states.
California consumes 15% of all pork in the United States. But almost all that pork is produced elsewhere. Under Proposition 12, any pork grown or sold in California cannot be sourced from farms that use maternity pens.
The change Californians are demanding isn’t simple. Barns are built to very specific dimensions. To meet the requirements of Proposition 12, barns throughout the U.S. would have to be rebuilt, with each barn costing millions of dollars. Currently, just 4% of the pork produced in the U.S. would be approved under California’s policy.
Pork producers are left to decide if they want to exclude California’s massive market or foot the bill for the hundreds of millions in renovations it will take to comply with the policy. Either way, consumers will pay the price.
A study from the University of California, Davis conservatively estimated that Proposition 12 could raise the prices of pork products by an average of 8%. Other studies, including a 2021 report from the Hatamiya Group, have estimated that prices could surge as much as 50%. This is on top of the skyrocketing inflation costs many people are already struggling to manage.
Even the Biden administration is siding against California. In a brief to the court, the administration stated 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.”
Californians should be allowed to implement whatever bad policies they want. But they should be prevented from forcing bad policies on others outside the state when the policy has no connection to health or safety.
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James Bowers is the managing director of the Center for Consumer Freedom.
