Group says DOJ disregards the views of American egg producers and the fact pattern showing it was avian influenza—not cage-free housing—that drove up prices
Washington, D.C. — Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy today panned the U.S. Department of Justice’s lawsuit seeking to overturn Michigan’s cage-free egg law, calling it “grossly ill-informed” and “a maneuver that will threaten egg producers in Michigan, cause chaos in the marketplace, and drive-up prices for American consumers.”
“The Justice Department is way out on a limb with this groundless lawsuit against a Michigan law that is a product of collaboration between Michigan’s nationally recognized egg producers and animal welfare groups and that threatens to eliminate a bulwark against the spread of avian diseases that threaten to jack up egg prices for American consumers,” said Wayne Pacelle, president of Animal Wellness Action. “When the industry itself says avian influenza—not cage-free housing—drove recent price increases, the Department of Justice is operating from a place of deep misunderstanding of pricing metrics and the workings of American agriculture.”
The lawsuit alleges that Michigan’s prohibition on the sale of eggs from caged hens restricts supply and raises prices nationwide yet cites no data or studies to support that claim. Yet we now know it was USDA’s overreaching depopulation of 140 million laying hens that constrained supply and drove up egg prices from $2 a dozen to $10 a dozen last year for a period of time.
Michigan Allied Poultry Industries Executive Director Nancy Barr noted that Michigan producers have spent hundreds of millions of dollars converting barns to cage-free systems because consumers don’t want to see animals jammed into overcrowded, disease-prone factory farms.
This legal challenge is just the latest in a series of failed attempts by the animal agriculture industry, and now the federal government to overturn humane standards for meat and egg production in key sectors of American agriculture. In every case, federal and state courts have turned away these challenges and made clear that the states have a right to enact these laws. The Justice Department’s lawsuit closely mirrors its earlier legal challenge to California’s laying hen welfare laws (Proposition 2, AB 1437, and Proposition12) that promote cage-free housing and sales systems. That law was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2023, affirming the states’ authority to set fairly constructed standards for animal products sold within their borders. The U.S. egg industry, through the United Egg Producers, the Association of California Egg Farmers, and the Michigan Allied Poultry Industry, support the California and Michigan laws.
Animal Wellness Action charged that the Department of Justice should be enforcing the nation’s law against the trafficking of fighting birds – which is the original cause of the global H5N1 pandemic. DOJ’s Environment and Natural Resources Division last made a case against cockfighting four years ago, despite Animal Wellness Action providing ongoing information about trafficking of fighting birds that threatens to spread the H5N1 virus and to make it more virulent and transmissible through mutation.
“DOJ should be working to attack cockfighting and stem the transmission of bird flu, rather than to threaten the livelihoods of American egg producers whose operations would be gutted if they are forced to compete against factory farmers supplying dirty and cheap eggs from confined hens in Mexico or China,” addedPacelle. “Our organization and its allies have specifically identified cockfighting rings in Michigan that threaten the poultry industry, but main DOJ has done nothing to address the threats. Its attacks on egg producers are mind-boggling.”
Michigan is one of 11 states that ban cages for egg-laying hens and one of eight states that prohibit the sale of eggs produced in cage systems.
“This lawsuit disregards settled law, ignores industry realities, and does nothing to address the real challenges facing egg producers and consumers alike,” added Pacelle.
Animal Wellness Action urges the Justice Department to withdraw the lawsuit and focus instead on measures—such as combating avian influenza—that would genuinely stabilize egg prices and pay attention to the interests of farmers, consumers, and animal welfare groups.