This week, Congress is voting on a "skinny farm bill" that contains a devastating provision for animals: the Save Our Bacon (SOB) Act. If it passes, it would gut the ability of states across the country to protect farm animals from extreme confinement — and force the cruelest factory farming practices on every American, regardless of what their own state has decided.

Right now, millions of mother pigs are locked in gestation crates so small they cannot turn around, lie down comfortably, or engage in any natural behavior. They spend most of their lives in these metal cages, giving birth and nursing piglets in spaces barely larger than their own bodies. This is not farming — it is industrial cruelty on a massive scale. More than a dozen states, from California to Florida, have said enough. Their voters and legislatures have acted to ban these practices. The SOB Act would erase all of that overnight.

California's Proposition 12, passed by voters in 2018 and upheld all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2023, simply bans the sale of pork produced under conditions of extreme confinement. It is the law of the land — decided democratically, defended legally, and now under attack by a Congress doing the bidding of the pork industry's most powerful lobbying groups.

This is also an environmental and public health issue. Industrial confinement operations are a well-documented source of water contamination, air pollution, and conditions that contribute to the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. States that want to protect their residents from these harms deserve the right to do so. The SOB Act would strip that right away in one vote.

This provision was not debated openly. It was inserted into a farm bill by the House Agriculture Committee at the urging of the National Pork Producers Council and Iowa's congressional delegation — not for the benefit of family farmers or rural communities, but to protect the profit margins of industrial pork producers. A bipartisan group of representatives has introduced an amendment to remove it. We are asking every member of Congress to support that amendment and vote to strip the SOB Act from this bill.

The pork industry has lost this fight in the courts. It should not be allowed to win it in Congress. Vote no on the SOB Act — for the animals, for the states, and for the Americans who have already made their voices heard.