BOSTON — The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to take up a challenge to a voter-approved state law banning the sale of meat and eggs from caged animals, following a last-ditch lawsuit from the pork industry.
The high court on Tuesday announced that it will not hear an appeal to lower court rulings by a group of Midwestern pork farmers and producers who had challenged the eight-year-old law by arguing that it was preempted by federal meat inspection mandates.
Attorney General Andrea Campbell, who was named in the industry lawsuit, praised the court’s decision not to consider the legal challenge.
“This decision marks the end of a years-long challenge to animal welfare protections and Massachusetts’s ability to regulate its own commerce,” she said in a prepared statement. “This victory affirms the will of Massachusetts residents, who voted overwhelmingly to support this law in 2016, to ensure more humane standards and stronger consumer protections.”
It’s the latest development in the court fight over Question 3, which banned the sale of eggs, veal and pork from farm animals held in cage-confined conditions. The egg and veal rules took effect in early 2023, but the restrictions on pork sales were delayed amid multiple legal challenges.
A group of Midwest pork producers sued Massachusetts to block the law from going into effect, arguing that it would “impose costly mandates that substantially interfere with commerce” in pork-producing states.
In 2024, U.S. District Court Judge William Young cleared the law to go into effect after ruling that the restrictions were designed to prevent animal cruelty, not to limit interstate commerce.
But the pork industry appealed, claiming among other things that the state law was preempted by the Federal Meat Inspection Act, which is aimed at protecting consumers from tainted meat and byproducts.
In court filings, lawyers for the pork industry argued the law violated interstate commerce statutes and is “discriminatory” because it gives Massachusetts farmers a competitive advantage over out-of-state companies.
A federal appeals court rejected that argument and cited data showing that pork production in Massachusetts decreased from 2021 to 2022, when the law went into effect. But the industry group petitioned the Supreme Court to take up the legal challenge.
Massachusetts is one of only a handful of states that set stringent animal welfare requirements on the sale of bacon, chops and other pork products.
The nation’s $26 billion pork industry has pushed back against the state bans, arguing that they will require expensive, industry-wide changes that will lead to higher costs nationwide for pork chops, ribs and bacon.
States that have banned gestation cages import a majority of the pork sold and the laws, as written, place an unfair financial burden on pork farmers in other states, according to the pork industry.
Food industry groups also have warned that the rules will lead to price spikes and shortages of pork chops and bacon.
While the Bay State isn’t home to any large-scale pig farms or pork producers, animal welfare groups say the law would improve conditions for the country’s 6 million breeding sows, who they say spend a large portion of pregnancies confined in metal cages that prohibit their movements.
The Humane Society and other groups say cage confinement practices make sows and their piglets more susceptible to diseases that can spread to humans.
In Congress, Republican lawmakers recently approved a farm bill that includes a provision to preempt state-level animal welfare and agricultural protection laws in California, Massachusetts and several other Democratic-led states.
That provision — dubbed the “Save Our Bacon Act” — has been strongly criticized by members of the state’s all-Democrat congressional delegation who said it would override the bill of the state’s voters.
Christian M. Wade covers Massachusetts state government and politics for CNHI News and North of Boston Media Group’s newspapers and websites. Email him at cwade@cnhinews.com.