Group of 13 states launch new legal challenge to California egg law
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — More than a dozen states banded together Monday to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to block a California law requiring any eggs sold there to come from hens that have space to stretch out in their cages.
In a lawsuit filed directly to the high court, the states allege that California’s law has cost consumers nationwide up to $350 million annually because of higher egg prices since it took effect in 2015. The lawsuit argues that California’s requirements violate the U.S. Constitution’s interstate commerce clause and are pre-empted by federal law.
A federal appeals court panel rejected similar claims last year in a separate case brought by six states, ruling that they failed to show California’s law would affect more than just individual farmers. The latest lawsuit seeks to address that by citing an economic analysis of the California law. It also asks the Supreme Court to take up the case directly instead of requiring that it first move through the lower courts.
Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley, a Republican who is running for U.S. Senate in 2018, is leading the lawsuit. Other plaintiff states are Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah and Wisconsin. All have Republican attorneys general except Iowa, which has a Democrat.
The California attorney general’s office said Monday that it was reviewing the lawsuit.
California produced about 5 billion eggs and imported an additional 4 billion from other states in 2012, according to the lawsuit. Thirty percent of those out-of-state eggs came from Iowa, the nation’s top egg producer. About 13 percent of California’s egg imports came from Missouri, the second highest percentage cited in the lawsuit.