In a meeting with state agriculture department officials on the USDA patio Wednesday, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack signaled that he has reservations about states taking actions like California’s Proposition 12, which says that all pork sold in California must be raised under certain housing conditions even if the animals are raised outside the state.

In reaction to a question about the regulation of hemp, which is subject to different rules in different states related to the level of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive substance that makes people high, Vilsack said that the Agriculture Department and the Justice Department have had trouble coming to agreement on how the federal government should handle regulation.

Vilsack then broadened his statement to ask, “Can one state dictate the way farming ought to be?”

Vilsack noted that he had listened to a podcast about James Madison, one of the founding fathers, in which Madison talked about the “vices” of the U.S. system and the attempt of the states to live under the Articles of Confederation, which meant a weak national government.

Vilsack noted that the Supreme Court had ruled that Proposition 12 was legal under the Constitution because it did not tell pork producers what to do, just told them what they needed to do if they wanted to sell pork in the California market. The court may not have understood how complicated the hog market is, he added.

Vilsack then noted how difficult Americans find federal regulation.

He said that when he was in Minnesota recently, someone raised the issue of California’s law on pork production outside the state, but when he asked whether the federal government rather than the states should regulate guns, people in the audience did not like that idea.

“We are in for a bumpy time,” Vilsack said, noting that Massachusetts has “some thoughts” on animal welfare and other states may have other ideas.

The American people “are going to have to get to a point” that they understand, as Madison did, that there are limits to state power, Vilsack signaled.

Bills have been introduced in Congress to negate the impact of Proposition 12, but Vilsack said, “I don’t think there is the political capacity up there to do much about it.”