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Committee advances bills on sheep milk sales, food-donation liability and cotton-industry overweight permits
Summary
The Agriculture Committee passed House Bill 1699 to add sheep milk to the raw-milk statute, approved an expansion of the Good Samaritan donation law to include canned and recently harvested game, and cleared a clarification letting cotton industry trailer combinations use overweight permits; actions were taken by voice votes with no recorded roll-call tallies.
The Senate Agriculture, Forestry & Economic Development Committee passed several routine but policy-relevant bills in a single hearing day.
House Bill 1699: Representative Mary Bentley introduced the measure (running for Representative Les Eves) to add sheep milk to the list of permitted raw milks, alongside goat and cow. Bentley said the change responds to a constituent who sells sheep milk and wants to sell to neighbors. After brief questions about incidental versus commercial sales and no public opposition, the committee approved the bill by voice vote.
Senate Bill 663: Senator Mallett said the bill would expand an existing Good Samaritan law so donors can give canned food and "live or recently deceased animals" harvested by hunters or harvesters to hunger-relief organizations without exposing donors to liability. Mallett said the change was requested by the hunger-relief alliance; no witnesses opposed and the committee passed the bill by voice vote.
House Bill 18-55: Representative David Hillman explained a cleanup to overweight-permit language to explicitly include truck-tractor/trailer combinations used to carry new cotton modules from field to gin. Hillman said the Department of Transportation supports the clarification and industry witnesses described new module-handling trailers. The committee approved the change by voice vote.
The committee proceeded to a longer discussion on a separate Plant Board cleanup (House Bill 18-54) that prompted sustained stakeholder testimony and a failed final motion; that item did not advance. The committee adjourned with no additional business.
Votes at a glance from today's hearing: House Bill 1699 — passed (voice vote); Senate Bill 663 — passed (voice vote); House Bill 18-55 — passed (voice vote). No roll-call tallies were recorded in the transcript.
