Lawmakers propose to regulate egg production in other states

Three quarters of the eggs sold in Maryland are raised in other states. A bill in the Maryland General Assembly presumes to impose “cage-free” standards not just on Maryland chicken farmers, but on the suppliers of the other three-quarters, by making the sale of the eggs themselves unlawful.

Even if this is found to pass muster under the so-called Dormant Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution, it’s an aggressive and uncalled-for extraterritorial extension of one state’s regulatory powers over agriculture. A similar California law on pork was found to entail sending California inspectors to farms in other states, whose operators of course have no voice in the California political system. An Arizona egg edict “doubled or tripled” egg costs for one restaurant operator.

There are also plenty of reasons to reject the bill on substance, aside from its likely effect in raising the price of eggs, one of the protein sources most in reach for poorer families. “By moving to a cage-free operation, the hen mortality rate increases significantly due to more bacterial habitat being introduced in the barn,” said a Maryland Farm Bureau official in his testimony at the hearing last year.

Consumers in Maryland are already free to shop for cage-free eggs, as they are called, and pay a premium in pursuit of their ideals. This bill would commandeer the resources of others — consumers, farmers, restaurateurs — in support of ideals they would not have chosen to pursue.