By Corinne Murdock |
A Tucson restaurant owner has sued the Hobbs administration over its newer mandate that only cage-free eggs be produced or sold in the state.
Last week, the Goldwater Institute and Pacific Legal Foundation sued the Arizona Department of Agriculture (AZDA) on behalf of Grant Krueger, owner of Union Public House, Reforma Modern Mexican Mezcal + Tequila, and Proof Artisanal Pizza & Pasta.
In a press release, counsel and Krueger asserted that AZDA had surpassed their constitutional authority by bypassing the legislature; they dubbed AZDA the “egg bureaucrats.”
“Unaccountable, unelected bureaucrats shouldn’t be able to arbitrarily impose these kinds of harmful mandates on small business owners like me,” said Krueger. “If the government can do this with eggs, what else can they do it with?”
Krueger estimated that his restaurants purchase over 2,000 eggs weekly; he employs about 225 people.
Per his lawsuit, lawmakers directed egg producers to petition the AZDA for a rule on requiring cage-free housing for egg-laying hens, as the COVID-19 pandemic had disrupted law making procedures at the time. AZDA published the contested rule in April 2022, under then-Gov. Doug Ducey and then-AZDA Director Mark Killian. The rule began to be enforced on Jan. 1 of this year.
“Neither Arizona’s statutes governing executive branch rulemaking nor the Arizona Constitution permit AZDA to promulgate rules pursuant to such a standardless grant of authority,” read the lawsuit.
AZDA claimed authority for rulemaking under A.R.S. § 3-107(A)(1) and A.R.S. §3-710(J). The legal organizations countered in their lawsuit that the two statutes’ general authorization of rulemaking authority didn’t articulate the specific authority to enact a cage-free rule. Further, they argued that the Arizona Constitution didn’t allow for the delegation of legislative authority to an executive branch agency.
“The appropriate housing arrangement for egg-laying hens in Arizona and egglaying hens producing eggs for sale in Arizona is a major policy question that must be decided by the legislature,” read the lawsuit.
Per the lawsuit, AZDA had passed the rule to circumvent the effort of a similar ballot initiative, which the egg producers found objectionable due to the proposed timeline being too long.
The lawsuit warned that the new law will cause a significant increase in egg prices for both business owners and consumers: up to $66 million. For consumers, that would come to an additional 39 cents per dozen.
Per AZDA data, cage-free housing of egg-laying hens would increase egg production costs by up to 41 percent for labor inputs.
The Arizona Farm Bureau also stands in opposition to the sweeping cage-free egg mandate.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
