June was an eventful month. Just months after successfully defending Prop 12 against challenges from the National Pork Producers Council, a coalition of animal lawyers has won again, this time against the Iowa Pork Producer’s Association. A New York Court ruled that New York City cannot ban foie gras. And to top it off, on June 28, the United States Supreme Court overturned one of its most cited cases in history — a case that, among other things, has been integral to environmental protection. Finally, what does an abortion case have to do with animal law? We offer a quick recap of each opinion.

1. Prop 12 Wins (Again)

If you read this column every month, you’re probably an expert on Prop 12. It’s a welfare law that California voters passed in 2018, and that is in full effect as of January 2024. The law stops companies from selling pork in California if they use gestation crates to confine the pigs slaughtered for this pork (or, more often, the mother pigs).

You may have thought the Prop 12 saga ended when California, supported by a coalition of animal lawyers, successfully defended the law in the United States Supreme Court against the National Pork Producers Council. That case, NPPC v. Ross, was a huge victory, but the unusually splintered Supreme Court opinion — with different justices providing different explanations — left room for some additional challenges, which the Iowa Pork Producers Council tried out in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. As of this month, California has once again defeated the pork industry and defended Prop 12.

2. Court Stops NYC Foie Gras Ban

In 2019, New York City banned the sale of foie gras in city limits. As it happens, two of the only foie gras producers in the United States operate in Sullivan County, New York. So the foie gras producers challenged the NYC law, and this past month a New York Court sided with the producers and struck it down. The Court’s decision is based on a New York statute that prevents local laws from restricting or regulating farm operations in agriculture districts. The Court decided, wrongly in my view, that the City’s foie gras ban impermissibly restricts foie gras production in an agricultural district.

3. Chevron is Dead

Chevron v. NRDC is one of the most cited cases in U.S. Supreme Court History: as of 2014, thirty years after it was decided, 11,760 judicial decisions and 2,130 administrative decisions had cited the case. The U.S. Supreme Court has now done away with it.

Chevron was a case about how to decide cases. Specifically, it said that if an agency used its expertise to interpret a statute,  courts would defer to the agency’s interpretation of the statute. For example, if the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) interpreted the Clean Water Act, courts would, as a default, accept the agency’s understanding of the Clean Water Act. Historically, this was important for environmental regulation: if the EPA enacted regulations to protect the environment, they had a good chance of surviving attacks from industry. After Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, courts will no longer give agencies the benefit of the doubt: they will make decisions for themselves.

4. What Does Abortion Have to Do with Animal Law?

A case about abortion may quietly have been the most important animal law case of this past Supreme Court term. In FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, the Court left in place an FDA regulation that gives women access to mifepristone — the abortion pill. The regulation, to be clear, should remain in place: several years ago, I explained in detail why these regulations would be so important if and when the Court overturned Roe v. Wade. However, the Court did not address the regulation. Instead, it ruled that the doctors who brought the case did not have “standing,” i.e., the right to bring the case in Court because they were not parties who were sufficiently injured by the law. This ruling will make it more challenging for animal rights and environmental organizations to get cases into court.

Being publicly-funded gives us a greater chance to continue providing you with high-quality content.