Protection Against "Trade Protectionism"

Anyone who hasn’t heard about the 2008 California legislation supported by the HSUS, which mandates that egg laying hens be housed in larger cages than is required by federal law, must have been living in a protective bubble or “shell” as it were. In addition, California also passed legislation that extended the same standards to all eggs sold in the state, thus dictating how egg farmers in other states house their hens. This has subsequently caused all kinds of grief to egg farmers around the country prompting Iowa Representative Steve King to include an amendment as part of the newest House version of the Farm Bill that would prevent state laws such as California’s Proposition 2 from regulating the conduct of farmers in other states, laws that he refers to as “trade protectionism”. This of course has the HSUS and all their cohorts in an uproar, calling King’s amendment “one of the most serious threats to animal protection laws ever”. Interestingly, King’s language isn’t saying that states can’t pass their own animal protection laws. He’s just saying a state can’t use their laws to keep other states’ products off their grocery store shelves.