[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 108 (Wednesday, June 21, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2170-S2171]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                            EATS Act of 2023

  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, the recent Supreme Court ruling in favor 
of the California law that is called Proposition 12, affecting the pork 
industry, has sent shock waves through the entire agricultural 
industry. Particularly hard-hit by the news is my State of Iowa, which 
is No. 1 in pork and No. 1 in eggs; and another proposition California 
law affects the selling of eggs in California.
  California is 15 percent of the national market for pork, so you can 
see what California is doing can have a big impact on the pork industry 
in the other 49 States.
  If California can regulate pork producers out of business through 
costly and unrealistic regulation, which food will be next? What 
segment of agriculture will be negatively affected next?
  Consumers should be waking up to the reality of activist policies 
coming from folks on the left who want to put the kibosh on animal 
agriculture.
  California's law is based on arbitrary and prescriptive standards 
that lack any scientific, technical, or agricultural basis. It also 
jeopardizes sow safety. And for you city slickers, ``sow'' is the word 
we use for mother pigs.
  The cost to implement Proposition 12 has been measured to be 
approximately $3,500 per sow--a cost that farmers would need to pass on 
to the consumer.
  This additional cost will threaten the independent pork producers in 
rural Iowa and run them out of business due to burdensome regulations.
  I am not only speaking for Iowa pork producers, even though we are 
No. 1 in pork production. This is affecting pork producers in the other 
49 States. The result of this law will be significant on Iowa's 
independent pork producers.
  We all know people will continue to eat pork chops, ham, and bacon, 
but this will only lead to further consolidation so that you will only 
have three or four companies controlling the entire supply of pork for 
our country.
  The future of the independent pork production is at stake, and I do 
not want to sit idly by as pork producers across Iowa go out of 
business. So this Monday, our national holiday, when the Senate wasn't 
in session, I met with 40 pork producers in Palo Alto county. Hearing 
from Iowans firsthand on this issue was especially impactful.
  Iowa producers who have raised hogs for more than 50 years told me 
that they have never been so worried. How will rural agriculture fight 
against the special interests and big money of the coasts is a question 
I was asked. How can farmers afford to remain compliant with nonsense 
policies written by someone who has never been on a hog farm?
  There has to be a legislative solution to what California is 
negatively doing to pork producers in the other 49 States, so Senator 
Marshall, Senator Ernst, and I have been working on a solution. The 
EATS Act--E-A-T-S, that is an acronym for a piece of legislation 
preventing States from impeding ag trade from other States within the 
United States, under the constitutional power of Congress, to regulate 
interstate foreign commerce. Our legislation is an example of Congress 
regulating interstate commerce.
  In the court's majority decision, it was a five-to-four decision--an 
odd combination of liberals and conservatives on the Supreme Court 
saying that California did the right thing and an odd combination of 
liberals and conservatives who said that California didn't have the 
power to do what they did under our Constitution. But in this majority 
opinion, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote that Congress has the power to 
regulate commerce but has yet to enact legislation to displace 
Proposition 12.
  I read Justice Gorsuch saying to the Congress of the United States--
the courts are kind of saying to themselves something like this: Why 
should we say that California has acted unconstitutionally when 
Congress has the power to regulate interstate and foreign commerce and 
they have not done it?
  So this is the reason for this bill. This bill would put an end to 
California's war on breakfast and override the coastal State's 
overreach into the heartland's breadbasket.

[[Page S2171]]

  The Supreme Court asked Congress to act, so that is what Senators 
Marshall, Ernst, and I--and many other Senators have now joined us in 
this effort. We are responding to the Supreme Court's decision.
  Feeding your family is not a partisan issue and neither is protecting 
our food supply chain. Food security, after all, is national security.
  I am engaging in discussions with as many as my colleagues as I can 
on this very issue. I hope this will soon be a bipartisan bill.
  It is common sense to protect affordable, quality food for America's 
families and support the 2 percent of the country that we call family 
farmers who feed the other 98 percent of the people in this State; and 
not only produce for the other 98 percent but about a third of our 
agriculture production is exported. Remember, bacon doesn't grow in 
grocery stores.

  I urge all of my colleagues to join me as cosponsors of the EATS Act.