There is an old joke about California being like an 800-pound gorilla in the room — it sits where it wants. Because of its geographic size and resources, massive population of more than 39 million, and sheer scale of its markets and industries, California wields a tremendous amount of clout over laws and policies in other states. While America’s founders recognized this potential threat and built safeguards into the U.S. Constitution, those protections are only as good as the court system that rules on related cases.
California Ag Laws Impact Food Production Throughout America
California’s policies can, and do, exert excessive control on agriculture across the nation. Two examples from the past several years are Propositions 2 and 12. Proposition 2 imposed rules on the size and type of housing in which egg-laying hens could reside. Starting on January 1, 2018, all eggs sold in California were required to be produced by cage-free hens, or hens housed in so-called “enriched cages.” Eggs from hens residing outdoors – subject to disease, predators, weather, and other threats – — are exempt.
Similarly, California’s Proposition 12 focused on the size of confinement areas for sows producing pigs for food, prohibiting the sale of pork produced by facilities — even in other states — not approved by California’s animal extremist, vegan-agenda-based standards. Effective January 1, 2024, all pork sold in California must be produced according to California law. Californians account for 13% of the nation’s pork consumption, yet import 99.87% of pork consumed in that state.
Both Proposition 2 and 12 were challenged in court by other states, the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC), American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF), and supporting organizations such as Protect The Harvest. However, due to court decisions such as the one in spring 2023 by the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS), California’s unscientific, fact-lacking, unproven standards were enacted. The result was significantly increased production costs across the nation and corresponding higher prices for consumers, fueling food inflation and greater food insecurity for more Americans.
Ironically, neither proposition resulted in improved animal welfare because existing animal husbandry practices developed over many decades were already in place. What California’s ill-conceived regulations succeeded in doing has driven many smaller producers out of business.
Attack on Efficient Transportation of Consumer Products
Even more concerning is California’s current war against transportation using fossil fuels, born from the environmental extremist movement and its crusade to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. CO2 makes up only 0.04% of the atmosphere, and yet the idea of more CO2 is being wielded as a weapon against the American way of life. The transportation sector is the primary target. Scientifically, CO2 is necessary to generate oxygen through green vegetation in a process known as photosynthesis. Sadly, such basic science is usually ignored by the climate change, anti-fossil fuel, misinformation/disinformation crowd associated with the environmental industrial complex.
Since 2020, California has passed numerous laws affecting every facet of public and private transportation. By 2035, California will require all new cars, trucks, and SUVs sold in the state to run on electricity or (unproven) hydrogen, and have the state’s entire commercial transport system comprised of zero-emissions vehicles by 2045.
In April 2023, California legislators passed Advanced Clean Fleets (ACF). Three types of fleet operators are affected:
- High-priority fleets, which are defined as fleets with more than 50 trucks or that are owned by private companies earning $50 million or more annually;
- Drayage truck fleets, which operate at California ports or intermodal rail yards;
- Public fleets, such as state and local government agencies that own, lease, or operate medium and heavy-duty trucks.
ACF governs the availability of, and access to, every consumer vehicle on the market, as well as the availability and efficiency of public services. This demonstrates the green movement’s influence and its demand that citizens sacrifice their food security, freedom of choice, and overall quality of life on the altar of environmentalism.
Multiple lawsuits have been filed against the ACF. The most recent, filed in May 2024, includes 17 states and several private groups as plaintiffs. The lawsuit states:
“In a stunning gambit that both violates the (U.S.) Constitution and threatens our nation’s economic security, an agency of the state of California (California Air Resources Board – CARB) has attempted to override federal law and arrogate to itself the power to ban internal-combustion engines in medium- and heavy-duty vehicles,” the lawsuit states. “This attempted ban contravenes controlling law while defying real-world reality and burdening American families and businesses, already suffering from high inflation, with even more costs.”
Gentry Collins, CEO of American Free Enterprise Chamber of Commerce, commonly known as AmFree, stated:
“The ability to move people and products reliably and affordably is foundational to free enterprise and a functioning marketplace that serves American consumers…The attempt currently underway by the state of California to ban liquid fuels and internal combustion engines is a major threat to the American way of life and terrible climate policy to boot.”
Eliminating Commercial Transportation Emissions Would Hamstring America’s Supply Chain
California’s looming stranglehold on the United States’ supply chain is dire as diesel-electric locomotives used for transporting the world’s commerce, as well as U.S. freight, are also being targeted. CARB is behind the In-Use Locomotive Regulation that would ban locomotives older than 23 years old beginning in 2030, forcing railroads to allocate nearly $1 billion per year toward the implementation of zero-emissions locomotives and other equipment used in California. The rules also require switching, industrial, and passenger locomotives to be zero-emissions by 2030 and freight line-haul locomotives to be emissions-free by 2035.
These requirements would effectively sever one of the most vital and efficient arteries in the American supply chain. The railroad system in the United States delivers more than 30 million carloads of freight annually, and railroads are three to four times more fuel-efficient than trucks. One freight train can haul the equivalent of several hundred trucks. Additionally, the nation’s largest port district (Los Angeles/Long Beach) is reliant on cargo ships, trucks, and trains that currently use fossil fuel.
Ignoring reality, CARB does not acknowledge or care that zero-emission, commercially viable locomotives do not exist, and the technology to create a fleet of thousands of zero-emission locomotives, while being tested, is still years, if not decades, away from commercialization. Not even the largest batteries can provide sufficient energy output to move millions of tons of freight. BNSF Railway, the largest in the U.S., tested a battery-powered locomotive between Barstow and Stockton, California, a few years ago as a demonstration project. Lifting thousands of tons of freight on each train over the Tehachapi Mountain range proved a challenge.
Because of the vital role of California’s ports and the manner in which railroads interchange railcars, and often entire trains, to each other in a complex logistics and transport system, the In-Use Locomotive Regulation would have widespread and drastic consequences on commerce, free enterprise, the economy, America’s competitiveness, and the overall cost of goods to consumers.
It is especially troubling to view the big picture and note that every technological development that has advanced mankind is on the verge of being destroyed for the sake of the globalist, environmental extremist agenda.
Various iterations of environmentalist Chicken Little “the sky is falling” rhetoric, such as the CO2 emissions ruse, have been propagated by a complicit, lazy, ignorant mainstream media, with a goal of instilling fear and controlling the population.
At Protect The Harvest, we promote and defend A Free and Fed America™. We urge Americans to learn about important topics that impact food security and American agriculture. Educate yourself on your rights concerning property, hunting, fishing, farming, ranching, and liberties granted by our nation’s founding documents. November 5, 2024, presents one of the most important, if not THE most important, elections in the nation’s 248-year history. It is our opportunity to make our votes count for America’s true principles, values, and future generations.
Food for thought:
More about energy and food security HERE
More about railroads’ impact on food security HERE
More information on California policies’ overreaching effects HERE and HERE
