Egg price bill advances at Nevada Legislature; AB171 could increase supply in 30 days
If it sails through, when is the soonest that Nevadans could see results?
Nevada Department of Agriculture Director J.J. Goicoechea said it could mean that supplies increase in as little as a month. From there, prices should respond to supply and demand.
For now, Assembly Bill 171 (AB171) has made its first step in lightning speed, unanimously passing a voice vote in a work session of the Assembly Committee on Natural Resources. It's now headed for the Assembly floor for a vote. The Assembly will not convene until late Tuesday morning.
AB171 now has an amendment crafted by the Humane Society of the United States. The amendment gives the Department of Agriculture power to write additional regulations if the situation comes up again under different circumstances.
What does AB171 do that could possibly change the price of eggs?
It loosens a law made four years ago in the Nevada Legislature by Assemblymember Howard Watts (D-Clark County). It's no coincidence that Watts is a primary sponsor of AB171, looking to make an exception to the rules that he helped write in 2021. AB399 prohibited the production or sale of eggs in Nevada that weren't the product of cage-free chickens.
The current egg supply problems are due to avian flu.
'Since 2022, roughly 20 million egg-laying chickens have died or been culled as a result of this disease outbreak. And that's created a really significant supply chain crunch and issue,' Watts told the Assembly committee.
Nevada's first human case of avian flu confirmed in Churchill County
A USDA report released on Jan. 16 said table egg-layers lost to High Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) totaled 13.6 million birds in December alone.
AB171 allows the Department of Agriculture's quarantine officer to suspend the cage-free law for 120 days under certain circumstances, and that could be done twice in a calendar year. That would open up sources for eggs that Nevada doesn't allow under current law.
Goicoechea said Iowa, Indiana and Ohio are all states where Nevada gets eggs now, but it can't buy eggs that aren't cage-free. Under AB171, those states could sell more eggs to Nevada.
The Humane Society amendment further allows Grade B eggs if necessary. It also would allow use of eggs from small operations in Nevada. The state currently has no commercial-scale egg operations, Goicoechea said.
The amendment concerned some lawmakers who said the language was too open, and that was addressed before the work session concluded.
Why 120 days? It's not a random choice, Goicoechea said: 'The absolute fastest that we can bring a pullet on to laying eggs would be 126 days. So, I could have went a lot longer and scientifically backed that up, but there are always pullets in the supply chain coming on. This isn't a hard stop, hard start, hard stop.'
Support for AB171 came in testimony from the Sierra Club, Nevada Farm Bureau, Retail Association of Nevada, Vegas Chamber, Nevada Resort Association, Nevada Restaurant Association, Nevada Families for Freedom, Energy and Convenience Association of Nevada and the Independent American Party. Everyone appears to recognize the impact egg prices are having on consumers.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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