Johnson, Riley Introduce Bill to Lower Egg Prices

Johnson, Riley Introduce Bill to Lower Egg Prices 

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Representatives Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.), Josh Riley (D-NY), Pat Harrigan (R-NC), and Kristen McDonald Rivet (D-MI) introduced the Lowering Egg Prices Act. The bill would help lower the cost of eggs for consumers, provide relief to poultry farmers, and cut through bureaucratic red tape.

“Eggs are an important staple for American families and businesses,” said Johnson. “While we search for solutions to stop the spread of the avian flu, we must take steps to bolster our egg supply and lower prices. Reversing this Obama-era regulation would make hundreds of millions of eggs available in the market, easing the crisis and the burden felt by consumers. We need more yolks for folks.”

“Families across Upstate New York are struggling to make ends meet because the grocery bills are too high,” said Riley. “The Lowering Egg Prices Act is a common-sense, bipartisan bill to take unnecessary regulations off the books, put hundreds of millions of eggs on the market, and lower your grocery bill.”

“The FDA’s rule is a textbook example of government overreach making life more expensive for hardworking Americans,” said Harrigan. “For 15 years, this unnecessary regulation has forced businesses to throw away 400 million perfectly good eggs every single year. That’s over 6 billion eggs wasted—eggs that should have gone to breakfast tables, school lunches, and food banks. There is no public health benefit here, just pure bureaucratic nonsense that’s driving up costs. This bill stops the waste, lowers prices, and restores common sense.”

“The consistently rising cost of groceries continues to make things exceptionally hard for families in Michigan, and we need to do something about it. One solution we’re putting forward is to get more eggs into the supply chain, which will bring down the prices you see at your grocery store,” said McDonald Rivet. “We have to use every tool in the bag to put more money back in the pockets of working Michiganders.”

Background:

Federal regulations from the Obama Administration require farmers to refrigerate eggs immediately after they are laid. But that rule does not distinguish between table eggs (which are raw products that need to be refrigerated), and breaker eggs (which are pasteurized for use in everyday grocery products like salad dressing, cake mix, and pasta). This has forced chicken farmers to throw away nearly 400 million perfectly good eggs each year. That rule didn’t make sense when it was enacted, and it makes even less sense now, at a time when egg prices are too high and supermarket shelves are too empty.

The Lowering Egg Prices Act will fix this problem by overturning the Obama regulation and putting hundreds of millions of breaker eggs back on the market.

Read full bill text here.

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