At The New York Sun, Caroline McCaughey explains a battle over animal welfare and farm efficiency that is brewing in the Trump administration. The battle pits the HHS Secretary. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) agenda against Ag. Sec. Brook Rollins and her goal to help farmers. McCaughey writes:

An intra-party battle over factory farming is coming to a head in Congress that will test this — and the divisions could derail passage of a new farm bill this fall. On one side is Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and more than 20 Republican members of Congress, mainly from Midwestern states, who are sponsoring the “Save Our Bacon Act,” which would prevent states from setting minimum confinement standards for livestock and from barring the sale of meat from out-of-state farms that do not comply with these rules.

On the other side are a group of Republicans — Congresswomen Anna Paulina Luna and Nancy Mace and Congressmen Byron Donalds and Mike Lawler, to name a few — who say states should have the right to set their own agriculture standards. At least 15 states have passed legislation regulating the use of gestation cages and other forms of tight animal confinement, including California, Massachusetts, Arizona, and Ohio.

More than 200 farmers from across the country and a tractor protest are heading to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to rally against the “Save Our Bacon Act” and any attempts to undermine state agricultural and farm animal welfare laws. One of the organizers, a lobbyist for the American Meat Producers Association, Holly Bice, tells The New York Sun that she expects this will be the largest American farmer protest in recent history. Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle are expected to speak, though Ms. Bice says the government shutdown may complicate plans.

The animal welfare movement is often coded leftwing, but opposition to factory farming and animal testing cuts across partisan lines. By bringing Mr. Kennedy and the MAHA movement into the MAGA fold, President Trump lured traditionally leftwing constituencies like crunchy organic food moms into the Republican Party. Even PETA is praising Mr. Kennedy’s moves to phase out animal testing.

“We rate what RFK Jr. has pledged to do very highly,” the founder of PETA, Ingrid Newkirk, tells the Sun. When asked whether the Trump administration is doing more for animal rights than previous administrations, Ms. Newkirk said, “Yes, on the animal experimentation front.”

Yet while Mr. Kennedy railed against factory farming when he was running for president, Ms. Rollins is the Agriculture Secretary, and she is a friend to Big Ag. At her confirmation hearing, Ms. Rollins assured Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa that she would work to repeal California’s Proposition 12, which prohibits the sale of pork, veal, and eggs from animals kept in tight confinement. The Trump administration sued California in July over Proposition 12, saying the cage-free egg requirement is driving up the cost of eggs nationwide and oversteps federal authority. The suit is pending.

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