Official Summaries

Lowering Egg Prices Act of 2025

This bill permits unrefrigerated surplus eggs originally intended for hatching to be repurposed for use in pasteurized liquid egg products intended for consumption.

Under current regulations, most eggs intended for consumption must be refrigerated within 36 hours of being laid. The bill would exempt from this requirement surplus broiler hatching eggs (eggs originally intended to be hatched and raised for meat) that are repurposed for sale to an egg breaker (a facility that sells liquid egg to food manufacturers).

(Broiler hatching eggs are generally held at a warmer temperature than other eggs in order to facilitate incubation. Because these eggs are not refrigerated, current regulations prohibit the sale of any surplus broiler hatching eggs to egg breakers for use in liquid egg products. Liquid egg products distributed for consumption are separately required under current law to be pasteurized, or treated to destroy bacteria.)

The bill also requires the Food and Drug Administration to revise the refrigeration requirement to permit surplus broiler hatching eggs held at temperatures suitable for hatching chicks to be sold to egg breakers for processing as liquid egg products.

Current Full Text

[Congressional Bills 119th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 2222 Introduced in House (IH)]

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119th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 2222

     To make inapplicable to surplus broiler hatching eggs certain 
      regulations relating to shell eggs, and for other purposes.


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                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             March 18, 2025

 Mr. Riley of New York (for himself, Mr. Johnson of South Dakota, Ms. 
  McDonald Rivet, Mr. Harrigan, Mr. Wied, Mr. Harris of Maryland, Mr. 
  Womack, Mr. Palmer, Mr. Lawler, Mr. Thanedar, Ms. Salinas, and Ms. 
   McBride) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
                    Committee on Energy and Commerce

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
     To make inapplicable to surplus broiler hatching eggs certain 
      regulations relating to shell eggs, and for other purposes.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Lowering Egg Prices Act of 2025''.

SEC. 2. INAPPLICABILITY OF CERTAIN SHELL EGG RULE PROVISIONS TO SURPLUS 
              BROILER HATCHING EGGS SOLD TO EGG BREAKERS.

    (a) Inapplicability of Current Rule.--Effective beginning on the 
date of the enactment of this Act, section 118.4(e) of title 21, Code 
of Federal Regulations (or successor regulations) shall not apply with 
respect to surplus broiler hatching eggs that are intended to be sold 
to an egg breaker for purposes of processing such eggs as liquid egg 
products subject to regulation under the Egg Products Inspection Act 
(21 U.S.C. 1031 et seq.).
    (b) Revised Rule Required.--Not later than 180 days after the date 
of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Health and Human 
Services, acting through the Commissioner of Food and Drugs, and in 
consultation with the Secretary of Agriculture, shall issue a rule 
revising section 118.4 of title 21, Code of Federal Regulations (or 
successor regulations), to allow for surplus broiler hatching eggs to 
be held at such temperature and for such period of time at such 
temperature, so as to be compatible with conditions for hatching chicks 
and to allow for the sale of such eggs to egg breakers for the purposes 
described in subsection (a).
    (c) Definitions.--In this Act:
            (1) The terms ``egg'' and ``egg product'' have the meanings 
        given such terms in section 4 of the Egg Products Inspection 
        Act (21 U.S.C. 1033).
            (2) The term ``egg breaker'' means a facility in the 
        commercial sector that processes eggs by breaking the eggs out 
        of their shells and selling the resulting liquid egg product in 
        bulk to food manufacturers.
            (3) The term ``broiler hatching egg'' means an egg intended 
        for use by broiler hatcheries for the production of baby 
        chicks.
            (4) The term ``broiler hatchery'' means a facility where 
        fertilized eggs from broiler breeder chickens are incubated and 
        hatched into day-old chicks, which are then raised on farms to 
        produce meat as broiler chickens.
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