BOSTON (Legal Newsline) - Trade groups are challenging Massachusetts' so-called Pork Rules, arguing the delay in their finalization has been unfair to companies hoping to do business in the state.
Plaintiffs include the restaurant associations for Maine, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, as well as the Restaurant Law Center and the National Pork Producers Council. They seek injunctive relief against rules they were told they'd have years to prepare for but were only given weeks.
Those rules seek to protect hogs against being confined to tight quarters.
"(The Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources) has issued official guidance interpreting the Pork Rules to apply to pork that is not even destined for consumption in Massachusetts if it passes through the hands of a Massachusetts distributor," the suit says.
"Thus, in the official opinion of the agency authorized to interpret the Pork Rules, Massachusetts law controls how meat is farmed out-of-state even when it's consumed out-of-state. The Pork Rules place a burden on interstate commerce that is clearly excessive in relation to the putative local benefits."
Voters passed a measure that would create the Pork Rules in November 2016 and give the pork industry until 2022 to comply - two years after a deadline for the state attorney general to finish them.
But AG Maura Healey missed this deadline, and in December 2021 rulemaking authority was given to MDAR. On June 10, it issued rules that said breeding pigs must always be able to turn around without touching the side of its enclosure or another animal, to go into effect in August.
"So instead of two years, the pork industry has been given roughly eight weeks to adapt," the suit says.
The rules were amended to apply to all pigs harvested, instead of born, after the Aug. 15 effective date. They apply to distributors in the state who sell to out-of-state companies, too.
The lawsuit says the rules are in direct conflict with the laws of other states and the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution.