Hemp transportation bill killed by House committee
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BOISE — A House panel has killed a bill the would have permitted the transportation of hemp across the state.
Transporting hemp across Idaho is illegal and led to the seizure 6,701 pounds of industrial hemp and the arrest of the driver transporting it for Colorado-based Big Sky Scientific earlier this year. A bill that would have legalized hemp transportation across Idaho was killed by the House Transportation and Defense Committee Thursday.
Rep. Chad Christensen, R-Idaho Falls, said the bill’s sponsor requested the committee not pass the bill after the Idaho Senate amended it and sent it back to the House committee.
“In the Senate, they started to cut the bill. They removed key sections,” Rep. Barabara Ehardt, R-Idaho Falls, told EastIdahoNews.com. “It’s unfortunate. We all wanted it.”
Ehardt said the bill, prior to the Senate amendments, was similar to other bills throughout the United States that would conform state laws regarding hemp transportation to the 2018 federal Farm Bill that legalized interstate hemp transportation.