Posted on 03/08/2014 11:22:49 AM PST by SeekAndFind
In 2008, California voters endorsed Proposition 2 which banned the confinement of animals. California egg producers had to ensure that chickens had enough room to move around which negated so-called “factory farming” and would end up raising the price of eggs by 20%.
Obviously this was a problem for California agriculture which would have trouble competing on price with free agriculture. And there’s only so much of a market for fair-trade free-range organic chickens lovingly raised in a Quaker school by social justice experts on a strict diet of granola and NPR broadcasts.
And so California’s reds decided to instead raise the price of eggs across America. Sounds fair, right?
Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster (D) said Tuesday morning he has filed a federal lawsuit against the state of California over the Golden State’s new regulations on enclosures that house egg-laying hens. The regulations, Koster alleges, violate the constitution’s Commerce Clause.
California voters in 2008 passed a ballot initiative that require larger enclosures for egg-laying hens. Farmers in California worried the new rules, which would increase their costs, would put them at a competitive disadvantage with egg farms in other states, so the state legislature passed a measure in 2010 to require out-of-state producers to comply with California rules.
That, Koster says, is unfair to his state’s egg producers.
“If California legislators are permitted to mandate the size of chicken coops on Missouri farms, they may just as easily demand that Missouri soybeans be harvested by hand or that Missouri corn be transported by solar-powered trucks,” Koster said in a statement.
California farmers must begin complying with the cage law beginning in 2015, under the terms of Proposition 2. The legislature requires out-of-state farmers to begin complying with the same rules by the end of that year.
Koster’s office estimated that Missouri egg producers would have to pay $120 million to expand the size of their coops, and that production costs would rise 20 percent.”
That’s the whole point. The left can’t compete on product or price, but it can kneecap everyone else as long as it has control over populous states. Businesses and individuals can flee California, but they can’t escape its regulatory creep.
The country is awash in ballot initiatives and legislative efforts to increase regulation of agriculture. Maine and Connecticut have passed GMO labeling laws, although they won’t go into effect until other states in the Northeast have passed labeling laws as well. Florida has laws outlawing the most common method of pork production. Several states have outlawed small chicken coops, and states have also banned the sale of foie gras and shark fins. Only California has had the chutzpah to impose the preferences of that state’s voters on the rest of the country.
Make no mistake about it, if egg prices increase by 20 percent, people who face tight budgets at the grocery store will suffer.
But the people who make these laws won’t and California voters have become mindless stooges of the left. And if you buy your eggs with EBT cards, you don’t tend to care how much they cost because you aren’t paying for them anyway.
Touche!
“Would like to see what the reaction would be for some to see how male piglets are cut or how bulls become steers. Would that treatment also be considered torture(sic) by some posters?”
I once described the best/common method of castrating hogs and the post lasted about 20 sec before it was removed.
Too many people know nothing about farming and can’t deal with reality.
Thank you
His point is that EBT cards is free money.
This California law passed in 2008 & even those Calif egg farms don’t have to comply until next year===2015.
The idea that one state can pas a law within their own boundaries & demand that ALL STATES comply with their state law is just plain ludicrous.
There are enough bad things happening in Calif. IF I were raising a large number of chickens for the eggs in another state, I would tell Calif to pound sand.
There has to be an end to the power of the stupids in Sacramento.
Caging chickens 24 hours a day for their entire lives, just doesn’t seem to me to be the way that God intended that these creatures be treated”””
God also created coyotes!!!
There has to be a reasonable middle ground.
I think usconservative likely prefers you dressed.
“Nor will it change my impression of you”
Same for me. My guess is that you live in a double wide and have to “go outside to use the bathroom.”
Well, we can start with the animal having at least enough room for it to walk around, or is that too radical for you?
No, the fact is subjecting an animal to a life where it cannot even move around is cruelty, by any normal standards, except for you ‘true’ conservatives.
“And eventually everyone will finally realize that this is really, really stupid.”
Dreamer.
At least a third of the populace will demand more regulation as a solution and denounce the free market as the cause.
“The hypothetical MO farmer is not compelled to only sell his eggs to people in CA.”
Isn’t the rule for any company which produces eggs sold in CA, not just for the actual eggs sold in CA?
I was asking you.
Raised and sold, which includes imports. This will be a Commerce Clause issue.
Yup. Too radical. Or should I say, having your buddies in big government make the decision for everybody, that’s too “radical.”
I can’t believe the statists pouring out of the woodwork on this thread. I have a tip for you: Read this thread before you start popping off.
Since you declare you are not a conservative, what are you dong on FR?
Apparently we smoked out another one. This one’s a bonus catch. Pretty soon we’re going to have to start tossing them back.
>> “That can’t be right. Unless EBT allowances are raised, these requirements mean that food stamp users get less food for their EBT dollar.” <<
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The whole article is absurd on its face.
This is how conservatives get branded as morons.
Proposition 2 has vastly improved the quality of eggs in California. The regular everyday eggs from California are now of better quality than any of the so-called “organic” eggs from other states.
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>> “So stop shipping eggs into California. Let those fools pay 15 dollars a dozen” <<
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LOL!
“Cal Eggs,” the brand sold at Costco, and most major supermarkets are about $1.50 per dozen in California, and are of considerably higher quality than “organic” brands from other states.
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Being humane is now unconservative, I guess.
Some of these kooks here can’t be real.
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