Triumph Foods Brief - As Filed

Case: 24-1759 Document: 00118195269 Page: 1 Date Filed: 09/27/2024 Entry ID: 6670581
No. 24-1759
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT
Triumph Foods, LLC, et al.,

Plaintiffs-Appellants,
v.
Andrea Joy Campbell, et al.,
Defendants-Appellees
Appeal from the United States District Court

for Massachusetts, No. 1:23-cv-11671-WGY
BRIEF OF IOWA, ALABAMA, ARKANSAS, GEORGIA,
LOUISIANA, KANSAS, KENTUCKY, MISSOURI,
MISSISSIPPI, MONTANA, NEBRASKA, NORTH DAKOTA,
NEW HAMPSHIRE, OHIO, OKLAHOMA, SOUTH
CAROLINA, SOUTH DAKOTA, TEXAS, UTAH, VIRGINIA,
WEST VIRGINIA, AND WYOMING AS AMICI CURIAE IN
SUPPORT OF APPELLANT AND REVERSAL
BRENNA BIRD ERIC WESSAN

Attorney General of Iowa Solicitor General
1305 E. Walnut Street
Des Moines, Iowa 50319
September 27, 2024 (515) 281-5164
(515) 281-4209 (fax)
eric.wessan@ag.iowa.gov
Counsel for Amicus Iowa Attorney General’s Office
(Additional counsel listed after signature block)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION & INTERESTS OF THE AMICI CURIAE ........ 1
ARGUMENT .................................................................................... 4
I. Question 3 Sets of the Stage for States’ Racing to the Bottom.4
II. Question 3 Will Harm Agricultural States and Consumers. ... 9
III. Question 3 Violates the Constitution. ..................................... 15
CONCLUSION ............................................................................... 18
CERTIFICATE OF COMPLIANCE ............................................... 19
CERTIFICATE OF FILING AND SERVICE ................................ 20
ii
TABLE OF AUTHORITIES
Cases
Brown v. Maryland,
12 Wheat. 419 (1827) ............................................................................ 16
Camps Newfound/Owatonna, Inc. v. Town of Harrison,
520 U.S. 564 (1997)............................................................................... 16
Carroll v. Lanza,
349 U.S. 408 (1955)............................................................................... 17
Comptroller of Treasury of Md. V. Wynne,
575 U.S. 542 (2015)............................................................................... 16
CTS Corp. v. Dynamics Corp. of Am.,
481 U.S. 69 (1987) ................................................................................ 10
Nat’l Pork Producers Council v. Ross,
598 U.S. 356 (2023)....................................................................... 4, 9, 13
Woodruff v. Parham,
75 U.S. 123 (1869) ................................................................................ 16
Statutes
Mass. Gen. Laws Ch. 129 App., § 1–5 ................................................. 2, 18
Other Authorities
2020 Iowa Pork Industry Report (May 2020)...................................... 3, 11

Barry K. Goodwin, California’s Proposition 12and its Impacts on the
Pork Industry (May 13, 2021)................................................................. 5
Brian Deese, Addressing Concentration inthe Meat-Processing Industry
to Lower Food Prices for American Families,The White House (Sept. 8,
2021)........................................................................................................ 7
Chris Lisinski, New Mass. Law on Pork SalesTakes Effect This Month
(Aug. 8, 2023), NBCBOSTON ................................................................. 11
Elizabeth R. Rumley, States’ Farm Animal Confinement Statutes, Nat’l
Agric. Law Ctr. ..................................................................................... 18
Equal Citizens of Equal and Territorial States: The Constitutional
Foundations of Choice of Law,
92 Colum. L. Rev. 249 (1992) ............................................................... 17
Erica Shaffer, Rabobank: California’s Prop 12 a Call to Lead on Animal
iii
Welfare, Meat+Poultry (2021) ................................................................ 4

Jennifer Shike, Here’s a Look at Pork Price Spreads, PORK BUSINESS
(May 15, 2023) ........................................................................................ 7
Robert G. Natelson, What the Constitution Means by “Duties, Imposts,
and Excises”—and “Taxes” (Direct or Otherwise), 66 Case W. Rev. 297,
320 (2015) ............................................................................................. 16
State Extraterritorial Powers Reconsidered, 85 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1133
(2010) .................................................................................................... 17
The Editorial Board, Massachusetts Want Your Bacon, WALL STREET
JOURNAL, (Aug. 10,2022) ........................................................................ 7
iv
INTRODUCTION & INTERESTS OF THE AMICI CURIAE
Suppose Iowa voters began to worry about overfishing and the
inhumane harvesting of Atlantic shellfish. So the Iowa Legislature
passes a law about how lobsters, claims, and steamers must be harvested
to be lawfully sold in the State. For example, lobsters must be able to
comfortably turn around and lay down in the lobster cages that capture
them. Perhaps the Atlantic fishermen think that the rules are
unworkable and would dramatically raise the cost of otherwise ethical
fishing. Iowa neither employs nor consults experts within the field—the
Atlantic fishing community in Iowa is simply not that large. And so,
without fishermen to raise their concerns with local legislators or voters,
this new hypothetical law is enacted—and applies equally to all lobster
fisherman in the Atlantic and in the Mississippi.
While that law equally affects Atlantic fishermen across the
country, it likely would impose greater compliance costs on States that
have a more meaningfully sized shell-fishing industry than Iowa. Even
more so if other Midwestern states joined the ethical crusade. And
imagine the harm if fresh—but noncompliant—Maine and
Massachusetts lobsters could not even transit through those Midwestern
1
States.
That is no different from the current approach of some States that
do not raise hogs trying to impose unworkable restrictions in States that
do. And while consumers in the regulating States will pay higher prices
as a result, the economic implications are far greater—and more
troubling.
The States of Iowa, Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana,
Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North
Dakota, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South
Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming submit this
brief supporting Plaintiffs. See Circuit Rule 29(a)(2). Because that is
what Massachusetts is doing here—imposing a detrimental and overly
burdensome regulatory scheme on the almost entirely out-of-
Massachusetts pig farmers and pork processors in their respective
States.
One part of Question 3, the Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act,
governs “farm owner[s and] operators within the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts.” Mass. Gen. Laws Ch. 129 App., § 1–2. But Question 3
also makes it unlawful for a business to sell within Massachusetts
2
“any . . . [w]hole pork meat that the business owner or operator knows or
should know is the meat of a covered animal [or]of the immediate
offspring of a covered animal” if the covered animal was “confined in a
cruel manner,” as defined by the Question. Id. § 1–3. “Whole pork meat”
includes uncooked pork, like bacon, ham, roast, and brisket. Id. § 1–5.
On its face, Question 3 appears only to regulate sales of pork that
occur in Massachusetts. But its reach is much broader. Question 3’s
application and accompanying regulations will deny market access to
out-of-state pork farmers and processors unless their farming practices
comply with Massachusetts’s dictates.
Question 3’s broad sweep will harm agricultural states. Iowa, for
example, is the top pork-producing and -exporting state in the United
States. 2020 Iowa Pork Industry Report 7 (May 2020), available at
https://perma.cc/3DFZ-SV5N. The pork industry employs more than
147,000 Iowans and contributes billions of dollars annually to Iowa’s
economy. Id.
Beyond Iowa, hog farmers are critical to many States’ economies.
Massachusetts Question 3 will disrupt the pork industry by imposing
stringent requirements inconsistent with industry practices on hog
3
farmers and pork processors across the country. Those mandates will
substantially burden the interstate pork market and increase the price
of pork for all Americans. For these reasons, these States have a critical
interest in the outcome of this litigation—which should be decided for
Plaintiffs.
ARGUMENT
I. Question 3 Will Harm Agricultural States and

Consumers.
Question 3 will force out-of-state farmers to face enormous
compliance costs. Economic studies conducted on California’s less
onerous law, Proposition 12, are instructive. Those studies estimated
that complying will cost hog producers in the United States between $294
million and $348 million. Brief of Iowa Pork Producers Ass’n, et al. as
Amici Curiae, p. 17, Nat’l Pork Producers Council, 598 U.S. 356.
To contextualize those numbers, an “average barn might cost
$1,600 to USD 2,500 per sow, or $3 million to $4.5m million in total.”
Erica Shaffer, Rabobank: California’s Prop 12 a Call to Lead on Animal
Welfare, MEAT+POULTRY (2021), https://perma.cc/TUZ5-SX5V. But
Proposition 12 will raise those costs to “average[e] as much as $3,400 per
sow.” Id. That potential doubling of cost for farmers will put some out of
4
business and will dramatically raise costs for consumers. And it stems
from law changes like Question 3’s “elevated building costs.” See id.
Small, independent hog farmers will be hardest hit. Most pig
farmers operate independent farms with 52,964 independent pig farms
holding 25.6 million pigs in inventory, according to the 2022 Agricultural
Census. Nat’l Agric. Stat. Serv., 2022 Census of Agriculture: U.S. Nat’l
Level Data, Table 23, https://perma.cc/M3FE-KJA9. Of those farms,
about 90 percent had fewer than 100 pigs in inventory. Id.
Question 3 will disproportionately affect small farmers because
they generally have “a lower return to investments and therefore will
likely realize less favorable terms of credit,” and “will be the least able to
undertake the changes that would make facilities comfortable.” Barry K.
Goodwin, California’s Proposition 12 and its Impacts on the Pork
Industry (May 13, 2021), at 8–9. Question 3 thus places an added burden
on an already contracting segment of the industry: The number of
independent farms with herds of fewer than 100 pigs already had
dropped by about 9 percent between 2017 and 2022. Compare Nat’l Agric.
Stat. Serv., 2022 Census of Agriculture: U.S. Nat’l Level Data, Table 23
and Nat’l Agric. Stat. Serv., 2017 Census of Agriculture: U.S. Nat’l Level
5
Data, Table 23, https://perma.cc/D3TY-62EJ. Costly regulations could
“hasten the concentration of the hog Industry, with smaller farmers
exiting the sector, leaving a US hog industry that has fewer but larger
farms.” Goodwin, at 10.
Indeed, the problem is not isolated to Massachusetts. The potential
financial effect on farmers will increase if other States impose similar
unworkable regulations with their own idiosyncrasies inconsistent with
those in Massachusetts. For example, farmers in Iowa could invest
millions of dollars to remodel their hog farms to comply with
Massachusetts’s requirements only to find New York enacting a law
imposing larger housing requirements per pig. See Brief of Iowa Pork
Producers Ass’n, et al. as Amici Curiae, p. 17. Even worse—what if States
impose conflicting requirements. How many States must hog farmers
comply with? Do they have to choose if each State without a meaningful
pork industry imposes seemingly neutral but mutually exclusive and
unworkable regulations? There is a real risk of forcing those farmers to
continuously “invest millions of dollars in capital expenditures” to
“comply with everchanging standards that other states choose.” Id. at 18.
While Question 3 is expensive, non-compliance may cost the pork
6
industry more. If farmers and pork processors do not adjust to the new
rules, they may be shut out of New England entirely. Massachusetts
wants to impose its new requirements on any pork transiting through the
State. Because Massachusetts “is [the] distribution hub for Vermont,
New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Maine,” Question 3 “could affect the
production and sale of pork across a broad swath of the country.” The
Editorial Board, Massachusetts Want Your Bacon, WALL STREET
JOURNAL, (Aug. 10, 2022), https://perma.cc/9HR8-9KDQ.
Moreover, hog farmers are not necessarily those who will be hardest
hit. The increased costs on pig farmers and pork processors will make
American consumers squeal about higher pork prices. Pork prices are
already high enough. In 2021, pork prices rose 12.1 percent from the
previous year. Brian Deese, Addressing Concentration in the Meat-
Processing Industry to Lower Food Prices for American Families, The
White House (Sept. 8, 2021), https://perma.cc/AJ7F-XFAA. And in
October 2022, pork prices hit a record level of $5.05 per pound. Jennifer
Shike, Here’s a Look at Pork Price Spreads, PORK BUSINESS (May 15,
2023), https://perma.cc/N23H-CA5H.
Costly regulations are not helping. Indeed, early data on
7
California’s Proposition 12 already shows that consumers are seeing
higher pork prices at the grocery store. Three USDA economists analyzed
preliminary retail scanner data and found that pork prices in California
rose 20 percent on average since July 1, 2023, when the state began
implementing the new regulations. See Hannah Hawkins, Shawn Arita,
and Seth Meyer, Proposition 12 Pork Retail Price Impacts on California
Consumers, University of Calif. Giannini Found. of Agric. Econ., ARE
Update 27(3), 5–8 (2024), available at https://perma.cc/Z8ET-D4Q4. The
price of some pork products increased even more with the price of pork
loins rising by more than 40 percent. Id. This means California
consumers are paying an extra $1.04 per pound for bacon, $0.54 per
pound more for ribs, and an additional $1.42 per pound for pork loin—
the three most-purchased pork products by California consumers. Id.
These price increases continued even after the regulations were fully
implemented on January 1, 2024. Massachusetts’s out-of-touch
regulations will only continue to inflate prices.
High pork prices will disproportionately impact low-income
households. Laws like Question 3 and Proposition 12 may “lead to a
decline in the number of options” and “make certain pork products too
8
expensive for lower-income people.” Alicia Wallace, Pork Is Already Super
Expensive. This New Animal-Welfare Law Could Push Prices Higher,
CNN BUSINESS (Oct. 17, 2021), https://perma.cc/42YJ-CF7J. That shift
will hurt the pocketbooks of folks who have long relied on pork as a low-
cost, high protein option for feeding their families.
Question 3 also jeopardizes Americans’ health and safety. Scientific
literature suggests that animal-confinement regulations, like those
mandated by Question 3, could worsen animal health and welfare and
risk standardized sanitary practices. For example, housing hogs in larger
spaces may increase the risk of disease transmission. Those bigger
confines mean that pigs are more likely to come into nose-to-nose contact
and share water and feeding systems. See Brief for American Association
of Swine Veterinarians as Amicus Curiae, p. 4–19, Nat’l Pork Producers
Council, 598 U.S. 356. Unfortunately, Question 3 leads to real risks to
human health.
II. Question 3 Sets the Stage for States’ Racing to the

Bottom.
The Framers’ “central concern . . . for calling the Constitutional
Convention” was “the conviction that in order to succeed, the new Union
would have the avoid the tendencies toward economic Balkanization that
9
had plagued relations among the colonies and later among the States
under the Articles of Confederation.” Hughes v. Oklahoma, 441 U.S. 322,
325–26 (1979). “One of the major defects of the Articles of
Confederation . . . was the fact that the Articles essentially left the
individual States free to burden commerce both among themselves and
with foreign countries very much as they pleased.” Michelin Tire Corp. v.
Wages, 423 U.S. 276, 283 (1976).
Yet, Question 3—and ballot initiatives like it—reinvigorate those
isolationist tendencies to undermine the economic union the Framers
created. “The entire Constitution was framed upon the theory that the
peoples of the several states must sink of swim together, and that in the
long run, prosperity and salvation are in union not division.” Healy v.
Beer Inst., Inc., 491 U/S/ 324, 336 n.12 (1989) (quoting Baldwin v. G.A.F.
Seelig, Inc., 294 U.S. 511, 523 (1935)).
Question 3 sews this division in multiple ways:
First, Question 3, creates a “risk of inconsistent regulation by
different States.” CTS Corp. v. Dynamics Corp. of Am., 481 U.S. 69, 89
(1987). Here, Massachusetts’s requirements for pig farms and pork
processors deviate from lawful industry practices across the country.
10
Massachusetts itself has few hog farmers or pork producers—most live
elsewhere. That means, in effect, that the State is regulating a market in
which it lacks expertise and economic stake.
Iowa, for example, produces a lot of pork. In 2020, the pork industry
contributed $40.8 billion in output, and more than 147,000 jobs to Iowa’s
economy. 2020 Iowa Pork Industry Report, at 7. Hogs generated $893
million in state and local taxes and $1.3 billion in federal taxes. Id. That
same year, Iowa had more than 5,400 pig farms and housed nearly one
third (over 24 million) of the nation’s hogs. Id.
Contrast Iowa with Massachusetts, which purchases nearly all
pork sold in within its borders from other states. Chris Lisinski, New
Mass. Law on Pork Sales Takes Effect This Month (Aug. 8, 2023), NBC
BOSTON, https://perma.cc/24J7-NE2M. Its residents annually consume
396 million pounds of pork but produce only 1.9 million pounds in state.
Thus, Massachusetts produces less than one-half of one percent of the
pork it eats. Id. Yet Question 3 directs pork-producing States to
reorganize their industries based on the so-called “moral” sensibilities of
its voters—the equivalent of Iowa, a land-locked state, passing a law on
the “humane” harvesting of shellfish.
11
This moral imposition comes at a cost and will affect every link on
the supply chain. As occurred in California after Proposition 12, to
continue selling pork products in New England, “U.S. grocery retailers,
meat wholesalers, and pork processors will need to split the pork supply
chain into two separate classes of product; 1) pork products that are
compliant with [Massachusetts’s Question 3] and destined only for that
market, and 2) traditional pork products that make no claims about
compliance.” Goodwin, at 3. Those tiers will create artificial scarcity and
skyrocketing prices in New England, while creating an artificial glut and
price collapse in other markets. Id. at 3–40. This market segmentation
directly undermines the “maintenance of a national economic union
unfettered by state-imposed limitations on interstate commerce” that the
Framers sought to create. See Healy, 491 U.S. at 335–36 n.12.
Second, upholding Question 3 could drag other States into a
regulatory “race to the bottom” that extends beyond just pork. As Justice
Cardozo once warned, allowing one State to project its regulation into
another would mean “the door had been opened to rivalries and reprisals
that were meant to be averted by subjecting commerce between the states
to the power of the nation.” Baldwin, 294 U.S. at 522.
12
For example, imagine Washington—the State with the highest
minimum wage—refusing to allow sale of products from States with a
lower minimum wage. Or imagine a State prohibiting “the retail sale of
goods from producers that do not pay for employees’ birth control or
abortions.” Brief of Indiana and 25 Other States as Amici Curiae, p. 33,
Nat’l Pork Producers Council v. Ross, 598 U.S. 356 (2023). Upholding
Question 3 invites States to upend national markets based on “flavor of
the day” policy preferences and so “effectively force other States to
regulate in accordance with those idiosyncratic state demands.” Nat’l
Pork Producers Council, 598 U.S. at 407 (Kavanaugh, J., concurring in
part and dissenting in part).
State appeals to health and economic welfare are not a justification.
“To give entrance to that excuse would be to invite a speedy end to our
national solidarity.” Baldwin, 267 U.S. at 523.
Indeed, State efforts to exert unilateral control over large sectors of
the national economy are increasingly common. For example, in the field
of energy regulation, Oregon and California regulate greenhouse gas
emissions along the electricity supply chain leading to those states. Cal.
Code. Regs. Tit. 17, § 95481; Or. Admin. R. 340-253-0040; see also James
13
W. Coleman, Importing Energy, Exporting Regulation, 83 Fordham L.
Rev. 1357 (2014). Meanwhile, Colorado regulates the renewable energy
portfolios of power companies selling electricity for the State’s use. Colo.
Rev. Stat. § 40-2-124. Law and ballot initiatives like Question 3 thus
invite States to revert to a time when “each state would legislate
according to its estimate of its own interests, the importance of its own
products, and the local advantages or disadvantages of its position in a
political or commercial view.” H.P. Hood & Sons, Inc. v. Du Mond, 336
U.S. 525, 533 (1949) (internal quotation omitted).
Third, “California’s low-carbon fuel standard demonstrates how
even well-intentioned regulation presents a temptation toward
protectionism.” Coleman, 83 Fordham L. Rev. at 1386. During its
implementation, California altered the standard to break ethanol into
two geographic categories, “California” and “Midwest,” assigning a
higher carbon intensity score to Midwest ethanol compared to ethanol
produced the same way in California. Id. at 1386–87.
State policy “experiments” like Question 3 are “fertile grounds for
protectionist measures that would at best forfeit the efficiency and
reliability benefits of integrated . . . markets, and at worst, could ignite
14
state-to-state and even international trade wars.” Id. at 1399.
III. Question 3 Violates the Constitution.
Beyond the Commerce Clause, laws like Question 3 may also
implicate other constitutional provisions like the Import-Export Clause
and the Full Faith and Credit Clause. See Nat’l Pork Producers Council,
598 U.S. at 408 (Kavanaugh, J., concurring in part and dissenting in
part).
Under the Import-Export Clause, “No State shall, without the
Consent of Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports,
except what may be absolutely necessary for executing its inspection
laws.” Art. I, § 10, cl. 2. “The Import Export Clause was the principal
remedy proposed by the Philadelphia Convention to remedy the
commercial strife that characterized the relations among the states
under the Articles of Confederation.” Boris I. Bittker & Brannon P.
Denning, The Import Export Clause, 68 Miss. L.J. 521, 521 (1998). In
particular, the Clause was designed to stop the “exploitation of the inland
states by the seaboard states,” which were imposing taxes on arriving
goods destined for other states. Id. at 522.
Recent opinions reveal that the Supreme Court may be ready to
15
apply the Import-Export Clause to interstate commerce, consistent with
that Clause’s original meaning. See Nat’l Pork Producers Council, 598
U.S. at 408 (Kavanaugh, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part);
Comptroller of Treasury of Md. V. Wynne, 575 U.S. 542, 573 (2015)
(Scalia, J., dissenting); Camps Newfound/Owatonna, Inc. v. Town of
Harrison, 520 U.S. 564, 621–637 (1997) (Thomas, J., dissenting); Brown
v. Maryland, 12 Wheat. 419, 438−439, 449 (1827); but see Woodruff v.
Parham, 75 U.S. 123 (1869) (limiting the Import-Expert Clause to foreign
trade). Indeed, “not all duties were taxes: Some were imposed not for
revenue but merely to regulate (or effectively prohibit) trade in particular
articles.” Robert G. Natelson, What the Constitution Means by “Duties,
Imposts, and Excises”—and “Taxes” (Direct or Otherwise), 66 Case W.
Rev. 297, 320 (2015).
Justices Scalia and Thomas have explained that the Import-Export
Clause prevents States “from imposing certain especially burdensome”
taxes and duties on imports from other States and not just from foreign
countries. Wynne, 575 U.S. at 573.
Here, Question 3 conditions the sale of pork on “the use of preferred
farming, manufacturing, or production practices in another State” where
16
the pork originated. Nat’l Pork Producers Council, 598 U.S. at 408
(Kavanaugh, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). That conflicts
with the Import-Export Clause’s original meaning and warrants
reconsideration. See id.
Question 3 also violates the Full Faith and Credit Clause, which
requires each State to afford “Full Faith and Credit” to the “public Acts”
of “every other State.” Art. IV, § 1. That Clause prevents States from
“adopting any policy of hostility to the public Acts” of another State.
Carroll v. Lanza, 349 U.S. 408, 413 (1955). According to Justice
Kavanaugh, “[a] State’s effort to regulate farming, manufacturing, and
production practices in another State (in a manner different from how
that other State’s laws regulate those practices) could in some
circumstances raise questions under that Clause.” Nat’l Pork Producers
Council, 598 U.S. at 408 (Kavanaugh, J., concurring in part and
dissenting in part); see also Mark D. Rosen, State Extraterritorial Powers
Reconsidered, 85 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1133, 115 (2010); Douglas Laycock,
Equal Citizens of Equal and Territorial States: The Constitutional
Foundations of Choice of Law, 92 Colum. L. Rev. 249, 290, 296–301
(1992). While the Full Faith and Credit Clause does not have so broad a
17
scope as to encompass any law that has extraterritorial effect, the Full
Faith and Credit Clause is implicated when an agricultural regulation
conflicts with another State’s laws about how pork may be produced in
that State.
Massachusetts creates the precise scenario about which Justice
Kavanaugh warns. Question 3 regulates pork production in States, like
Iowa, in a manner different from how those States regulate pork
production. See Elizabeth R. Rumley, States’ Farm Animal Confinement
Statutes, Nat’l Agric. Law Ctr., https://perma.cc/C9GZ-PZ3U. Indeed,
Question 3 explicitly prohibits certain States from engaging in otherwise
legal practices encouraged by those States’ laws if they want to sell pork
in Massachusetts. Mass. Gen. Laws Ch. 129 App., § 1–3. Thus, the Full
Faith and Credit Clause should preclude Massachusetts from enacting
its regulations that conflict with Iowa’s laws and that of other top pork-
producing states.
CONCLUSION
For all these reasons, amici curiae ask this Court to reverse the
district court and enter an injunction against enforcing Question 3 on
pork farmers and consumers across America.
18
Dated: September 27, 2024 Respectfully submitted,
BRENNA BIRD /s/ Eric H.Wessan

Attorney General of Iowa Eric H. Wessan
Solicitor General
Office of the Attorney
General
305 E Walnut Street, 2nd
Floor
Des Moines, Iowa 50319
(515) 823-9117
eric.wessan@ag.iowa.gov
Counsel for Amicus Curiae

State of Iowa
CERTIFICATE OF COMPLIANCE
I hereby certify that this brief complies with the type-volume
limitation of Fed. R. App. P. 29(a)(5) and Circuit Rules 29 and 32-1
because this brief contains 4,204 words, excluding the parts of the brief
exempted by Fed. R. App. P. 32(f).
Furthermore, this brief complies with the typeface requirements of

Fed. R. App. P. 32(a)(5) and the type-style requirements of Fed. R. App.
P. 32(a)(5) because this brief has been prepared in a proportionally
spaced typeface using Microsoft Word in 14-point Century Schoolbook

font.
Dated: September 27, 2024
/s/ Eric H. Wessan
Solicitor General
19
CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE
I certify that on September 27, 2024, I electronically filed the
foregoing with the Clerk of the Court using the CM/ECF system, which
automatically sends email notification of such filing to registered
participants. Any other counsel of record will receive the foregoing via
email in PDF format.
/s/ Eric Wessan

Eric Wessan
20
Counsel for Additional Amici States
STEVE MARSHALL JOHN FORMELLA

Alabama Attorney General New Hampshire Attorney
General
TIM GRIFFIN
Arkansas Attorney General DAVE YOST
Ohio Attorney General
CHRIS CARR
Georgia Attorney General GENTNER DRUMMOND
Oklahoma Attorney General
LIZ MURRILL
Louisiana Attorney General ALAN WILSON
South Carolina Attorney General
KRIS KOBACH
Kansas Attorney General MARTY JACKLEY
South Dakota Attorney General
RUSSELL COLEMAN
Kentucky Attorney General KEN PAXTON
Texas Attorney General
LYNN FITCH
Mississippi Attorney General JASON S. MIYARES
Attorney General of Virginia
ANDREW T. BAILEY
Missouri Attorney General SEAN D. REYES
Utah Attorney General
AUSTIN KNUDSEN
Montana Attorney General PATRICK MORRISEY
West Virginia Attorney General
MICHAEL T. HILGERS
Nebraska Attorney General BRIDGET HILL
Wyoming Attorney General
DREW WRIGLEY
North Dakota Attorney General
21

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Case: 24-1759 Document: 00118195269 Page: 1 Date Filed: 09/27/2024 Entry ID: 6670581

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

Triumph Foods, LLC, et al.,

Appeal from the United States District Court

BRENNA BIRD ERIC WESSAN

INTRODUCTION & INTERESTS OF THE AMICI CURIAE ........ 1

I. Question 3 Sets of the Stage for States’ Racing to the Bottom.4

II. Question 3 Will Harm Agricultural States and Consumers. ... 9

III. Question 3 Violates the Constitution. ..................................... 15

CERTIFICATE OF COMPLIANCE ............................................... 19

CERTIFICATE OF FILING AND SERVICE ................................ 20

Mass. Gen. Laws Ch. 129 App., § 1–5 ................................................. 2, 18

2020 Iowa Pork Industry Report (May 2020)...................................... 3, 11

Welfare, Meat+Poultry (2021) ................................................................ 4

INTRODUCTION & INTERESTS OF THE AMICI CURIAE

Suppose Iowa voters began to worry about overfishing and the

inhumane harvesting of Atlantic shellfish. So the Iowa Legislature

to be lawfully sold in the State. For example, lobsters must be able to

unworkable and would dramatically raise the cost of otherwise ethical

without fishermen to raise their concerns with local legislators or voters,

this new hypothetical law is enacted—and applies equally to all lobster

fisherman in the Atlantic and in the Mississippi.

While that law equally affects Atlantic fishermen across the

country, it likely would impose greater compliance costs on States that

have a more meaningfully sized shell-fishing industry than Iowa. Even

more so if other Midwestern states joined the ethical crusade. And

imagine the harm if fresh—but noncompliant—Maine and

Massachusetts lobsters could not even transit through those Midwestern

That is no different from the current approach of some States that

do not raise hogs trying to impose unworkable restrictions in States that

as a result, the economic implications are far greater—and more

The States of Iowa, Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana,

Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North

Dakota, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South

brief supporting Plaintiffs. See Circuit Rule 29(a)(2). Because that is

what Massachusetts is doing here—imposing a detrimental and overly

burdensome regulatory scheme on the almost entirely out-of-

Massachusetts pig farmers and pork processors in their respective

One part of Question 3, the Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act,

governs “farm owner[s and] operators within the Commonwealth of

also makes it unlawful for a business to sell within Massachusetts

should know is the meat of a covered animal [or]of the immediate

offspring of a covered animal” if the covered animal was “confined in a

On its face, Question 3 appears only to regulate sales of pork that

occur in Massachusetts. But its reach is much broader. Question 3’s

application and accompanying regulations will deny market access to

out-of-state pork farmers and processors unless their farming practices

comply with Massachusetts’s dictates.

example, is the top pork-producing and -exporting state in the United

States. 2020 Iowa Pork Industry Report 7 (May 2020), available at

https://perma.cc/3DFZ-SV5N. The pork industry employs more than

147,000 Iowans and contributes billions of dollars annually to Iowa’s

Beyond Iowa, hog farmers are critical to many States’ economies.

Massachusetts Question 3 will disrupt the pork industry by imposing

stringent requirements inconsistent with industry practices on hog

interest in the outcome of this litigation—which should be decided for

I. Question 3 Will Harm Agricultural States and

Question 3 will force out-of-state farmers to face enormous

compliance costs. Economic studies conducted on California’s less

onerous law, Proposition 12, are instructive. Those studies estimated