Congress is on recess in August, but facing the remaining task to iron out a final Farm Bill and decide the outcome of Rep. Steve King’s, R-Iowa, destructive provision seeking to nullify state rules relating to agricultural standards. In addition to repealing protections for farm animals, horses, sharks, and dogs, the King amendment could also wipe out of hundreds of state laws protecting food safety, crop protection, fire safety, and more.
When federal animal welfare laws are proposed in the Congress, such as legislation to make it a federal offense to bring a child to a dogfight, King often proclaims that the federal government should back out and leave such matters to the states. However, in the case of King’s Farm Bill amendment, he’s made it clear that he doesn’t want the states to have a say on these issues either. His sweeping amendment is so broad and overreaching that hundreds of state laws that have nothing to do with animals are also on King’s chopping block.
That’s a primary reason the National Conference of State Legislatures sent a letter to House and Senate committee leaders urging them to strip King’s dangerous provision from the Farm Bill. In the bipartisan letter, New Hampshire Speaker of the House Terie Norelli, D-N.H., and Oregon State Sen. Bruce Starr, R-Ore.—the president and president-elect, respectively, of NCSL—write that the King amendment “would preempt vital state agricultural policies designed to protect the safety and well being of our farmland, waterways, forests and most importantly, our constituents.” They add that the King amendment “would also have significant economic effects across the states” and would target “state laws that were approved by state legislatures for the purpose of protecting the health and safety of consumers and the viability of our precious farmland and forests.”
Members of Congress are also speaking out and standing up against this political power grab. In the last few days, 23 members of the U.S. Senate signed a group letter led by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and 166 members of the House signed either a Democratic letter led by Reps. Kurt Schrader, D-Ore., and Gary Peters, D-Mich., or a Republican letter led by Rep. John Campbell, R-Calif., sent to the leaders of their chamber’s Agriculture Committee expressing strong opposition to the King amendment.
This morning at the NCSL annual conference in Atlanta, state lawmakers are holding a press conference to highlight the assault on states’ rights the King amendment poses, and to call on their federal counterparts in Washington to nix this radical and dangerous provision from the final Farm Bill. And you can tell them the same. Now is the time to contact your U.S. Representative and two U.S. Senators to let them know that the King amendment to the Farm Bill has got to go.
