Hinson’s SOB Act would help Chinese-owned Smithfield Foods overturn the will of 10 million American voters who chose basic farm animal housing standards for food sold in their states
Washington D.C.— Animal Wellness Action, a national policy and political organization seeking to enhance and advance anti-cruelty polices for animals, announced an “independent expenditure” campaign against U.S. Rep. Ashley Hinson, the Republican nominee in the Iowa race to replace retiring U.S. Senator Joni Ernst. The group cited Hinson’s authorship of the Save Our Bacon (SOB) Act, H.R. 4673, previously known as the EATS Act, to federally overturn certain voter-approved state laws to protect farm animals from immobilizing gestation-crate confinement, including Proposition 12 in California and Question 3 in Massachusetts.
Prop 12 and Question 3 were passed in two landslide ballot measures with the collective support of more than 10 million American voters and later upheld as constitutional in a 2023 U.S. Supreme Court decision,NPPC v. Ross, written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, President Trump’s first appointee to Court.
Nevertheless, overturning these state laws has been a legislative priority for the Chinese-owned factory farming company Smithfield Foods, which already controls about one quarter of all U.S. pork production and owns tens of thousands of acres of American farmlands. Hinson’s SOB Act would help that company expand its U.S. market share and threaten the livelihoods of family farmers who have invested millions of dollars in new, more humane animal housing systems and who depend on access to markets in California, Massachusetts, and elsewhere. More than 95% of Iowa-produced pork is consumed outside the state, and that’s the diverse set of markets in the U.S. are crucial for farmers using a wide variety of housing systems, whether pork products are organic, pasture-based, crate-free, conventional, or otherwise.
“A diversifying pig industry has been dismantling gestation crates over two decades and now approximately 45% of American sows live in group housing,” observed Jim Keen, DVM, PhD, a former USDA research scientist at the National Meat Animal Research Center in Nebraska and now director of veterinary science with Animal Wellness Action .”This far exceeds the 6% market share of gestation-crate-free pork production needed for California and Massachusetts. It’s simply a false argument to suggest that Iowa farmers are put at a disadvantage because of Prop 12. On the contrary, it’s a key market for thousands of Iowa farmers who choose not to confine sows in gestation crates.” Dr. Keen lives in South Dakota, where his family had had a farm homestead since the 1870s.
Dr. Keen, Tom Pool, DVM, MPH, and Svetlana Feigin, PhD., are the co-authors of an extensive report on the animal science and economics of Prop 12 and pig production. Galina Hale, Ph.D., a professor of economics at the University of California at Santa Cruz and an affiliated scholar of Animal Wellness Action, has also written extensively about the economics of Prop 12 and how Senator Hinson’s analysis of the issue is deeply flawed.
“We shouldn’t allow China to drive agriculture policy in the United States and overturn U.S. elections,” noted Wayne Pacelle, president of Animal Wellness Action. “Congresswoman Hinson stands with China’s Smithfield Foods and embraces its top federal policy goal, which would close key markets for family farmers in Iowa.”
Pacelle underscored that Ms. Hinson has not co-sponsored a single animal welfare bill this Congress, despite more than 70 such bills being introduced across a range of bipartisan policies from cracking down on puppy mills to ensuring humane testing of drugs and cosmetics. Pacelle noted that Hinson had not even co-sponsored the bipartisan FIGHT Act, H.R. 3946, to crack down on criminal dogfighting and cockfighting, even though it was endorsed by both the Iowa State Sheriffs’ and Deputies’ Association and Iowa’s North Central Poultry Association—in addition to nearly 1,200 other groups nationwide.
Here is the ad that the organization released today and is promoting with identified animal welfare advocates: VIEW HERE