Pork Lobbyist Helping Lead “Nonpartisan” Group Working Against State Animal Welfare Laws

In March, a letter to the editor appeared in the Los Angeles Times imploring Congress to take action against a California law that requires farmers provide hogs, calves and chickens with enough room to turn around, lie down and stretch. A chief problem with the law, according to the letter, is that it applies to animals raised in other states if products from those animals are sold into California.

“In the United States, states’ rights end where national markets begin,” wrote the author, Andy Curliss, listed as chairman of the Carver Center for Agriculture & Nutrition, which bills itself as a “nonprofit, nonpartisan, research-driven initiative.”

A month later, a similar letter from Curliss was published in the Boston Herald taking aim at a similar law in Massachusetts and stating “American food production is a national enterprise.”