By Sara Amundson and Kitty Block
No political stunt will bring down the cost of eggs, which is still badly affected by an avian flu epidemic that has decimated the hens in the egg industry across the U.S. and caused severe market shortages. And yet, in a lawsuit filed last night, the U.S. Department of Justice has tried to resurrect—without warrant and without real facts—a long-ago settled legal fight over California’s cage-free egg laws that have been supported by voters, farmers and advocates for animal welfare and other causes across the board.
This lawsuit seeks to undo the cage-free eggs provisions of California’s Proposition 12, despite many similar losing lawsuits filed over the last decade, and even though Proposition 12 was upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States just two years ago in the National Pork Producers Council v. Ross case. We also learned two weeks ago that the Supreme Court refused to consider the Iowa Pork Producer Association’s similar challenge to Proposition 12. Humane World for Animals and our allies defended Proposition 12 alongside the state of California in both of these cases.
California has had laws on its books prohibiting the sale of eggs that come from cruel cage confinement systems since 2010. This attempt to blame 2025 egg prices nationwide on California laws that have been fully embraced and implemented for many years by producers, retailers and government regulators shows this case is about politics and not constitutional law.
In general, federal law regulates packaging, labeling and egg grades—not humane treatment. No provision of the federal Egg Products Inspection Act invoked by this lawsuit addresses in-state sale of eggs from hens crammed into tiny cages. This case is an overreach of the federal government that appears to willfully misunderstand the text and structure of its own federal egg laws to create the illusion of doing something to help people afford their groceries. There’s no evidence that nationwide cost spikes are caused by preventing sales of eggs from hens in battery cage systems in California. And as we all know, higher prices at the grocery store are hardly limited to eggs.
It's a frivolous political attack, and one that reflects a disregard for the complexity of the issues involved and a naive fealty to special interests intent on bending our agricultural markets and our public policy to their will.
This lawsuit is just the latest shameless attempt to undo policies that Americans value. Right from the start of the second Trump administration, a faction of the pork industry and its pliant allies in the Congress and the executive branch have been grasping for ways to renew a fight they’ve lost multiple times already—the fight over Proposition 12 and similar animal welfare laws enacted in more than a dozen states. They’re willing to do anything to turn back the clock on the sweeping transformation in public attitudes about the systematic mistreatment of animals in intensive confinement systems. And today, the administration has shown its willingness to go along with the program.
It is stunning to watch this play out in yet another flailing round of litigation, this one initiated by the Trump administration itself. The facts of intensive confinement and the true causes of the inflation (which the administration has promised to eliminate) don’t support the case for destroying Proposition 12 and related measures. In that sense, the DOJ lawsuit betrays producers, retailers and the desire of Americans for eggs and pork that do not come at the expense of terrible animal suffering.
A backward-facing segment of the pork industry keeps harping on the price of eggs as a reason for demolishing what amounts to a multistate endorsement of more humane standards in American agriculture. Meanwhile, major egg industry players filed briefs in the Ross case supporting Proposition 12.
The current attack on Proposition 12 doesn’t mention the impact of avian flu on egg prices. And in fact, repealing cage-free laws would further hurt farmers whose flocks have been devastated by avian flu. It would pull the rug out from under the many producers who have made significant investments to meet California’s requirements and consumer demand for more humanely raised products.
Those pushing these lawsuits are wedded to a cruel and archaic model of raising animals that a steadily rising number of producers in these industries have already abandoned. It’s a classic attempt to regain the losses they’ve sustained in court decisions at every level.
The DOJ, the trade associations and the politicians doing their bidding, and all the other backsliders seeking to defend such thoroughly discredited and disavowed means of agricultural production, should face the facts: We cannot go back. The egg industry has been moving rapidly toward “cage-free” housing as an alternative to battery cages for laying hens. Today, over 45% of the egg market is cage-free.
Our Animal Protection Law team provided essential leadership in drafting Proposition 12, and similar measures, and in defending it all the way up to the Supreme Court. And we at Humane World for Animals and Humane World Action Fund are fully engaged in political efforts to eliminate any threat to these good laws.
Make no mistake, the fight to defend Proposition 12 and similar measures is the animal protection battle of the century—and we won’t rest until we win it.
Kitty Block is CEO and president of Humane World for Animals.
