A lovely free range chicken. (Photo: Katy Grimes for California Globe)
California’s War on Eggs & Bacon Invites Federal Lawsuit
‘The State of California has contributed to the historic rise in egg prices by imposing unnecessary red tape on the production of eggs’
By Katy Grimes, July 10, 2025 6:12 pm
From the first state in the nation to offer prison inmates an all-vegan menu, California voters passed a ballot measure in 2018 mandating more living space for veal calves, cows and pigs, and banned the confinement of egg-laying hens in cages.
Proposition 12, the Farm Animal Confinement Initiative, also set up a ban on the sale of these agricultural products in California that don’t meet the new requirements, attempting to influence how farmers in other states raise their animals.
That’s so California.
First California legislators came for our cigarettes, and banned smoking indoors and in public parks. Then they banned plastic bags, foie gras and shark fin soup. Next they banned styrofoam, plastic straws, plastic packaging, petroleum products, and natural gas fracking. Chicken farmers are banned from caging egg-laying chickens, and the sale of pork and veal in California from farm animals raised in cages is also banned.
California even imposed a ban on fur products.
The rest of the country does not appreciate California’s nanny regulations as they reverberate across the land.
In 2022, the Globe concluded that California Hogs and Chickens Enjoy More Protections Than Unborn Babies. Penalties for violating California’s Endangered Species Act will cost you a $50,000 fine and imprisonment.
It was only a matter of time before this ridiculous list of banned products spurred a lawsuit or two, or 12.
A new lawsuit was filed Wednesday by the Trump administration against the State of California, Governor Gavin Newsom, Attorney General Rob Bonta, and other state officials over California’s laws imposing burdensome red tape on the production of eggs and poultry products. The lawsuit says California is in violation of the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
The federal government is accusing the California and Gov. Newsom of contributing to the high cost of eggs by imposing absurd animal welfare laws.
The lawsuit states:
- “The United States is facing a historic cost-of-living crisis. Overly burdensome and unnecessary regulations have diminished the purchasing power and prosperity of the American worker. As a result, President Trump declared that it shall be the policy of the United States to eliminate the “crushing regulatory burden” that has “made necessary goods and services scarce.” Presidential Memorandum, Delivering Emergency Price Relief for American Families and Defeating the Cost-of-Living Crisis (Jan. 20, 2025).
2. The State of California has contributed to the historic rise in egg prices by imposing unnecessary red tape on the production of eggs. Through a combination of voter initiatives, legislative enactments, and regulations, California has effectively prevented farmers across the country from using a number of agricultural production methods which were in widespread use—and which helped keep eggs affordable.
3. California’s codified purpose in prohibiting the sale of eggs that are produced through various accepted animal husbandry practices is purportedly to increase the quality and fitness for human consumption of eggs and egg products sold in California.
4. But California’s egg standards do not advance consumer welfare. For example, with respect to California’s most recent voter initiative imposing new standards of egg quality, Proposition 12, the California Department of Food and Agriculture has stated in its regulatory analysis that despite the initiative’s purported concern for consumer “health and safety,” the egg standards “are not based in specific peer-reviewed published scientific literature or accepted as standards within the scientific community to reduce human food-borne illness . . . or other human or safety concerns.”
Frivolous Governor Gavin Newsom responded on X with his usual ooze:
Trump’s back to his favorite hobby: blaming California for literally everything. Next up: @CAGovernor Gavin Newsom caused the fall of Rome and sent the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs!
As if Newsom’s ooze was not enough gelled waste, he came back with this charmer:
Or was this the rapier wit of Brandon Richards (He/Him), Newsom’s Deputy Director of Rapid Response?
Have you ever noticed that Gavin Newsom loves to brag about the California that was spectacular and amazing long before he was governor, but runs away from his own policies like every other Marxist/Leftist/Socialist/Narcissist?
However, “California’s regulation of eggs has, however, been effective in raising prices for American consumers,” the lawsuit says. “Proposition 12 alone has “caused a significant increase” in egg prices, “and therefore led to a sizeable reduction in consumer surplus.”
This is also a commerce clause issue:
Under Egg Products Inspection Act (EPIA), Congress also expressly preempted state laws intended to regulate the labeling and packaging of eggs and egg products, providing in relevant part:
For eggs which have moved or are moving in interstate or foreign
commerce, . . . no State or local jurisdiction other than those in
noncontiguous areas of the United States may require labeling to show
the State or other geographical area of production or origin . . . [and]
[l]abeling, packaging, or ingredient requirements, in addition to or
different than those made under [EPIA]…
The bottom line is:
“Regardless of the intent or effect of California’s various initiatives on egg prices, it is the prerogative of the federal government alone to regulate the quality, inspection, and packaging of eggs. In 1970, Congress passed the Egg Products Inspection Act (EPIA), which sets forth requirements to ensure that eggs and egg products are wholesome and properly labeled and packaged to protect the health and welfare of consumers of these products.”
Butt-out California plebes, say the feds.
A California native and Navy mom, Katy lives in Sacramento, CA.
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Take that, Gavin Newsom, you puffed-up, delusional, arrogant, greasy-haired horse’s ass of a governor, who will NEVER EVER EVER be President.
And your little rapid response dog, too!
When sautéing garden fresh Roma tomatoes and Yellow squash this morning, I also liberated two cage free eggs from a very uncomfortably cool refrigerator. It wasn’t long before they were warming up with the veggies, under a blanket of Baby Swiss cheese.
Amen.
My reply was to Skunkedin.
Thanks, John.
“First California legislators came for our cigarettes, and banned smoking indoors and in public parks…” I had smoke blown in my face for much of my life before the smoking laws, I think by the time I was 13 years old I had inhaled enough second hand smoke to last any three chaingun smokers 4 lifetimes. I’ve been to enclosed public spaces where when the door was opened smoke billowed out like the place was on fire, and I’m not exaggerating. Then there’s traveling from the showup to the job in freezing or scorching weather when someone lights up, then bitches about a rolled down window. I got to where I carried a real good nickle cigar, and when someone presumed they could blow smoke in my face I gave it back to them, and guess who the ahole was then. I don’t think most smokers realize how obnoxious they can be, and smoking is a filthy, nasty, ugly habit best kept to oneself. Next time I won’t sugarcoat it.
How long ago did all this happen? I don’t think I’ve seen cigars sell for a nickel in my lifetime.
I’m not on board with caging chickens to produce eggs. I raised chickens as a kid, and never put them in cages. I would never have thought to do such a cruel thing. As humans we are supposed to be above this. I don’t buy that having them out of cages increases the cost that much either. Everything in California is expensive, because we are overtaxed, and have a horrible business climate.
Egg prices went up because Ca. killed all the chickens because a few workers got bird flu.
Yep, it’s the “kill’em all” way Democrats roll. Mostly because of their exquisite lack of common sense.
Heck, they even killed that big bird on whatever street, after losing their minds during Covid. Too many germs on that character, I guess. What happens when fear and ignorance interfere with the scientific OODA loop, that’s for sure. What a great alternative they came up with, a trial run in mass starvation.
I worked on a chicken ranch in college up near Santa Rosa, Ca in the ’70’s.
I concluded that chickens are the nastiest critters alive. They are as low on life’s totem pole as you can get.
Pestilence that walks. They are as sentient as a stalk of wheat. You let them lay for 2-3 years as ” teenagers”, then kill them for meat or pet food.
Securing the protein you rely on for a vertical life is not pretty. Just cage the chickens and treat them as the “corn that walks” they are and forget about it.
There are several issues here. Most people think food comes from the store and have only a vague concept beyond that of sources and supply chains. It’s been decades since I watched tv (insulted my intelligence while progressively churning out increasingly moronic content), but I recall that shows and movies depicted an unrealistic view of farms and ranches and the people who live and work on them as well as livestock and crops, and who among the ignorant of most or all the facts don’t want animals to be happy? Most people have an incorrect anthropomorphic notion of their own household pets, which may well extend to animals they may never or only very briefly see in person. Then bring on ballot initiatives crafted by people who have no idea of the subject matter but appeal to emotion, which is where this issue originated concerning roaming space for pigs and chickens. How many people read beyond a catchy headline of a petition to see what it’s actually about before signing? Then there is the problem, as I understand it, that a ballot initiative getting enough signatures to qualify might not be quite the same as the version presented for the election. Check it out, people actually buy and move into a housing tract next to a dairy or chicken ranch without investigating the area, then file lawsuits over bad smells and fly swarms, running their food sources out of business. Ignorance or idiocy, pick your description.
Call it anthropomorphism all you wish but until the day to day operations in Sacramento improve, I’ll prefer dogs over democrats, to provide a reasonable level of security for my family and property.
I was a meter reader for a utility many years ago, I went into practically innumerable back yards on a daily basis. Most people have no idea how dogs actually think, and if an owner tells you his dog doesn’t bite, you had best be ready to beat the dog down or jump the fence. Except for the truly bad dogs, most dogs can either be “sweet talked” in some manneror, distracted or intimidated, so much for “protection.” As for the lighter side of the subject, one time a german shepard who thought he was cujo found himself running around the corner of the house to get away from me. As I was reading the meter, I felt my pant leg getting wet, the dog had returned and was peeing on my leg. On the other hand, yesterday I had just parked at a convenience store when a car pulled up a parking space over with a pit bull on the other side of a half open passenger window. After the driver bounced out of her car, I started to get out of my vehicle when the dog began barking at me in a tone I recognize. If I were younger, I might have been able to deal with the dog if it had jumped out the window, but at my age I’m not taking the chance. So I stayed put until the owner came back, noticed me sitting in my vehicle with the door partly open, then went to the passenger side of her car and lovingingly said to the dog “why are you barking?” then kissed it on the face. I suppose the owner thought the dog “was doing its job.”
I was checking fire pits in a small campground once. A large barking Doberman had pulled the coiled stake right out of the duff, and was trotting toward a woman and two small children. I got in front of it with a shovel and kept yelling “heal” and it slowed down. The owner heard me and emerged from a tent and controlled the dog without further incident. Later, I followed up and observed two dogs wire cabled to a chain around a tree.
All’s well that ends well.
Couldn’t such a lawsuit also apply to the gas prices?
It would apply to what we ship out of state, and it does. But we are shooting ourselves in the foot when it comes to “Domestically produced Petroleum” unless the Federal revocation of California’s CARB exemption is sucessful.
Prop 12 – purportedly for the welfare of egg laying chickens (now I get it, Prop 12 — Dozen eggs LOL)
But I do agree with @Max Wieber’s comment above. Back in the early 80s, I worked in a shop that was indoors, with poor circulation and everyone in the shop smoked except me! I choked on second-hand smoke for several years before it was eventually banned. My manager thought it was funny when I complained, told me “write a letter to upper management”. I did, but nothing changed. So I just suffered for all that time, I couldn’t believe it when it was banned, I could finally breathe! Since smokers back then had an entitlement attitude “I’ll smoke where and when I want to”, I asked the coworkers to at least try to cut down but they never did. Some were chain smokers, and I never got a break. This is one of the only things I believe CA got right early on. All the recent nanny-state crap though, banning plastic bags and straws, not so much.
So the cost of eggs trumps the cost and availability of gasoline and diesel?
Whose side is the Trump administration really on?
America and California are in desperate need of Federal intervention to preclude the dismantling of the Phillips and Valero refineries. Gasoline and diesel cost and availability are the real crises befalling California and America not eggs and bacon.
Yes, this is so California,
I think when the first partner remarks that we are “California Strong” she meant “California Wrong!”
We are headed in the wrong direction. While the rest of the country enjoys lower egg prices and lower gas prices ours go up, up and up! Wrong direction.
CALIFORNIA WRONG!
Courtesy of Gavin Newsom and his supermajority!
CALIFORNIA WRONG!
it ain’t prop 12 that’s driving up egg prices, it’s the chicken COVID/”avian flu” BS that is driving up prices by reducing the laying hens via “culling” the herds….
I actually agree with the smoking restriction and encouraging the humane treatment of animal food sources….
But stop culling the herds for a “flu” that isn’t harmful to humans
I look forward to the day when California governnent has as much interest in the fair treatment of students, as much as they pretend to for chickens.