Branstad says California egg law is ‘not right’

DES MOINES - Gov. Terry Branstad said Monday he is hopeful a resolution can be found regarding a California law that puts restrictions on egg production methods in a way that avoids a 'trade war.”

Iowa was among the states that filed a lawsuit seeking to strike down a California law requiring eggs sold in that state to come from hens raised in non-cramped cages. However, U.S. District Judge Kimberly Mueller dismissed the lawsuit last week – a decision Branstad called 'very disappointing.”

For one state to impose restrictions on products coming from another state violates 'the very spirit” of the interstate commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution, he told reporters during his weekly news conference.

'This is not right. It's not fair,” Branstad said. 'One way or another, we need to find a way to prevent this from continuing to happen. It would be devastating to the United States of America if we were to join in other states and then retaliate and we'd have our own trade war within the United States.

'It's bad enough trying to break down the barriers to trade with the European Union and with other parts of the world,” Branstad added. 'We don't want a trade war in America, but we think that California is dead wrong on this.”

Attorneys from Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, Alabama, Oklahoma and Kentucky argued the California law, passed by voters in a 2008 ballot measure, violates federal commerce standards by effectively imposing new requirements on out-of-state farmers.

The law states egg-laying hens need to be raised with enough space to allow them to lie down, stand up, turn around and fully extend their limbs. California lawmakers later expanded the law to ban the sale of eggs in the state from any hens not raised in compliance with its animal care standards.

In her decision, Mueller ruled that the states lacked legal standing to file the lawsuit because they failed to show that the California law would harm their citizens, rather than cause possible future damage to some egg producers.

'I think we're going to examine all of the different options and alternatives on what to best do,” Branstad said in the aftermath of the judicial setback. 'But I think it's so blatant and so obviously unconstitutional that eventually it's not going to stand. It can't stand. It goes against the very tenets of the Constitution of the United States.”