Actions that have a large impact sometimes don't feel like much. To counteract that bias, I'm sharing arguably the best use of two minutes this month for those in the U.S.
Background
In May, the US Supreme Court upheld the ability of US states to require certain standards for animal products sold within their borders, e.g. California's Prop 12, which banned the sale of animal products that involve certain intensive confinement practices.
It was a huge victory! But after their defeat in the Supreme Court, the animal farming industry has turned to Congress, pushing the EATS Act.
The proposed legislation would take away state power to regulate the kind of agricultural products that enter their borders. Essentially, if any one state permits the production or sale of a particular agricultural product, every other state could have to do so as well, regardless of how dangerous or unethical the product is and regardless of existing state legislation.
Just a small sample of laws that could be subverted by the EATS Act include those governing:
- Chemicals in baby food containers
- Harmful pesticides in communities and applying them directly to crops for human consumption
- Arsenic in feed for animals slaughtered for food and other poison control
- Child labor
- Puppy mills
- Wildlife protection
- Pollutant and emissions standards, e.g., bans on spraying sewage on crops directly before they are sold to people
- Fire hazards
- Drugs that contain opioid properties and alcohol and tobacco sales to minors
And, of course, legislation like Proposition 12 that improves animal welfare requirements and has been a dominant focus of the pro-animal movement.
2 Minutes of Action
10 seconds: Send a written message to your legislators
~1.5 minutes: Call your legislators
- Find them
- Call your one U.S. representative and two U.S. senators (found in the federal section), ideally during business hours
- Read a script like this one:
As your constituent, I urge you to oppose the Exposing Agricultural Trade Suppression' (EATS) Act (S. 2619/HR 4999). This is a dangerous, regressive bill that will undo decades of protections for farmed animals and cause them to endure even more suffering for the profits of animal agricultural interests. It would also have devastating consequences for humans and the environment.”
*Note that there is another bill known as the EATS Act of 2023, which is Enhance Access To SNAP. Please be specific that you are asking them to oppose the Exposing Agricultural Trade Suppression Act.
FYI in the future I think it's probably a good idea to link readers to the bill in question (here, I believe) in addition to secondary sources.
Could you explain how it could affect these rules? By my reading the bill is solely about agricultural pre-harvest standards, and would not affect packaging or fire hazards, which are typically post-harvest. Similarly, I would assume most rules about alcohol and tobacco are about how they can be sold or consumed, not how they can be produced (and are often federal anyway) so it's a bit surprising to me that they might be materially affected by this bill.
For reference here is what I think is the relevant section of the text:
Thanks!
Yeah, clicking through one of the examples of a bill that would supposedly be impacted I don't see the relevance of pre-harvesting regulation.