Tell Congress to Reject Controversial Bills Imperiling Farmed Animal Welfare
Dear John,
Last year, the US Supreme Court upheld California's Proposition 12, which prohibits the sale of animal products produced from animals cruelly confined to battery cages, gestation crates, or veal crates. In doing so, the court affirmed that the Constitution does not bar state and local governments and their citizens from passing laws to protect public health, food safety, and animal welfare--even if those laws have effects outside of the locality.
Thwarted by the courts, factory farm proponents are now seeking other ways to keep selling animal cruelty, however. Two bills have been introduced in Congress to preempt Prop 12 or any similar state and local attempts to address cruel conditions for farmed animals: the Ending Agricultural Trade Suppression (EATS) Act (H.R. 4417/S. 2019) and the Protecting Interstate Commerce for Livestock Producers Act (S. 3382). If enacted, these bills would prevent state and local governments from creating laws or regulations that restrict, within their borders, the cruel confinement of farmed animals and the sale of products from animals subjected to cruel confinement elsewhere.
These bills would set a dangerous precedent, allowing the least responsible corporations to chip away at hard-won laws and regulations protecting people and animals.
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