Votes assails state laws on food safety 15-07-2012

Chickens gather and lay eggs in an organic hen house at Sunrise Farms in Petaluma, Calif. on Wednesday, Aug. 25, 2010, which produces about a million eggs a day from a hen population of 1.2 million. No eggs produced in California have been recalled because the salmonella scare. Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle / SF Washington -- A California voter-approved law requiring that hens have cages large enough to let them spread their wings has drawn a national backlash from other livestock producers that threatens not only the state's humane treatment of hens, but also its new ban on foie gras. The latest salvo came in a midnight vote in the House Agriculture Committee on an amendment to deny states the ability to regulate any farm product, potentially overturning not just California's farm laws but animal welfare, food safety and environmental laws related to any farm product in all 50 states. "To say members of Congress belittled California is an understatement," said Scott Faber, head of federal affairs for Environmental Working Group, which supports farm conservation. "This isn't just an assault on the ability of states to set standards for agriculture. It's an assault on the Constitution. It is a breathtaking effort to limit the ability of states to set standards for how food is produced in America." The amendment by Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, was passed late Wednesday along with the new five-year farm bill during a marathon committee debate. Strong contingent Faber said the amendment would block California's ban on the sale and production of foie gras, a liver delicacy made by force-feeding ducks and geese, at least on foie gras produced outside the state. The ban took effect July 1. "There's a contingent out there, the pork and beef people, and it's primarily the pork people, who are adamantly opposed to any kind of animal welfare legislation," said Arnie Riebli, a Petaluma egg farmer and president of the Association of California Egg Farmers who supports California's hen law, which takes effect in 2015. Riebli said pork producers fear California's hen law will lead to bans on gestation crates that tightly confine pregnant sows. Minnesota's Collin Peterson, the top Democrat on the committee, said California's farm rules are "driving us crazy, because these things come to our states ... and we don't want them." "The pork people should really be looking at their own industry," Riebli said. "Go back and read the news of the last 60 to 90 days, and you'll see McDonald's, Safeway, Kroger, Burger King, you name the food retailer or service company that is no longer going to be taking pork product from hogs confined to gestation crates." The debate was "almost like watching a 'Saturday Night Live' skit of the House Agriculture Committee," said Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the United States, an animal rights group that helped pass the 2008 ballot initiative Proposition 2. Stand up, turn around The law requires that caged veal calves and breeding sows as well as laying hens should be able to stand up, lie down, turn around and freely extend their limbs. The initiative was approved by 64 percent of California voters after animal rights activists released undercover videos of strangled, deformed and mummified hens in cages. "What the King amendment says is that we can have no state standards - no labor standards, no animal welfare standards, no food safety standards, no food standards for any purpose," Pacelle said. "The federal government would completely rule the states on agriculture." Competition fears Rep. Dennis Cardoza, a retiring Democrat from Atwater (Merced County), accused California voters of making "an awful mistake" by trying to protect hens, arguing the new rules make it harder for the state's egg farmers to compete against those in states who do not have to buy bigger cages. Fear that California's egg farmers would be ruined led to a 2010 state law to ban the importation of eggs from other states that fail to meet California's henhouse rules. Oregon, Michigan, Ohio and Washington have followed with their own hen welfare laws, leading to a patchwork of different state rules that could constrict interstate egg commerce more read here