Projects

Overview

• Representative Steve King drafted the Protect Interstate Commerce Act (“PICA”), in part, to target a California law regarding the housing of egg-laying hens, but its reach would be much broader.
• PICA rewrites longstanding dormant Commerce Clause jurisprudence to expand the scope of federal preemption of state and local agricultural laws concerning traditional agricultural products, but would also affect numerous non-target products that contain trace amounts of agricultural products.
• PICA would prevent state or local governments from regulating an agricultural product except to the extent it is already regulated by federal law and the law of the producing state.
• The bill’s scope and precise meaning are uncertain, but its impacts will be felt far beyond traditional agricultural commodities.

You can also download our Index of Laws and Regulations Potentially Preempted by H.R. 4879: the “Protect Interstate Commerce Act of 2018”