U.S. Senators stand up for animal welfare standards

Big Ag pushing to include legislation in next Farm Bill to undermine California’s Prop 12

July 23, 2025

The fight to free pregnant pigs from extreme confinement has a new set of champions in Congress.

A group of thirty-one United States Senators led by Senator Adam Schiff (D-California) are standing up for farmed animal welfare standards by opposing federal legislation that would undermine California’s Proposition 12 and Massachusetts’ Question 3, both of which prohibit the inhumane confinement of pigs, chickens, and veal calves in those states and bans the in-state sale of pork, eggs, and veal from other states that were produced using extreme confinement.

In a letter sent July 14 to the chair and ranking member of the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry Committee—Senators John Boozman (R-Arkansas) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota), respectively—Schiff and the other Democratic lawmakers expressed strong opposition to inclusion of the “Food Security and Farm Protection Act” (S. 1326), previously known as the “Ending Agricultural Trade Suppression (EATS) Act,” or any similar legislation in the next Farm Bill, scheduled to be considered this year.

“Modeled after former Representative Steve King’s amendment, which was intensely controversial and ultimately excluded from the final 2014 and 2018 Farm Bills, the Food Security and Farm Protection Act would harm America’s small farmers and infringe on the fundamental rights of states to establish laws and regulations within their own borders,” the Senators wrote. “This legislation would have a sweeping impact if passed—threatening countless state laws and opening the floodgates to unnecessary litigation. The bill is particularly draconian in that it aims to negate state and local laws when there are no federal standards to take their place, creating an overnight regulatory vacuum.”

Oklahoma’s Senate members, Republicans Markwayne Mullin and James Lankford, did not sign onto the letter.

KPG wrote to Congressman Frank Lucas (OK-3) last year asking him to oppose federal preemption of agriculture regulation, which would effectively create a national “Right to Farm” law. Such legislation, we wrote, “is an attempt by the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC)—which represents the most monopolized and foreign-controlled meat commodity in the United States—to nullify and neutralize small farmers and ranchers, market competition, environmental and water advocates, and the voices of community stakeholders.”

Rather than pass a new Farm Bill last year, Congress opted to extend the 2018 Farm Bill through Sept. 30, 2025. The recently passed One Big Beautiful Bill Act included $56.6 billion in boosts to U.S. farm programs over the next decade, aimed at enhancing the farm safety net, tax relief, conservation, and innovation in agriculture.

Congress is eyeing passage of a “skinny” farm bill this fall to update policies from the 2018 Farm Bill. Schiff and his colleagues wrote that including the “Food Security and Farm Protection Act” into the next Farm Bill would potentially impact a range of laws across the nation that protect states from invasive pests and infectious disease, health and safety standards, consumer information safeguards, food quality and safety regulations, animal welfare standards, and fishing regulations.

“Demand from consumers, food companies, and the farming community has propelled fifteen states to enact public health, food safety, and humane standards for the in-state production of products from egg-laying chickens, veal calves, and sows,” the letter states. “The Food Security and Farm Protection Act was introduced with the primary goal of undermining these standards—particularly California’s Proposition 12, in response to the Supreme Court’s recent decision upholding that law, and Massachusetts’ Question 3.”

Prop 12 has been in effect for more than a year and Question 3 since 2023, the letter says, and during that time the demand for products compliant with these laws has been met. “Countless farmers who wanted to take advantage of this market opportunity invested resources and made necessary modifications to be compliant. Federal preemption of these laws would be picking the winners and losers, and would seriously harm farmers who made important investments,” the Senators wrote.

Prop 12 challenge denied, again

In late June, the United States Supreme Court refused to hear a petition to appeal from the Iowa Pork Producers Association, represented by attorneys general from twenty-three states, including Oklahoma Attorney General (and gubernatorial candidate) Gentner Drummond, in yet another failed bid to overturn Proposition 12.

The petition was filed after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit rejected the pork producers’ argument that Proposition 12 was unconstitutional on grounds that it violated the U.S. Constitution’s Dormant Commerce Clause, giving the federal government the power to regulate interstate commerce; the Import-Export Clause, which prevents states from imposing import regulations on products from other states; and the Full Faith and Credit Clause, which requires states to respect the laws passed in other states.

“Californians have every right to set laws impacting their own state, but they should not be able to dictate how hog farmers in Oklahoma raise their pigs. Proposition 12 is a textbook example of excessive regulations that burden farmers with exorbitant costs,” Drummond said in January when announcing the petition.

While the pork industry, its federal lobbyists, and politicians wishing to curry favor with voters want to pit the top pork-producing states against California, voters and lawmakers in multiple states across the nation have taken action to end extreme confinement, said Wayne Pacelle, president of Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy. “The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that these policies are constitutionally sound. China will be the biggest beneficiary if Congress passes the EATS Act because its U.S. proxy, Smithfield Foods, will be able to build more massive factory farming complexes on U.S. soil.”

Contrary to pork industry claims, farmers have not been forced into costly retrofits due to Prop 12 or Question 3, Pacelle said. “Market access to California and Massachusetts has been voluntarily met by producers ready to serve those markets. Pork prices have remained stable nationwide, and California has had no pork shortages, with over 1,200 certified producers and distributors serving the state.”

Since factory farming began, Oklahoma has fewer farms

Since the Oklahoma Legislature exempted swine and poultry feeding operations from the state’s anti-corporate farming laws in 1991, the number of farms across the state has fallen from a peak of 86,600 in 2007 to just 70,000 in 2024, according to the United States Department of Agriculture. Similarly, the average farm size in Oklahoma has risen from 400 acres in 2000 to 470 acres in 2024, and the number of farm workers in the state dropped from 50,134 in 2002 to 34,323 in 2022. These statistics span all agricultural areas.

Looking at Oklahoma’s swine industry, the number of pig farms also declined, from 3,575 in 1997 to 2,219 in 2022. The USDA produces an annual census of agriculture, offering farming statistics by state. The census tracks pig farms in nine distinct categories, ranging from the smallest (one to twenty-four) to the largest (5,000 or more). Between 1997 and 2022, every category has seen a drop in the number of farms, except one. Oklahoma hog farms with 5,000 or more pigs rose from thirty in 1997 to a peak of forty-one in 2007 and settled at thirty-six in 2022. Today, 95 percent of all pigs raised for food in Oklahoma are housed on those thirty-six factory farms.

Gestation crates are cruel

As of March 1, 2025, Oklahoma was home to 2.1 million hogs, and of those, 440,000 are breeding sows, nearly all of them housed on concentrated animal feeding operations. While pregnant, they spend months in gestation and farrowing crates, metal cages which do not allow them to exhibit normal animal behaviors, such as standing up, turning around, lying down, or extending their limbs.

According to Humane World for Animals (formerly the Humane Society of the United States), hundreds of veterinarians and animal welfare scientists in 2023 submitted a brief in the U.S. Supreme Court in support of Proposition 12, explaining that animals cannot thrive when crammed into small cages. “Gestation crates hurt pigs,” they wrote. “Dozens of peer reviewed studies provide clear scientific evidence, using well-established indicators, that the welfare of a pig confined to a gestation crate is poor for most of her life. Gestation crates deny pigs the ability to engage in almost every natural behavior. Even the minimal movement of turning around (which a pregnant pig will do almost 200 times a day if given room) becomes impossible.”

____________________