Defending Our Wins: Holding the Line on California's Proposition 12 and Massachusetts' Question 3

All Life Institute scholars have been active in rebutting the arguments of some farm-state lawmakers and their allies that Congress should enact legislation to federally preempt the states from adopting certain farm animal protection laws – specifically, state laws to limit the sale of pork from factory farms that severely confine the sows.

The rhetorical and political focus of the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) and China’s Smithfield Foods has been Proposition 12 in California. Dr. Galina Hale, professor of economics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, issued an assessment of the the market effects of that farm-animal-welfare ballot measure featured throughout our 2026 report, “Rebranded EATS Act Eliminates Nation’s Most Important Farm Animal Welfare Laws.” Dr. Hale’s economic analysis was frequently cited by opponents of the so-called Save Our Bacon (SOB) Act, which would repeal Prop 12 and its antecedent, Massachusetts’ Question 3, while also preempting any state from adopting any similar policies in the future.

Dr. Hale contested that a single state’s animal welfare standard would trigger a national price surge and supply chaos, undercutting the National Pork Producers Council’s (NPPC) far more facile analysis.

Because California and Massachusetts together account for roughly 10% of the U.S. pork market, and because nearly a third of U.S. pork production was already Prop 12-compliant before enforcement even began, she explained that “as long as we have 10% of producers that are compliant, nobody else has to convert, and we already have about 30% of pork in the U.S. that’s compliant, so nobody else has to convert.” In a market economy, she noted, “only farms which have a lower cost of conversion, will convert—if they find it’s profitable for them. If it’s not profitable, they have other states.”

Reviewing pricing data after full implementation, Dr. Hale concluded that “the arguments that the NPPC are bringing up are not making any economic sense,” adding that “state regulations actually support competition” and that “there’s absolutely no national impact of Prop 12 going into effect on January 1st (2024).” If anything, she found, “California’s higher pork prices have positively affected consumers nationwide,” as producers routed non-compliant, conventional pork to other states, creating a surplus that pushed prices down outside California. Her rigorous, independent analysis gave lawmakers an academic counterweight to the industry’s unsupported “price surge” and “patchwork” claims, and it has continued to inform congressional offices weighing the SOB Act throughout 2026.

The SOB Act is the most recent iteration of what was previously known as the Ending Agricultural Trade Suppression (EATS) Act. Like it’s predecessor, it is a legislative maneuver, seeking to hitch a ride on the Farm bill, to repeal the nation’s most important farm animal welfare laws in the United States and to set back the broad effort to halt confinement systems so severe that they immobilize the animals to a routine production practice.

Together, these two laws represent the most important farm animal protection measures ever enacted in the United States. They require that pork, chicken and veal sold within their borders come from farms that allow the animals to stand up, lie down, turn around, and freely extend their limbs—basic behavioral freedoms that animal scientists have long recognized as essential. Dr. Temple Grandin, professor of animal science at Colorado State University, one of the world’s foremost experts on farm animal welfare, and a member of our All Life Institute Scholars’ Network, has put the confinement in blunt physical terms, comparing sow gestation stalls to “living in an airline seat and never being allowed to walk in the aisle.”

A sow “spends 75 percent of her life in a gestation crate, 20 percent of her life in a farrowing crate, and just 5 percent of her life uncaged,” according to fellow scholars Drs. Jim Keen and Thomas Pool, who documented how much of a sow’s life is consumed by confinement. They identified these systems as “the most severe form of confinement used on any animal farmed for food globally.” Drs. Keen and Pool likened the isolation experienced by the sows to that of “humans in solitary confinement who suffer severe duration-dependent psychological damage and physical health problems.” They stated that for “the highly intelligent, active, curious, and gregarious sow, social isolation in a small cage is traumatic.”

The growing movement away from extreme confinement systems for farm animals started in 2002 when Florida voters approved Amendment 10 which banned gestation crates that prevented pregnant sows from turning around. Since then, 11 states have enacted laws restricting or prohibiting gestation-crate confinement through ballot initiatives or legislation, with several also banning battery cages for laying hens and veal crates.

Massachusetts' Q3, which prohibited the sale of pork, eggs and veal into the state if it failed to meet minimum housing standards, regardless of where the animals were raised, was enacted in 2016. California's Prop 12 adopted a similar sales requirement in 2018.

Opposition to these farm animal welfare laws has been led by the NPPC, which has two board members from Smithfield Foods on its roster. The trade association is deeply influenced by two foreign-owned corporations – Smithfield and the Brazil-based JBS, which together control 40% of U.S. pig production. These agribusiness giants have repeatedly challenged these farm animal welfare laws in federal and state courts and have lost more than 24 times. Their challenge eventually was placed on the docket of the U.S. Supreme Court (2023) in National Pork Producers Council v. Ross, which upheld Prop 12 as a constitutional exercise of state authority. Legislative efforts to repeal these state animal welfare laws in the 2014 and 2018 Farm Bills, and the 2024 EATS Act, also failed.

Our 2026 report has been a critical tool in our congressional advocacy, informing letters signed by 228 lawmakers opposing the SOB Act. This opposition has been notably bipartisan, with letters from 32 Senate Democrats, 182 House Democrats, and 14 House Republicans, reflecting the same cross-party coalition that had opposed the SOB Act’s predecessor, the EATS Act.

On the congressional front, the picture has continued to shift throughout 2026. The NPPC and the SOB Act’s sponsors succeeded in attaching the measure to the House’s farm bill, which passed the chamber on April 30, 2026. However, Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., a former sponsor of the EATS Act, withdrew his support in June, and Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman John Boozman, R-Ark., omitted the SOB Act from the Senate’s farm bill entirely, while also stating his hope to “fix” Prop 12 later in the legislative process.With little time remaining in Congress, it’s not clear if there is a viable pathway to enact the Farm bill this year. If the Farm bill fails, so too will the effort to preempt state farm animal welfare laws.

Our policy team is tracking the progress of the legislation on a daily basis and is determined to prevent the inclusion of the SOB Act or any derivative of it should the Farm bill happen.