California Animal Confinement Law Survives Pork Producers’ Suit

The National Pork Producers Council and the American Farm Bureau Federation lost a challenge to California’s ban on the sale of “whole pork” meat that doesn’t comply with the state’s Farm Animal Confinement Initiative, known as Proposition 12.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit rejected the council’s argument that Prop. 12 has an “impermissible extraterritorial effect” that violates the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

The extraterritorial principle applies only when a law dictates the price of a product or ties the price of its in-state products to out-of-state price, the court said.

“It is undisputed that ...