Controversial Bee Bill quietly dies, fails to meet committee deadline
On April 13, the controversial Bee Bill, Senate Bill 389, quietly died after it failed to meet the committee deadline, according to the Nevada Legislature website.
Over 100 Nevadans in both Carson City and Las Vegas came forward to protest the bill on April 8 during its discussion before the Natural Resources Committee meeting.
Senator Keith Pickard, the sponsor of the bill, has had his name removed from the dead Senate Bill.
Senator Pickard wrote the bill to prevent adding to the population of Africanized Bees in the city of Henderson, where a residential bee hobbyist was allegedly keeping a dozen hives on his suburban property.
However, the City of Henderson passed ordinances in 2018 which reduced the amount of beehives residents of suburban areas could have, essentially eliminating the problem Pickard's bill sought to destroy.
Now, as with many bills during this session and all sessions, the bill has quietly died.
An amendment, which Pickard said would keep the ordinances to only specifically affect Africanized bee population quarantine zones in the south, was never filed, according to the bill's listing.
The official cause of death of the bill was that it failed to meet committee timeline. On the bill's listing, it said: "Pursuant to Joint Standing Rule No. 14.3.1, no further action allowed."
Joint Standing Rule No. 14.3.1 of the Nevada Legislature is as follows:
"The final standing committee to which a bill or joint resolution is referred in its House of origin may only take action on the bill or joint resolution on or before the 68th calendar day of the legislative session. A bill may be re-referred after that date only to the Senate Committee on Finance or the Assembly Committee on Ways and Means and only if the bill is exempt pursuant to subsection 1 of Joint Standing Rule No. 14.6."