WAUCHULA, Fla. — Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill banning the sale of lab-grown meat.
Senate Bill 1084, sponsored by Sen. Jay Collins, R-Tampa, will make changes related to the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (FDACS) with the most notable being the ban on the manufacture of cultivated meat.
It’s a wide-ranging bill and would also ban local regulation of electric-vehicle charging stations by putting oversight under FDACS, which controls pumps at gas stations.
"Take your fake lab-grown meat elsewhere. We're not doing that in the state of Florida," DeSantis said at a news conference in Hardee County. He later signed the legislation into law there.
Supporters of the bill question the safety of cultivated meat. A potential research ban was removed from earlier versions of the bill because legislators thought the ban might affect the space industry. That industry is looking at cultivated meats for long-term space journeys.
Rep. Dean Black, R-Jacksonville, was one of the 86 lawmakers in the House who voted to pass the bill.
“I think it is fine to develop moon meat," he said at a House meeting. "I think they can make it on the moon and export it to Mars, and it’s fine to have Martian meat too. If you go to the moon and if you go to Mars, you should be allowed to get it there, but you sure as heck shouldn’t be able to get it anywhere in this country and sure as heck not here in Florida."
Cultivated meat is made by taking cultured cells from animals and growing them in a controlled setting to make food.
The bill passed 26-10 in the Senate and 86-27 in the House. It was voted mostly on party lines.
The new law will make it a second-degree misdemeanor to sell or manufacture this type of meat and will go into effect July 1.
The governor also awarded $6 million to Hardee County for industrial development.
DeSantis' visit to Hardee County came only a day after the governor made a stop in Tampa where he spoke on the new six-week abortion law, which took effect on Wednesday.