Egg prices across the United States have come down from their peak, but are still half again more expensive as they were through 2024.
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One might have thought bird flu was the reason, but Trump has decided to blame California.
- The federal suit claims that California’s animal welfare law has contributed to higher egg prices by “imposing unnecessary red tape on the production of eggs.”
[Red tape? There were certainly costs involved in changing production from tiny cages to something more humane (if an egg producer wasn't humane already) when the law was passed by voters seven years ago. But red tape?]
The law was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2023.
“In a functioning democracy, policy choices like these usually belong to the people and their elected representatives,” wrote Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, a Trump appointee,
in the lead opinion.
Just last month, the Supreme Court declined to accept a petition for certiorari from the Iowa Pork Producers Council.
In the suit filed Wednesday, the Justice Department contends that California’s egg standards “do not advance consumer welfare”
[Well, that's why it was posed to voters as an animal welfare law and not a consumer welfare law. Despite the almighty dollar, voters are allowed to have other concerns.]
Most experts pointed to the H5N1 bird flu epidemic as the cause of the spike, as millions of egg-laying chickens across the nation were euthanized to prevent the spread.
Prices have since moderated as the outbreak has diminished. In the last 30 days, there has been only one reported commercial flock infection in Pennsylvania. The birds were not egg layers.
[And your peculiar mixed metaphor for the day]: “With this ill-considered legal action, the Administration is dropping a set of stink bombs into the bosom of the egg industry,” said Wayne Pacelle, president of Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy.
