Arizona: Speak Out Against Harmful Pro-Factory Farming Bill
This is about stopping cruelty and abuse. Please read and act.
The factory farming lobby is once again trying to stop animal advocates, concerned citizens and even local governments from having a say when it comes to the treatment of farm animals. S.B. 1373, introduced by Sens. Burns, Aguirre, Arzberger, and Flake, will prohibit city, state and county governments, as well as Arizona citizens from using the initiative process to advance any policy regarding how egg-laying hens are confined on factory farms. Only the Arizona Department of Agriculture will have authority over standards set for millions of animals in the state, preventing any improvements to farm animal protection policy.
If enacted, S.B. 1373 would uphold the factory farming industry’s cruel status quo, ensuring that laying hens continue to be crammed into battery cages inside windowless, ammonia-filled warehouses, where they never see the light of day. In addition to allowing for the continued cruel treatment of hens, S.B. 1373 would prevent any regulation of the egg industry by a county, city, town, or other political subdivision of the state. It would also set a dangerous precedent that, if successful for Arizona’s factory farming industry, is likely to be copied across the nation.
S.B. 1373 is yet another backlash against our recent success in Arizona, where the cruel factory farming practice of confining pigs in gestation crates has been banned. This legislation is a follow up to last year’s SCR 1035, also pushed by Sen. Flake, which sought to nullify the 2005 citizen passed ballot initiative that reformed the factory hog farming industry by banning gestation crates in Arizona. S.B. 1373 seems to be crafted as a preemptive measure to stop the passage of a similar ban on battery cages in the state.
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