By Jessica Domel
Multimedia Reporter

The next farm bill could include a provision designed to protect U.S. ranchers from a state patchwork of regulations regarding how they raise their livestock.

U.S. Rep. Glenn “GT” Thompson (R-PA), chair of the U.S. House Agriculture Committee, said in a recent hearing he hopes to once again include Section 12007 in the next farm bill.

“This provision is a common-sense, middle-ground approach to protect producers from arbitrary and unscientific mandates. It does not undo thousands of state-based agricultural laws, and it does not restrict a states’ right to impose standards within their own borders,” Thompson said. “It simply clarifies that states cannot impose, as a condition for sale or consumption, a production standard on livestock, unless that livestock is located within the state’s borders.”

The section was included in the version of the farm bill that was successfully passed out of the committee last year.

It’s designed to address regulations like California’s Proposition 12.

“In 2018, California passed Proposition 12, a law that imposes arbitrary and unscientific housing standards on any pork, veal or egg products that a producer may wish to sell into the state,” Thompson said. “Backed by animal rights activists, the requirements of Prop 12 have no standing in reality, and do nothing to improve animal welfare, food safety or food affordability.”

According to Thompson, California’s Department of Food and Agriculture noted in their rulemaking that “animal confinement space allowances prescribed in the act are not based in specific peer-reviewed published scientific literature or accepted as standards within the scientific community to reduce human food-born illness, promote worker safety, the environment or other human or safety concerns.”

He said the American Veterinary Medical Association opposes Prop 12, noting the arbitrary housing requirements “do not objectively improve animal welfare and may unintentionally cause harm.”

Those concerns, along with reports of increased costs for consumers and ranchers, led to several lawsuits and the U.S. Supreme Court.

“After years of litigation, the United States Supreme Court ultimately upheld California’s law. Importantly, Justice Gorsuch noted several times in the majority opinion that Congress would be well within its power to act in this case,” Thompson said. “I disagree with the court’s decision to uphold Prop 12, but I do agree that Congress can and must act to rectify the burdens Prop 12 has imposed on interstate commerce.”

The chairman pointed to increased costs for farmers—both inside and outside of California—who have to retrofit their barns, or build new ones, to bring their operation in compliance with Proposition 12 in order to sell pork into California.

“The average cost of retrofitting or rebuilding facilities to meet Prop 12 standards is estimated at $3,500 to $4,500 per sow,” Thompson said. “The same data shows that compliance costs disproportionately affect small and mid-sized producers, who face tighter margins and have less access to capital.”

That has led some pork producers to change their operations, Thompson said.

“In fact, as of the first quarter of 2025, 12% of small pork operations have exited the market or shifted production away from breeding, citing regulatory uncertainty and high transition costs,” Thompson said.

On the consumer side, the chairman said retail pork prices in California have risen by 18.7% year-over-year while nationwide, prices only rose 6.3%.

There are also concerns that a patchwork of state-by-state regulations, like California’s Prop 12, would be costly and confusing for livestock raisers and interstate commerce.

The farm bill provision addressing Prop 12 would resolve this, according to Thompson.

“This means that Prop 12 will stand in California, but only for those producers within California’s borders. Similar state mandates, like Question 3 in Massachusetts, will also stand—but again, only for those producers within their borders,” Thompson said.

Representatives from the National Pork Producers Council, Iowa Farm Bureau, American Farm Bureau Federation, Latino Restaurant Association and Texas A&M AgriLife Extension were asked to speak at the hearing on the implications of Proposition 12.

Tiffany Dowell Lashmet, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension professor and Extension ag law specialist, told the committee Congress has the ability to act, as the Constitution grants Congress the right to regulate commerce between the states.

“There’s little doubt that should Congress wish to do so, it could pass a nationwide law related to the sale of products under certain living conditions,” Lashmet said.

She noted that states have traditionally handled animal welfare issues, including the passage of laws related to production, within their jurisdiction.

“California took these laws a step further by applying California confinement standards to in-state producers and containing a sales ban provision prohibiting producers prohibiting products not complying with these standards from being sold in California,” Lashmet said.

Travis Cushman, AFBF’s deputy general counsel, spent four years on Farm Bureau’s legal challenge to Prop 12.

He said the ball is now in Congress’ court.

“The United States Congress is the branch of government with responsibility now to address the problem of states imposing their production laws on other states. Farmers today face a growing risk of being subject to overlapping or conflicting mandates from multiple states,” Cushman said. “While Prop 12 requires 24 square feet of space per sow, another state could shift the requirement after investments have been made to 25 square feet or 30 square feet causing what (former ag) Secretary (Tom) Vilsack referred to in front of this committee in February 2024 as chaos in the marketplace.”

Cushman said complying with those mandates to be able to sell their product in another state may push hog farmers to go against their own animal husbandry experience and advice of their veterinarians.

“When a single state can condition access to its market on compliance with the production mandates that override the judgment of veterinarians, farmers and experts nationwide, Congress must act,” Cushman said. “This is not a theoretical concern. It’s already harming farmers, confusing the courts and threatening the viability of a national food system.”

The current one-year extension of the 2018 Farm Bill is set to expire in September. Thompson recently told Agri-Pulse he and some of the House Ag Committee staff are working over the August district work period, or Congressional August Recess, on the farm bill.

Thompson hopes to see movement in the food and farm legislation in September.

Much of the farm bill funding, $65.6 billion, was approved in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, so the programs that remain are expected to cost less than $8 billion.