For a legislative package that impacts agriculture, anti-hunger programs, disease control, and more, the federal farm bill does not receive nearly as much attention as it should. This year’s version of the bill has already passed the U.S. House of Representatives, and is now moving through the U.S. Senate.
However, there is a quiet bipartisan fight happening behind the scenes to block a few lines of text that, if passed out of the Senate and signed into law, could forever cripple the right of states to regulate within their own borders. Alabama’s U.S. Senators, Tommy Tuberville and Katie Britt, have a chance to stand for limited government in fighting to block this text.
Section 12006 of the farm bill has been reintroduced in Congress under many names, with the EATS Act and the Save Our Bacon Act being the most well-known. Introduced as a reaction to California’s Proposition 12, a ballot initiative in which the state’s voters passed limited farmed animal welfare provisions related to animal confinement, this language seeks to nullify state bans on cruel farming practices.
While the section could have massive future consequences for farmed animal welfare, undoing decades worth of progress and prohibiting new strides forward, the most obvious immediate outcome is that it would undo bans on the use of crates for pigs. These crates, known as gestation or farrowing crates, are so small that pigs contained within them are never able to turn around. It is a cruel practice that has garnered bipartisan condemnation, has been prohibited or limited in 15 states, and is most commonly used by big corporations, not small farmers (many of whom outright oppose the Section 12006 language).
Section 12006 is absolutely horrible from a farmed animal welfare standpoint, and Americans want welfare standards. A study conducted in 2025 found that 64 percent of Americans found the practice of caging pigs ‘very unacceptable,’ with another 20 percent viewing the practice as ‘somewhat unacceptable.’ Ordinary Americans, whether vegans, meat eaters, or somewhere in between, do not like the practice of keeping farmed animals in tiny cages, especially not when it only benefits corporate factory farms and not small farmers.
That sentiment has generated widespread bipartisan opposition, with plenty of people on the right standing against the inclusion of Section 12006 in the farm bill. Talking about the language in September, U.S. Representative Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) stated: “The EATS Act is a direct attack on America’s family farmers, states’ rights, and our food security…Congress must reject the EATS Act and stand with U.S. farmers.”
Notably, Rep. Luna co-sponsored an amendment to strip the language out of the U.S. House version of the text. It was blocked from coming to the floor for a vote.
However, Section 12006 isn’t just bad from an animal welfare angle. It would open the door for our federal elected officials to block any state regulation that isn’t popular in the current Congress. That is bad news for all of us, regardless of our political views.
Do we want Alabama to be able to pass environmental or water quality protections? How about making decisions about education, public pensions, and transportation within the state? Do we want our state legislators to be able to pass laws focused on guns or abortion?
Section 12006 may start with blocking regulations to protect farmed animals, but it opens a door that ensures the overreach will not end there. A legal pathway for Congress to get involved in state-based decisions will certainly exist. If Senators Britt and Tuberville want to keep federal overreach out of Alabama, they should vote no on any version of the farm bill that contains this text.