JEFFERSON CITY — Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley will continue to challenge regulations that California plans to impose on poultry farmers, a move that he said would potentially protect industry and job opportunities in the state.
The issue dates back to 2008, when California voters passed a law regulating the space requirements for chickens. Voters determined that any poultry sold within the state would need to have been raised in conditions with adequate living spaces for the animals. In 2010, the rules were expanded to add the regulations to eggs being sold within the state.
Hawley thinks that the regulations imposed by the most populous state and third largest by land in the country will have an adverse effect on the working class in Missouri.
“Make no mistake, this is an attempt by big-government liberals to impose job-killing regulation on Missouri," Hawley said in a press release on the attorney general's website. "These regulations are unconstitutional. They will cost Missouri farmers tens of millions of dollars. They will cost Missouri families. And they will cost our state jobs.”
The suit, which was brought to trial by Missouri, Alabama, Iowa, Kentucky, Nebraska and Oklahoma, was filed in 2014. The states maintain that California’s regulations violate the United States Supreme Court’s Commerce Clause put in place to regulate trade between states.
In November, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of California stating that none of the six states opposing the regulations could provide sufficient evidence that the California law would negatively affect the states as a whole rather than just the poultry farmers.
Hawley rebutted the Court of Appeals’ decision by invoking the Constitution. He said that the states are given the right to defend their citizens against out-of-state regulations, according to the release.
The states will continue to fight the regulations in the Supreme Court.