GOP Senators Renew Effort to Upend California Animal Protections

Key Republican senators on Tuesday reintroduced legislation designed to block a hotly debated California animal confinement law and others like it.

The bill sponsored by Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and obtained exclusively by Bloomberg Government, seeks to prohibit states from regulating agricultural production beyond their borders. It was spurred by California voters’ 2018 approval of Proposition 12, which limits livestock producers from selling pork, veal, or eggs unless they meet minimum animal confinement space requirements.

Ernst’s measure is nearly identical to legislation she championed during previous Congresses that became the focus of intense lobbying by animal welfare advocates and agriculture ...