Civics: Ending the ESG Dairy Heist
It’s remarkable how much coercion the Biden Administration resorted to in the name of climate change. Ending it takes effort, so full marks to the Trump Agriculture Department for no longer forcing dairy farmers to pay for environmental, social and governance (ESG) initiatives.
“American dairy farmers pay mandatory checkoff assessments to build demand for milk, cheese and butter—NOT to bankroll radical climate (ESG) agendas,” Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins wrote recently in announcing the decision. “Washington bureaucrats should not be using farmers’ own dollars to regulate cow burps, make it harder to raise cattle or push fake meat onto American dinner tables.”
The change is the result of a lawsuit filed in June by the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL) on behalf of three Badger State farmers. The suit alleged that forcing dairy farmers to subsidize ESG initiatives violated the Constitution and the federal Administrative Procedure Act. WILL argued in federal court in Wisconsin that compelling farmers to subsidize speech they don’t agree with impinges on their First Amendment rights.
America’s more than 20,000 dairy farmers have long been required to pay a portion of their sales into the Dairy Checkoff, which collects funds for advertising or promoting dairy products. But over the years USDA funneled the money to environmental groups working against dairy farmers’ interests.
