Taxpayers Shouldn’t Have to Bail Out Lab-Grown Meat Companies

With many scientists saying climate change is a major future challenge, lawmakers are looking to fund projects that could mitigate potential threats. But this situation has also given rise to conniving lobbyists who exploit climate change to look for government handouts. The latest scheme? A taxpayer-funded bailout for the flailing lab-grown meat industry.

Lab-grown meat is just what it sounds like: Meat grown in stainless steel factory vats using animal cells and growth serum instead of a barnyard and livestock. The federal government has approved two companies to sell lab-grown meat in the U.S., although it’s almost impossible to find outside of limited tasting events. Why? Because consumers are largely disinterested in lab-grown meat, and its production cost is too high to make it commercially viable.

Despite raising billions of dollars as a sector, lab-grown meat companies are beginning to fail. One of the two California-based companies approved to sell lab-grown meat in the U.S. has been sued for not paying its bills, while the other has been plagued by manufacturing issues and a whistleblower complaint. A third California startup failed this summer.

Startups come and go, or at least that’s how it’s supposed to work. But now the government–after lobbying efforts by lab-grown meat advocates–is poised to hand out taxpayer money to fund lab-grown meat.

To date, more than $125 million in public money has been allocated for the “alternative protein” sector. That includes the USDA giving $10 million to Tufts University–which has an endowment of $2.4 billion–to fund an alternative protein program, and $25 million to help build a biomanufacturing plant in Indiana. Lab-grown meat companies are also being encouraged to apply for funding through the federal Department of Energy.

Meanwhile, the Department of Defense recently announced it would hand out grants to support lab-grown meat companies through a public-private partnership it has given more than $500 million toward. The grants are supposed to reduce the military’s carbon footprint by replacing farm-raised meat with meat grown in a bioreactor.

The idea that military mess halls are a significant contributor to climate change is a joke–but a convenient ruse to justify handouts.

Where does it stop? The main lobbying group for lab-grown meat is asking for $10 billion a year in government handouts. A lot of that money may wind up in the compost pile.

According to recent polling, about two-thirds of Americans say they are unwilling to eat lab-grown meat, and 58% support laws to restrict the sale of lab-grown meat. So it’s certainly strange for the government to put millions or billions of dollars into an industry that most consumers reject outright.

But the worst part? The “climate change” arguments used to fund lab-grown meat don’t even make sense.

A University of California, Davis study found that at scale, lab-grown meat could produce up to 25 times more CO2 emissions than traditional meat. Why? While lab-grown meat factories use less land than a farm or ranch, they use huge amounts of electricity to operate the bioreactors that grow meat from animal cells, and the growth serum itself requires significant energy inputs as well.

Remember Solyndra? The solar panel company that burned through billions in government loans before going belly up? Lab-grown meat companies are poised to be its culinary cousin.

Despite billions in private funding from wealthy backers, including Bill Gates, these startups are hemorrhaging cash, with shuttered labs, major layoffs, and lawsuits piling up.

The government shouldn’t be a bailout fund for failing industries with well-connected lobbyists. Our tax dollars shouldn’t be used to prop up a technology that few want. Let’s keep our food on real farms and reject this crony capitalist scheme disguised as environmental progress.