Witnesses tell Agriculture: House Committee Proposition 12 has raised costs and harmed small farms and animal welfare

At a hearing before the Agriculture: House Committee, two unidentified speakers criticized Proposition 12, saying the policy has raised costs for consumers, harmed animal welfare and made it harder for small family farms to survive.

Speaker 1 opened the testimony by saying, "Proposition 12 is a fantastic failure." Speaker 2 expanded on that critique, arguing regulatory targets set off‑site interfere with on‑farm management: "The big piece of that is the welfare, the environment, the day to day management," and warning that "if we're gonna have to try to fit or try to meet an arbitrary target set by people who are away from the farm ... our ability to to do the best for that animal at any 1 given time could suffer."

Speaker 1 later summarized what they characterized as the empirical effects of the policy, saying the measure "has ... increased cost to consumers," "reduced the viability of small family operations," and "injured animal welfare." The speaker referred generally to "the studies we've just discussed today" but did not identify the studies by name in the transcript.

Neither speaker proposed a specific legislative text; Speaker 1 urged federal intervention, saying, "Proposition 12 is a fantastic failure, and it is time for Congress to fix that mistake." The transcript contains no recorded motions, votes or named legal citations beyond the repeated reference to "Proposition 12."

The testimony in the transcript is limited to these assertions and does not include named studies, supporting data, or responses from proponents of Proposition 12. The hearing record here therefore documents claims about higher consumer costs and harms to small farms and animal welfare, along with a call for Congressional action, without providing the underlying evidence in the transcript.