Under Senate Bill 261, which Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law on June 20, “a person may not offer for sale or sell cell-cultured protein for human consumption.” The law defines “cell-cultured protein” as “a food product derived from harvesting animal cells and artificially replicating those cells in a growth medium to produce tissue.”

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These threats disrupted the business plans of Wild Type, a San Francisco company that makes cell-cultured salmon, and Upside Foods, a business based in Emeryville, California, that makes lab-cultivated chicken. The Food and Drug Administration has approved both products for sale ….

The ban “is a massive win for Texas ranchers, producers, and consumers,” Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller said in a June 26 press release. “Texans have a God-given right to know what’s on their plate, and for millions of Texans, it better come from a pasture, not a lab.”

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Upside and Wild Type say the Texas ban … “violates the dormant aspect of the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution” because “it was enacted with the purpose, and has the effect, of discriminating against competition coming exclusively from out of state.”

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