(Beth Clifton collage)
Pam Bondi defended Florida pig welfare law; Rollins endorsed the EATS Act, to erase states’ ability to enforce farmed animal welfare
WASHINGTON D.C.––The U.S. Senate on February 5, 2025 confirmed Pam Bondi as attorney general of the U.S.
Confirmation of Bondi set up a potential conflict with another Donald Trump administration cabinet nominee, Brooke Rollins, advanced by Trump to head the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Rollins’ nomination was approved by the Senate Agriculture Committee on February 3, 2025, with her confirmation believed to be imminent.
U.S. Supreme Court vs. National Pork Producers Council
Bondi, 59, and Rollins, 52, both longtime Trump team insiders and favorites, and personal friends, have taken diametrically opposite positions on the right of states to regulate animal welfare.
Bondi will have on her side, if she chooses to stick to previously espoused principles, a U.S. Supreme Court decision on the constitutionality of California and Massachusetts laws governing farmed animal welfare, rendered on May 11, 2023 by a bench including three Trump appointees.
But Rollins has on her side the economic and political weight of the National Pork Producers Council, voice of the $57-billion-a-year U.S. pork industry, overwhelmingly concentrated in the “red states” that put Trump back into the White House and hold the majority of seats in both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.
In matters involving money, power, and Trump, money and power have historically trumped anything resembling ethics, principle, or constitutionality, for that matter.
Bondi lost the monetary judgement in verdict that upheld the law
Bondi in 2013, as then Florida attorney general, represented the State of Florida in defense of a 2002 state law passed by ballot initiative that banned raising sows in gestation crates that do not allow them to turn around.
Only two pig farms in Florida were affected by the law. Both went out of business.
One of the pig farmers, Stephen Basford, “sued the state in 2010 for the cost of the barns and other equipment he had used for his farm,” recalled Gary Fineout of Associated Press.
“He won at the circuit court level,” Fineout wrote, but the state, personally represented by Bondi, “appealed. The First District Court of Appeal ruled that the state owed Basford $505,000 plus interest.
The Florida law is essentially similar to laws in effect in nine states altogether.
Enforcement mechanisms
Two states, California and Massachusetts, neither with significant pig production industries, reinforce their laws with requirements that pork products imported from other states must be produced in conformity to the California and Massachusetts animal welfare standards.
Without such stipulations, the California and Massachusetts laws would be meaningless, since out-of-state pig producers would be under no compulsion to comply.
Rollins, during her January 23, 2025 nomination hearing before the U.S. Senate Agriculture, Nutrition, & Forestry Committee, put her feet firmly in the trough alongside noncompliant out-of-state pig producers represented by the National Pork Producers Council.
The National Pork Producers Council has fought in court and out to overturn the California and Massachusetts laws ever since Proposition 2, a weaker version of the California law, was approved by voters in 2008.
Pig producers seek to pre-empt the state laws
A stronger version, Proposition 12, also passed by ballot initiative, won voter approval in 2018, but did not take effect until 2024. The Massachusetts law took effect in August 2023.
“Federal legislation to preempt the state law has been proposed by Republicans since 2021, but has gotten nowhere in Congress with Democratic majorities in one or both houses,” summarized San Francisco Chronicle court reporter Bob Egelko on January 28, 2025.
“But with Republicans now controlling Congress as well as the White House, pork producers heard encouraging words from Brooke Rollins, who served in Trump’s first administration and currently heads the America First Policy Institute.
“Under a proper system of government, ‘we don’t have states telling our producers how they can raise their livestock,’ Rollins told Senator Joni Ernst,” an Iowa Republican, “at her confirmation hearing,” Egelko recounted.
Rollins commits to pushing the EATS Act
Ernst then asked Rollins to support “a long-pending bill — Exposing Agricultural Trade Suppression, or the EATS Act — that would override Proposition 12,” Egelko continued.
“I commit to working with you on that,” responded Rollins.
“With Democrats still holding 47 seats in the 100-member Senate,” assessed Egelko, “it is not clear that supporters of the EATS Act could gain the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster. But pork producers want to include the EATS Act in broader legislation to fund farming and farm insurance,” specifically the long overdue Farm Bill that never reached a vote in the 118th Congress, which concluded with the inauguration of the 119th Congress early in January 2025, “and the powerful agriculture lobby will do whatever it can to persuade farm-area Democrats to support the legislation.”
Biden also pushed EATS, but most Democrats did not
Despite opposition from Congressional Democrats to the EATS Act, both the Justice Department and the Department of Agriculture under former U.S. president Joe Biden supported the National Pork Producers Council in appealing the California and Massachusetts pig and poultry laws to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Biden administration argued––as Egelko remembered––that “California has no legitimate interest in protecting the welfare of animals located outside the state.”
Taking a “state’s rights” position usually used by opponents of federal laws meant to prevent racial discrimination, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of California Proposition 12, and by implication the constitutionality of the parallel Massachusetts law.
But Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a 2018 Trump appointee, in a concurrence to the dissenting minority opinion, provided a blueprint for further challenges to Proposition 12 on differing grounds.
(See Supreme Court split verdict on California pig law sets up another round.)
(Instagram photo)
Rollins butters up Bondi
The Kavanaugh dissent could provide political cover for Bondi in aligning herself with Rollins to endorse the EATS Act.
Certainly Rollins wasted no time is buttering up Bondi after Bondi won her U.S. Senate confirmation vote.
Posted Rollins to Facebook, “Congratulations to the extraordinary @pambondi!!! There is no one more qualified to be Attorney General as we work to usher in the Golden Age of America. Love you Pam – forever grateful for your friendship and partnership in building @a1policy these last 4 years.”
Note that “Golden Age” may be translated “Everything for sale.”
Will Rollins enforce the Animal Welfare Act?
Brooke Leslie Rollins, describing herself as “a small town girl from Glen Rose, Texas,” grew up on her family’s ranch, participating in 4-H Club and Future Farmers of America activities.
“Rollins stayed involved with both of those organizations and has been hands-on in the show cattle careers of her four children,” according to the 122-year-old agribusiness periodical Successful Farming.
Rollins at Texas A&M University earned a degree with honors in agricultural development, essentially a business major with an agribusiness accent.
As Secretary of Agriculture, Rollins will oversee enforcement of the federal Animal Welfare Act, including the federal laws against cockfighting, dogfighting, and soring show horses, but her previous political history indicates no awareness that she even knows the Animal Welfare Act exists.
Bondi has animal welfare enforcement history
Bondi as U.S. Attorney General will oversee federal criminal prosecutions, including of Animal Welfare Act violations prosecuted as felonies.
Examples include the Animal Welfare Act provisions against transporting fighting dogs, gamecocks, and animal fighting paraphernalia across state lines.
As Florida attorney general, then-Humane Society of the U.S. president Wayne Pacelle, now heading Animal Wellness Action and the Center for A Humane Economy, blogged in January 2015 that, “Pam Bondi made animal protection a serious priority.”
In July 2014, Pacelle remembered, Bondi “shut down a Jacksonville puppy mill and puppy importer, who had been hawking sick English bulldog puppies to unsuspecting sellers over the Internet. She’s strongly supported decoupling greyhound racing and casino-style gambling,” Pacelle said, and “supported legislation to require greyhound tracks to report injuries.”
“Puppy mill” was pit bull mill
Elected Florida attorney general in 2010, Bondi was re-elected in 2014 with the endorsement of the HSUS political arm, the Humane Society Legislative Fund.
The Jacksonville puppy mill Pacelle mentioned was actually more in the pit bull breeding business than the English bulldog import business, reportedly selling about 700 dogs in five years of operation, under five different business names.
“The breeders allegedly sold the puppies for $1,500 to $2,300 each, totaling more than $1 million in potential profits. Many of the puppies sold suffered from congenital defects, parasites, or other serious health or behavioral issues,” reported Palm Beach Post staff writer Christine Stapleton.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Tried to keep Katrina dog
But the Bondi record on animal issues is not entirely stellar.
As a Hillsborough County prosecutor, Bondi in October 2005 lost her St. Bernard to cancer.
Nine days later Bondi adopted another St. Bernard from the Humane Society of Pinellas County.
Her new St. Bernard came from St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana soon after Hurricane Katrina, and had been left at the St. Bernard Parish Animal Shelter for safekeeping by Steven and Doreen Couture, who were forced to evacuate on short notice because of a broken levee.
Asked to return the St. Bernard, “Bondi initially dug in her heels and hired a bulldog litigator,” recounted DeMorris A. Lee and Colleen Jenkins of the St. Petersburg Times.
In May 2007, however, facing a jury trial, Bondi returned the St. Bernard to the Coutures.
(See The animal backgrounds of Trump cabinet nominees Rollins, Bondi, & McMahon.)
Pacelle appeals to Rollins for H5N1 policy changes
Animal Wellness Action and the Center for A Humane Economy president Wayne Pacelle, meanwhile, whose organizations have since inception vigorously defended California Proposition 12 and opposed the EATS Act, on February 1, 2025 appealed to Brooke Rollins “to express alarm over the ‘bird flu’ response by USDA’s Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service [APHIS}.
“With a new administration,” Pacelle began, “it is an opportune time for a re-evaluation of field responses to a disease epidemic that has caused egg prices to soar, disrupted the present-day and future work of a broad set of commercial bird producers, and done little to arrest the spread of” the H5N1 avian influenza.
Argued Pacelle, “APHIS is wrongly treating bird flu H5N1 as a ‘foreign animal disease.’ In truth, the disease is now endemic, with the H5N1 strain infecting at least 485 wild bird species, from mallards to bald eagles; more than 100 wild mammals, from mice to polar bears; at least 13 domestic poultry species, from chickens to ostriches); and at least six domestic mammals, including cats, dogs, pigs, goats, cattle, and horses.
“Short shrift to vaccination”
“APHIS is giving short shrift to vaccination strategies,” Pacelle objected, “even though key sectors of animal agriculture favor it and commercial vaccines are readily available. The commercial egg-laying industry and turkey growers support vaccination, while only broiler meat growers have reservations.
“Mexico and France have successfully vaccinated their poultry flocks since 2023 against bird flu,” Pacelle mentioned, “greatly decreasing the impact of the epidemics in those two major agricultural nations.”
Further, Pacelle charged, “cockfighting activity is a known and substantial risk factor for bird flu H5N1 introduction, global spread, and human zoonotic infections. Yet APHIS does not report bird flu outbreaks on gamefowl farms, which number in the tens of thousands in the United States, with USDA previously citing that there are 20 million backyard fighting birds in our homeland.
Drowning pheasants
“APHIS is conducting depopulation activities at odds with animal welfare norms,” Pacelle objected further, citing several examples including that “An owner of a pheasant flock in Jefferson County, Wisconsin, reported that APHIS killed his 188,000 pheasants by drowning them in a water-filled ditch.
“Since the U.S. bird flu H5N1 outbreak began three years ago, in February 2022,” Pacelle told Rollins, “APHIS has depopulated (euthanized) 148.25 million bird flu virus-exposed or infected poultry on 690 commercial farms and in 792 backyard flocks,” including in all 50 states and Puerto Rico,” yet “Despite all this killing, the bird flu epidemic is more pervasive, expansive, and uncontrolled than ever,” having now “infected at least 925 dairy cattle herds across 16 U.S. states, including 720 herds in California.”
Nationally, Pacelle estimated, H5N1 has now infected approximately one dairy cow in nine.
“In a logical inconsistency,” Pacelle mentioned, “APHIS quarantines infected dairy herds but kills infected poultry flocks.”
Recommends strategic switch
“This bird flu outbreak,” Pacelle concluded, “is by far the largest and most expensive animal disease event in our history. APHIS has spent taxpayer funds exceeding $1.5 billion so far on bird depopulation, logistics, quarantines, and owner indemnity payments.
“As of December 2024, APHIS had made indemnity payments to over 1,200 producers, with 67 commercial poultry premises experiencing multiple infections during the current outbreak. Americans are getting hit on both ends — on the retail side and also as taxpayers.”
Pacelle recommended a strategic switch to emphasizing vaccination over inhumane poultry killing methods, along with cracking down on cockfighting and breeding gamefowl.
The letter to Rollins was cosigned by former USDA Agricultural Research Service veterinarian Jim Keen, and by Thomas Pool, formerly commanding officer of the U.S. Army Veterinary Command.
Both are now senior advisors to Animal Wellness Action and the Center for a Humane Economy.
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