February 26, 2025
Washington, D.C. – Today, Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed outlining her plan to lower egg prices that she will “remove unnecessary regulatory burdens…such as California’s Proposition 12.” This alarming rhetoric suggests an openness to dangerous policies like the Ending Agricultural Trade Suppression (EATS) Act, which would overturn popular state laws like Proposition 12, which protects farm animals from extreme confinement while expanding markets for independent farmers. The EATS Act seeks to strip state and local governments of their ability to make agricultural policies within their own borders — policies that create market opportunity, protect communities’ health and wellbeing, and set common-sense production standards that address animal welfare.
In response, the Defeat EATS Coalition issued the following statement:
“While we strongly agree with Secretary Rollins that American consumers need affordable food, we are disappointed that she has offered the false solution of overturning Prop 12. This attack on states’ rights will actually exacerbate the problem, both by deepening the corporate consolidation within the egg industry that enables the dominant producers to hike prices excessively, and by entrenching a production system where diseases like avian influenza thrive among animals kept in crowded, unsanitary, and inhumane conditions. If Secretary Rollins really wants to lower prices for consumers and ensure American farmers can make a living, we stand ready to work with her to address the real problems underlying our broken food system.”
Media Contact: Emma Nicolas, 202-450-0094, enicolas@farmactionfund.us