Small Business Funding, CPS Support And Lab Grown Meat Round Out The House of Delegates’ Week

What is likely to be the first completed piece of legislation from this year’s regular session passed the House of Delegates Friday. Lawmakers in the lower chamber also moved to ease the workload of child protective services and debated the merits of regulating synthetic meat sales.

Earlier this week House Speaker Roger Hanshaw, R-Clay, and Gov. Patrick Morrisey both reaffirmed their focus on economic development in the 2026 session.

Friday the House of Delegates passed Senate Bill 1, creating the Small Business Growth Program, to fill a funding gap for small businesses. 

Del. J.B. Akers, R-Kanawha, explained that many small businesses in West Virginia cannot qualify for loans from their local banks.

“A lot of the bills that we see, and they’re great bills, but a lot of the Economic Development bills we see are geared towards attracting new businesses to the state, and we’re all for that,” he said. “This bill is focused on existing West Virginia businesses. This is a promise that we have made, that we’re going to start focusing as much of our attention as possible on existing West Virginia businesses, and this bill provides them with the capitalization they need to grow.”

Akers stressed that 60% of the state’s workforce is employed by small businesses that would benefit from the program. He explained that 18 other states and the federal government have passed similar bills to great success.

“All those states have renewed because of the success they have seen,” he said. “They’ve seen returns on investment of more than $2 for every $1 in credits that are made. This program doesn’t just pay for itself, it results in a profit for the state.”

Delegates on both sides of the aisle stood in support of the bill. It now returns to the Senate where any House changes will need to be approved before being sent to the governor.

“Two things have been noted in the commentary on this piece of legislation, assistance and access,” Sean Hornbuckle, D-Cabell, said. “What we’re doing here today is we are looking at people who currently do not have the means to be able to further themselves in a business setting, and we’re acknowledging that they do not have access. And so as a body, we’re going to create that, and I appreciate that and urge acceptance.”

Lab-Grown Meat

In presenting House Bill 4462, which would prohibit the sale of cell-cultured products in the state, Del. Chris Phillips, R-Barbour, presented a myriad of concerns with cell-cultured meats.

“Lab grown meat has already been recognized in other states as un-tested, potentially unsafe and nearly unregulated,” he said. “The use of growth factors, hormones or other additives in the culturing process has raised substantial questions of unintended health consequences, such as allergenicity or toxicity, and reliance on immortalized cell lines, cells that have been genetically engineered to divide indefinitely have yet to be empirically established not to give rise to long term cancer risks.”

Other delegates pointed to pending litigation against other states that have passed similar legislation, as well as prior approval of similar products at the federal level. 

Del. Shawn Fluharty, D-Ohio, expressed concern that the bill could limit West Virginia from attracting biotech companies in the future. He said the choice to consume or not consume such products should be an individual choice, and compared the bill’s restrictions to tobacco sales.

“We allow cigarettes to be sold because we allow individual choice with proper labeling, which was already required under the law for this legislation, for this product, and now we’re just saying labeling doesn’t matter. We’re going to ban it completely. That is some nanny state nonsense, right there,” he said. “We talk about freedoms on the campaign trails and individual choice, and we’re going to block the sale of a product that I trust West Virginians, when they make decisions to read a label and know whether they want to have. I drink energy drinks every day down here; probably a lot more dangerous than those products.”

HB 4462 passed 64 to 25 with 10 delegates absent, and now goes to the Senate for its consideration.

Support For CPS Workers

The House also passed House Bill 4602 to support Bureau for Social Services case workers. The bill would create a pilot program to use private partnerships to take on administrative services so the case workers can have more time to meet with children and families.

Del. Gino Chiarelli, R-Monongalia, who previously worked in child protective services, said that while the bill does not address the underlying issues the state faces, it will be a huge help. 

“I don’t think it addresses the root cause of why, in some places, there’s backlogs of a year old, and I know there’s been a lot of effort by a lot of people to really, really rectify the situation,” he said. “There are people working very, very hard, and I’m proud to say that they are. But I think that this is one thing that we could do to really make a big difference in the day-to-day life of a CPS worker. Maybe it will help us retain workers, and in the long run, maybe it will help us get the child welfare crisis a little bit more under control.”

The bill passed with unanimous approval of all 88 Delegates present Friday.