Good morning. 

I am proud to say that Minnesota ranks second in the country for hog production, with over 3,000 pig farms operating in the state. As such, I am familiar with the subject of today’s hearing and have heard from producers on both sides. Like most controversial cases, it’s not so simple.  

Today’s topic has been litigated extensively since I first came to Congress. Since California residents voted to enact Proposition 12 in 2018, we’ve seen challenges to the law, the Supreme Court ruling in favor of the law, numerous proposals and attempts to negate the law through federal legislation, and now a hearing regarding where we go from here. 

Prop 12 is clearly a contentious issue, and it merits thoughtful, bipartisan discussion. Even today, I’ve seen two different letters citing two sets of data that come to two different conclusions about pork prices in California. Any true representative of farm country knows that Prop 12 is a concern for producers on both sides. 

We cannot ignore the questions and challenges Prop 12 raises. Even the Biden administration’s Ag Secretary said we need to treat this issue seriously to ensure stability in the marketplace. I agree that we cannot have 50 states with 50 different regulatory frameworks because of the significant challenges it would present to producers, but I believe that there are ways to avoid that situation.  

I also recognize that many pork producers have made significant financial investments to make their operations Prop 12-compliant to satisfy the desires of California’s consumers for premium pork products. It would be unfair to the family farmers who updated their facilities to comply with new rules to keep or gain market access, to change the rules on them after they’ve already made these investments. 

I think Congress also needs to be mindful of the voters in California who exercised their rights under their state constitution to adopt this policy. We should think carefully before allowing legislators in Washington to override their will. 

While I welcome more attention to this topic, there are additional threats to the livestock sector happening right now that also deserve this Committee’s focus. This administration’s worldwide trade war could hurt our domestic livestock industry.  

We export 30 percent of the pork we produce, and hogs are constantly moving back and forth across our border with Canada. But today, packers are being forced to render hogs that normally would’ve been exported. We haven’t gained new market access to replace the lost Chinese market, which took a hit during the COVID-era supply chain chaos, and then shrank further after China canceled 12,000 metric tons of U.S. pork imports in retaliation against President Trump’s tariffs. 

At the same time, there is an ongoing labor shortage for hog farms and meat processors that is being exacerbated by the administration’s chaotic and volatile mass deportation program. 

The administration is eliminating large portions of the meat-packing workforce, which will affect hog prices when packers can’t operate facilities at full capacity. 

Just the other week, 200 legal workers at a JBS plant in Iowa had their visas revoked and are being deported.  

Congress can work on solutions to revitalize and strengthen the agricultural guestworker program, but common sense needs to prevail. 

I am hopeful that this Prop 12 hearing will give us some new ideas to work with and possibly yield a viable path forward for all of our nation’s hog farmers. I want to thank our witnesses for their testimony today, and I look forward to hearing from them.  

I yield back.