Amendment Threatens Existing Animal-Welfare Laws

Representative Steve King, R-Iowa, has proposed an amendment to the existing Farm Bill that would overturn animal-welfare legislation in at least nine states. According to The Humane Society of the United States, some of the threatened laws, which prohibit “extreme confinement” of veal, pigs, and hens on factory farms and outlaw the sale of horses to be slaughtered for meat, include CA’s [California’s] Proposition 2 and Proposition 6, AZ’s [Arizona’s] Proposition 204, and Florida’s Amendment 10. Local news sources such as The Bakersfield Californian have already come out against King’s amendment, noting, “Congress must carefully consider and weigh the impact on existing state laws, and overrule any provisions that would unnecessarily invalidate the will of California voters or those of any state.”