Prop 12 is Slippery Pt 2
From the Ag Information Network, I’m Bob Larson. Yes, California’s Prop 12 has been delayed six months, but rest assured, there will be efforts in Congress to stop it.
Iowa Ag Secretary Mike Naig says Prop 12 opens the door for this type of regulation above and beyond pork and poultry …
NAIG … “I do think that that should heighten the awareness and certainly should compel Congress to try to do something here. I don't know if that can fit into a farm bill conversation. Frankly, I think it belongs on its own because it's important, but I don't care what vehicle it takes. But I do think that we've got to see some balance brought back into this interstate commerce question.”
Naig says the precedent this sets, if unchecked by Congress, means fifty states could have fifty sets of compliance rules, and that could spell disaster for any industry …
NAIG … “If you look at that Supreme Court decision broadly, what it says is as long as you impose the same restrictions on the producers or the manufacturers of something in your own state, you can then impose those preferences or those restrictions on folks outside of your state that want to market in. And so, it's not just pork. By the way, this also creates this concept of now you're headed for a patchwork of rules and regulations that how would you ever comply with all of them, and they're ever-changing?
Naig says from a practical reality, it's just very, very difficult.
