The Supreme Court?s decision to uphold California?s Proposition 12 has opened up a lot of discussion about the precedence it has set that will reach far beyond pork and poultry. Many are concerned that a patchwork of guidelines could be introduced in any industry and lead to burdensome climates for any industry in the future.
Iowa 2nd District Congresswoman Ashley Hinson has re-introduced a bicameral version of the Ending Agricultural Trade Suppression (EATS) Act with Third District Congressman Zach Nunn. A Senate version has been introduced by Kansas Republican Roger Marshall with the support of Iowa Senators Joni Ernst and Chuck Grassley.
Congressman Nunn spoke with IARN yesterday afternoon and told us that this bill is designed to double down on the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Nunn believes that the clause provided adequate support for the legal challenge to Prop 12, even if the Supreme Court did not.
Nunn says that this is not only a bicameral issue but a bipartisan concern.
Nunn says that California can not enforce the same standards on international products and is therefore putting American producers at a disadvantage.
Nunn says this also sets the dangerous precedent of allowing states to dictate their whims, no matter if they conflict with another state. This could open the country up to retaliatory trade wars. Iowa farmers were sarcastically joking after the Supreme Court decision that Iowa should dictate to California how their almonds or grapes should be grown before we will allow them to be sold. All joking aside, that would be a terrible scenario to find the individual states in.
This could just be the beginning of a nightmare of a trade climate inside our borders.
We will air our full conversation with Iowa Congressman Zach Nunn on the week’s edition of Weekend Ag Matters.
