Animal Law Digest

Senator Cory Booker reintroduced a package of four bills that aim to make the agriculture industry safer and more humane. The Farm System Reform Act would address monopolistic practices in the meatpacking industry, place a moratorium on concentrated animal feeding operations, and restore mandatory country-of-origin labeling requirements; the Industrial Agriculture Accountability Act would end line-speed increases, prohibit the slaughter of downed animals, and require more humane treatment of livestock during long-haul transport; the Protecting America’s Meatpacking Workers Act would institute systemic reforms to improve worker safety and fair labor standards for meatpacking workers and ensure worker access to remedies regardless of citizenship; and the Protect America’s Children from Toxic Pesticides Act would ban the use of certain pesticides that have been proven harmful to people and the environment. The bills have not yet been assigned numbers or referred to committees.

Senator Cory Booker announced the Industrial Agriculture Accountability Act of 2022, which would impose multiple reforms, including by:

• Requiring industrial operators to register high-risk CAFOs, submit disaster preparedness plans, and pay to cover the costs of preparing for and responding to disaster events;
• Ensuring that industrial operators aren’t using the worst depopulation and slaughter practices, including dangerously fast line-speed increases and self-inspection programs;
• Amending the Humane Methods of Slaughter Act to include poultry, with a 10-year phase in and grants provided to assist transitions to controlled atmosphere stunning systems;
• Creating new protections for nonambulatory (downer) pigs at slaughter;
• Amending the 28-Hour Law to include new protections for animals during transport; and
• Prohibiting the use of prison labor during disaster events.

The bill has not yet been assigned a number or a committee.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed a lower court’s ruling denying pork producers’ motion to intervene in a case brought by unionized workers challenging the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s rule eliminating pork processing line-speed limits. The lower court granted summary judgment in favor of plaintiff workers to aside the USDA rule and found that the pork producers’ motion was untimely.

The Animal Welfare Institute and Farm Sanctuary, represented by Harvard Law School’s Animal Law & Policy Clinic, filed a motion for summary judgment in their case challenging the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s refusal to promulgate regulations banning the inhumane treatment of live birds at slaughterhouses. Plaintiffs argue that inhumane treatment of live birds leads to adulterated meats, the sale of which is illegal under the Poultry Products Inspection Act.

The Food Safety and Inspection Service has responded to two recommendations from the Office of Inspector General regarding the agency’s rulemaking process for the “Modernization of Swine Slaughter Inspection” proposed rule.

In a case brought by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, a Minnesota federal judge has held that the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service’s adoption of the New Swine Inspection System (eliminating line speed limits) violated the Administrative Procedure Act because the agency rejected extensive public comment and eliminated line speed limits without considering the impact on worker safety.

Senate Bill 713, the “Safe Line Speeds During COVID-19 Act of 2021,” would direct the Secretary of Agriculture to temporarily suspend current and future waivers that allow for increased line speeds or reduced inspection staffing at meat and poultry slaughterhouses. The bill would also formally suspend implementation of the “New Swine Slaughter Inspection System” detailed in the final rule published in the Federal Register on October 1, 2019 and mandate a review of actions taken by federal agencies in response to the COVID–19 pandemic “to determine the effectiveness of those actions in protecting animal, food, and worker safety.” The full text of the bill is available here.