Save Our Pigs! Guest column by Lewis Bollard

The pork lobby is one farm bill away from gutting our strongest farm animal welfare laws

Lewis Bollard heads the Farm Animal Welfare Program at Open Philanthropy.

Lewis Bollard’s ANIMALS 24-7 guest column,  below,  was originally posted to Bollard’s own Substack blog,

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Narrow aim,  wider reach

Last Thursday,  April 30,  2026,  the U.S. House of Representatives passed a farm bill containing the “Save Our Bacon” Act.  The Act’s stated aim is narrow:  to wipe out California and Massachusetts’ bans on the sale of pork from pigs confined in gestation crates.

(See Ridglan Farms beagle purchase: smokescreen for Farm Bill disaster.)

Its reach is much wider.  The Act would stop any state or locality from regulating the sale of meat based on how it is produced in another state.

This would likely invalidate state and local bans on foie gras,  crated veal,  and more.

It would also halt future legislative progress.  Congress has not passed a farm animal welfare law in decades.  State laws are where reforms actually happen.  The SOB Act would gut them by mandating they contain a giant loophole for out-of-state imports.

Two notable exemptions

The Act has two notable exemptions.  One is welcome:  state bans on the sale of caged eggs are not covered.  The other is telling:  state bans on cultivated meat are not covered,  either.  The Act applies only to meat from “any domestic animal raised for the purpose of … slaughter for human consumption,”  plus dairy cows.

The bill now heads to the Senate.  Animal advocates need to win two fights:  keep the SOB Act out of the Senate version of the 2026 Farm Bill,  and keep it out of the reconciled bill that merges the House and Senate versions.  Both fights will be challenging.

So what is going on,  and what can we do about it?

Crate fight

The battle began a quarter century ago, when advocates won a 2002 Florida ballot measure to ban gestation crates.  Over the next decade, advocates won similar bans through ballot measures,  or the threat of them, in eight more states, from California to Maine.

These bans shared a limitation:  they banned crates within the state, but not the sale of pork from pigs crated elsewhere.  Most states that banned the crates didn’t produce much pork, so most pork sold in these states continued to come from crated pigs and their offspring.

That changed in 2016 and 2018,  with Massachusetts’ Question 3 and California’s Proposition 12, which advocates won with 78% and 63% of the vote respectively.  Both banned the sale of most pork from crated sows and their offspring, regardless of where it was produced.

Both laws also defined ‘crate-free’ more rigorously than the industry.  Producers like Smithfield, the country’s largest, define “crate-free” to allow crating sows for 25-40% of their pregnancies. The new laws required sows be crate-free for their full pregnancies and mandated they get more space than is standard in group housing.

“That irked the pork lobby”

That irked the pork industry.  It lobbied Congress to overturn the laws.  It got the polarizing Representative Steve King,  an Iowa Republican who is no longer in Congress,  to slip language doing so into the 2018 farm bill — must-pass legislation that Congress reauthorizes every five years.  It failed.

The pork industry also sued California and Massachusetts — seven times.  One case reached the U.S. Supreme Court,  which in 2023 upheld Proposition 12 in a 5–4 ruling that scrambled conservative/liberal lines.

Unchastened,  the pork industry started lobbying Congress again.

Nine U.S. states have now banned gestation crates,  while two more have banned both the crates and the sale of pork from crated pigs.

That SOB

This time the pork industry found a stronger champion: House Agriculture Committee Chair Glenn Thompson,  a Republican from Pennsylvania.  Thompson wrote the SOB Act into the 2026 Farm Bill and pushed it through committee to a full House vote.

Advocates mounted a major play to amend it out. They lined up a remarkable bipartisan list of sponsors,  from MAGA Republicans like Representative Anna Paulina Luna,  of Florida,  to liberal Democrats like Representative Nancy Pelosi,  of California.

If the amendment had gotten a vote,  we almost certainly would have won — animal advocates had already gotten almost half the House to publicly oppose the SOB Act.

But it never got a vote.  The House Rules Committee,  under heavy lobbying from Representative Thompson,  declined to allow a vote on this amendment — even as it allowed votes on 57 other amendments to the farm bill,  on topics ranging from composting to greyhound racing.

Rushed the bill to the floor

Republican leadership then rushed the bill to the floor.  That put our Republican allies in a tough spot:  to oppose the SOB Act,  they would have had to buck their own leadership and vote down the entire farm bill over a single provision.  Most didn’t.  Only three Republicans voted no,  while 14 Democrats voted yes.

The bill now heads to the Senate.  If the Senate passes its own version of the farm bill — and congressional dysfunction could yet stop it from doing so — the two bills will go to a conference committee or “pre-conference” meeting to be reconciled.  The reconciled bill will then go to U.S. president Donald Trump for his signature.

In October 2025,  200 farmers supportive of California Proposition 12 flew into Washington D.C. to tell politicians that many farmers oppose the SOB Act — and to prove that our side has tractors and American flags too.

The current crate of play

The immediate priority is to keep the SOB Act out of the Senate’s version of the farm bill.  That will largely be decided by Senate Agriculture Committee chair John Boozman,  a Republican from Arkansas,  and ranking member Amy Klobuchar,  a Democrat from Minnesota.

Animal advocates have made real progress here.   Senator Klobuchar has privately told people that committee Democrats will oppose the measure.  Senator Boozman told the San Francisco Chronicle on April 29,  2026 that although he supports nullifying Proposition 12,  he is not sure the SOB Act will make it into the Senate bill,  because of its unpopularity with Democrats.

That is a good start.  But we need to keep the pressure on.  Senator Klobuchar has pointedly refused to publicly oppose the SOB Act.  Asked about it,  her office would only say:  “We look forward to working with Senate Republicans on a bipartisan Farm Bill that can be successful on the Senate floor.”  Not the words of someone fighting on this issue.  That may have something to do with her current run for governor of Minnesota,  the second-largest pork producing state.

“Grandfather” existing state laws?

Senator Boozman,  meanwhile,  floated a compromise last week:  the 2026 Farm Bill could ban any new state laws like Proposition 12,  but grandfather in the laws already existing in California and Massachusetts.  That beats wiping out the existing laws.  But it would still halt most future state legislative progress on farm animal welfare in the United States.

And that’s just the Senate committee.  The bigger fight comes next,  when the House and Senate bills get reconciled.  The main players there will be Senators Boozman and Klobuchar,  plus Representatives Thompson and Angie Craig,  the Democrat from Minnesota who is the ranking member on the House Agriculture Committee.

I am much more worried about this stage.  Asked about SOB Act,  Representative Thompson said he will “fight for that provision” in conference.  It is not clear who will fight back.  Not Senator Boozman,  nor likely Senator Klobuchar right now.  That leaves everything on Representative Craig,  who has spoken out against the SOB Act,  but who will also be the most junior voice in the negotiations.

Make the call

The top priority is to get Senator Klobuchar to make this a redline issue for Democrats — to say they won’t support any farm bill that includes the SOB Act.  She has so far refused.  Moving her requires mobilizing her constituents and getting other Democratic senators to tell her how much this matters to them.

We also need to keep pressure on sympathetic Republicans. Representative Thompson is a lost cause.  But continued Republican opposition could persuade Senator Boozman that keeping the Act in the farm bill isn’t worth the political cost.

We have plenty of bipartisan support to draw on.  On X,  sentiment has been roughly 50:1 in our favor — with prominent conservatives including Laura Ingraham,  Tomi Lahren,  Mike Cernovich,  and Glenn Greenwald,  as well as liberals Nicholas Kristof and Steven Pinker alike speaking out against it.

“Funnel that support”

We need to funnel that support into political pressure.  American readers can call the Senate switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask to be connected to their senators’ offices.  Tell them to oppose any farm bill that includes the SOB Act.  Those feeling motivated can call their local constituent offices too — or, better yet,  drop by in person.  If you donate politically,  your voice carries added weight.

We need to win this fight.  Losing would condemn millions of pigs to a lifetime in crates — and stop states from meaningfully regulating farm animal welfare in the future.  Winning would spare those pigs,  protect states’ ability to regulate,  and signal to the pork industry that the crates have no future.  Let’s make sure of it.

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