The Ending Agricultural Trade Suppression (EATS) Act (H.R.4417/S.2019) poses an alarming threat to states’ rights. I urge my lawmakers, Congressman Jim Jordan and U.S. senators Sherrod Brown and J.D. Vance, to oppose the EATS Act in solidarity with the vast coalition of farmers, rural communities, law enforcement, and other groups who have spoken out in condemnation of the bill’s dangerous aims and repercussions.
If passed, the EATS Act would take away state and local authority to pass laws related to the production and sale of agricultural products. Worse yet, it could nullify thousands of existing common sense laws and regulations that reflect the values of individual states and their residents.
The bill is an obvious effort to maintain the status quo for a handful of industrial animal agriculture corporations, which have dragged their feet on complying with state regulations and meeting consumer demand for more humane agricultural practices. The EATS Act is falsely touted as a way to protect agriculture, but its real goal and effect is to insulate the exploitative industrial animal agriculture system at the expense of farmers, rural communities, and American consumers.
The EATS Act would set a devastating precedent that the rights of states to function independently can be swiftly overriden by irresponsible lawmakers, defying the basic virtues of federalism that our country was founded on. I hope my lawmakers will use their power to keep the EATS Act out of the 2023 Farm Bill, instead passing a Farm Bill that ensures states maintain the right to protect their citizens, farmers, and land.
Erica Davidson
Powell
