One day soon, America could wake up to a dozen eggs costing $8 or more.  And unless you are involved in some aspect of farming or agriculture, you would never know that egg prices are about to skyrocket or the reason why.  With food prices already increasing due to high grain and fuel costs, extraneous so-called animal welfare regulations are being imposed on U.S. food producers, large and small, by the animal rights powerhouse known as the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS).

With HSUS’ vegan animal rights platform as the motivations behind crafting a controversial egg bill, S. 3239 was introduced in the U.S. Senate on Friday, May 25, 2012, inching U.S. egg producers closer to a mandate which would require them to phase out conventional cages for egg-laying hens and transition to a system called “enriched colony cages” by 2029, at a cost to U.S. egg producers ranging between $4 billion to $10 billion.

And while most Americans shrug their shoulders and live their lives, they are completely unaware of how this regulation will affect the cost of food and its availability in the future.  The current egg shortage in the U.K. should be a jolting wake-up call for Americans, illustrating that the onerous animal welfare regulations which have phased out conventional cages there have caused egg prices to quadruple, while diminishing egg supply to a “crisis” level.  This is a glimpse of what’s coming to America if HSUS’ egg bill becomes law.

We all know what this is about. If your chickens don’t have the proper federally mandated “environmental enrichments” They will come for your chickens. You laugh? From UEP’s web site (updated 3/11):

• To date, there are approximately 180 egg producing companies with flocks of 75,000 hens or more. These companies represent about 95% of all the layers in the United States.** In 1987, there were around 2,500 operations.** (Number of operations in 1987 include some contract farms and divisions.)

Read that carefully. 180 companies hold 95% of the egg-laying chickens in the United States. It doesn’t matter how you read the next sentence– I suspect it means that in 1987 there were about 2500 total egg operations, not 2500 companies with very large flocks. But it doesn’t matter. If 180 companies hold 95% of all egg-laying chickens, there has been a HUGE reduction in egg farms since 1987.