President Donald Trump's Justice Department is opening a federal investigation into whether the nation's largest egg suppliers are engaging in price fixing or collusion — a 180-degree reversal from the GOP's position on the subject when egg prices surged two years ago under President Joe Biden, reported the Wall Street Journal on Friday.
"The probe comes after prices have doubled over the past year and eggs are sometimes entirely absent from grocery store shelves. Grocers say eggs are one of the leading drivers of food inflation over the past few months. President Trump vowed to bring down inflation once he entered office," reported Dave Michaels and Patrick Thomas. "The department’s investigation is in its early stages and might not lead to any formal action. It couldn’t be learned whether the probe is under the direction of civil or criminal authorities."
Egg producers have broadly said the main factor in the price spikes has been outbreaks of H5N1 avian influenza, a virulent disease that has required the culling of hundreds of millions of chickens and has many public health experts alarmed. "Bird flu" currently doesn't transmit easily from person to person, but if it mutates to do so, it has the potential for a worldwide pandemic on the scale of COVID-19.
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Despite the disruptions to the supply chain, some authorities, including former President Joe Biden, long suspected there was also a corporate price gouging scheme under the hood, with the nation's largest producers colluding to raise prices beyond the increase to their own costs from the disease outbreak. Similar suspicion has been directed at grocery retailers, with an executive for Kroger admitting last year that the end stores excessively jacked up the prices of eggs and milk. The largest producer, Cal-Maine Foods, "has reported rising profits from the rise in egg prices and saw its stock surge in the years since the bird flu outbreak," said the report.
Nonetheless, last year, the GOP largely scoffed at the accusations, with Trump himself claiming that former Vice President Kamala Harris' proposal to police grocery prices was a "communist" idea.
"The egg industry has been criticized by some interest groups, such as farmer advocacy organization Farm Action, which has petitioned lawmakers and law enforcement to investigate egg pricing," noted the report. "In a February letter to the Federal Trade Commission, the group alleged that companies were being slow to rebuild their egg-laying hen flocks in order to restrict supply and sustain inflated prices. Some egg producers say it takes time to rebuild their flocks and they want to avoid a repeat infection at a facility."