Posted on 12/04/2017 4:42:48 PM PST by Mariner
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP)
More than a dozen states banded together Monday to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to block a California law requiring any eggs sold there to come from hens that have space to stretch out in their cages.
In a lawsuit filed directly to the high court, the states allege that California's law has cost consumers nationwide up to $350 million annually because of higher egg prices since it took effect in 2015. The lawsuit argues that California's requirements violate the U.S. Constitution's interstate commerce clause and are pre-empted by federal law.
A federal appeals court panel rejected similar claims last year in a separate case brought by six states, ruling that they failed to show California's law would affect more than just individual farmers. The latest lawsuit seeks to address that by citing an economic analysis of the California law. It also asks the Supreme Court to take up the case directly instead of requiring that it first move through the lower courts.
Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley, a Republican who is running for U.S. Senate in 2018, is leading the lawsuit. Other plaintiff states are Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah and Wisconsin. All have Republican attorneys general except Iowa, which has a Democrat.
The California attorney general's office said Monday that it was reviewing the lawsuit.
California produced about 5 billion eggs and imported an additional 4 billion from other states in 2012, according to the lawsuit. Thirty percent of those out-of-state eggs came from Iowa, the nation's top egg producer. About 13 percent of California's egg imports came from Missouri, the second highest percentage cited in the lawsuit.
(Excerpt) Read more at kcra.com ...
A radio man, Derry Brownfield said the chickens used to scratch in the stuff and eat the things. Oh, the good old days.
That’s a genetically modified chicken that produces 3 jumbo eggs a day on 4 oz of grain and a couple of bugs:)
Regardless, after this ridiculously stupid law went into effect, eggs went up at least a couple of bucks to roughly $5 a dozen.
Here is what I think.
1. I hate factory farming practices.
2. I hate raising animals in cramped and unsanitary quarters.
3. I think good stewardship is not being unnecessarily abusive or hard on animals.
4. The fact so many people today are so far away from the animals themselves and having to kill their own food makes them totally numb and okay with terrible megafarm standard operating procedures.
5. I certaimly don’t look to California to be the arbiter of morals for anyone else, they can go pound it. If they want to cause their own egg shortages and price spikes, fine by me.
egg
Wait. I keep hearing that Kalifornia feeds us all and we’d all starve without their benevolence. Yet they import as many eggs as they produce. I’ll bet that’s true of other commodities.
I have proudly boycotted Calif products for 6 years now. Ever since a bs speeding ticket near Barstow from a lying cop.
“A radio man, Derry Brownfield said the chickens used to scratch in the stuff and eat the things. Oh, the good old days.”
I pay a premium for those eggs.
If the yolks are yellow I won’t eat them.
I need dark orange bordering on almost red.
That’s what a REAL eggs looks like. A farm egg where the chickens roam free and eat whatever they want, from grass seed, to bugs and slugs, to berries and the little grain you toss them.
I agree with every one of those statements.
“Ill bet thats true of other commodities.”
You would lose that bet.
Except CA imports all its wheat and barely.
Extra large eggs at my local WalMart are $.50/dozen.
Would be nice if they’d be concerned about unborn babies being able to stretch their legs after birth. I’m not concerned about chickens.
I have a neighbor who spreads horse manure for the chickens to pick through. Don’t know what kind of tasty morsels are in there but they go for it.
The issue is the feral government uses the interstate commerce clause to obliterate the enumerated powers clause and force all states to enforce federal laws. If California is allowed to do this it is selective enforcement of the interstate commerce clause. The feral government always wants everything both ways.
Interesting.
I see it the same way you do.
As far as this lawsuit goes; the 10th Amendment should cover California. It’s a state’s rights issue, precedential Progressive misinterpretations of the Commerce Clause notwithstanding.
Clearly?
Commerce Clause abuse
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/williams110503.asp
Walter Williams
Several weeks ago, under the title "Is It Permissible?" I discussed how Congress systematically abuses the Constitution's "welfare clause" to control our lives in ways that would have been an abomination to the Framers. Quite a few readers pointed to my omission of Congress' companion tool to circumvent both the letter and spirit of the Constitution, namely the "Commerce Clause." The Constitution's Article I, Section 8, paragraph 3 gives Congress authority "To regulate Commerce with Foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes." During the war, the 13 colonies formed a union under the Articles of Confederation (1778) whereby "Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled." The Treaty of Paris (1783) that ended the war between the colonies and Great Britain recognized 13 sovereign nations. A key failing of the Articles of Confederation was the propensity of states to erect protectionist trade barriers. When the Framers met in Philadelphia in 1787 and wrote the constitution that governs us today, they addressed that failure through the commerce and the privileges and immunities clauses that created a national free-trade zone. Thus, the original purpose of the Commerce Clause was primarily a means to eliminate trade barriers among the states. They didn't intend for the Commerce Clause to govern so much of our lives.
>>>However,it’ll be fun to watch the price of eggs skyrocket in California....couldn’t happen to a nicer state!
Trade barriers cause prices that consumers pay to skyrocket. But California producers apparently have not raised production in the two years that the law has been in effect. Is there a lesson here wrt to NAFTA?
I have no problem paying more for eggs in California, theres no reason that animals need to be treated inhumanely. And theyre not that much more expensive anyway.
Yep
Except for that Interstate Commerce Clause thing.
I for one am enjoying the lowest egg prices in decades. If eggs can't be sold in Kalifornia, they have to sell them somewhere and that depresses prices.
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