Michael Hiltzik: Pork producers are in full squeal over California's farm animal rules. You should tune them out
Major pork producers — a big part of Big Meat, as the livestock industry is often known — have been pulling out the stops recently to eviscerate a California law regulating how they treat pregnant sows.
They've asked the Supreme Court to overturn the state's regulations. (The justices may issue a decision on whether they'll take the case as soon as Monday.)
They've been floating scary predictions about the consequences if the rules stand. These include the complete disappearance of bacon from Californians' breakfast places, and higher prices for uncooked pork products nationwide, not only in California.
Then there's the looming bankruptcy of thousands of mom-and-pop pig farms.
The National Pork Producers Council and American Farm Bureau Federation, the plaintiffs in the lawsuit under consideration by the Supreme Court, portray California's law as an unconstitutional and almost unprecedented attempt by one state to impose its regulatory whim on the rest of the country.
They raise the prospect of platoons of gimlet-eyed inspectors sent out by California to make sure farms in the pork belt of the Midwest and North Carolina are complying with a law conjured up by
