HB2696 – Prohibits labeling or advertising for plant-based alternatives from containing any terms for foods containing meat, including “meat”, “burger”, “sausage”, etc.
Prime Sponsor – Representative Dent (R, 13th District, Moses Lake) (Co-Sponsors Blake, McCaslin, Callan, Eslick, Springer, Griffey, Boehnke, Maycumber, Dye, Chandler, Kretz, and  Schmick)
Current status – Had a hearing in the House Committee on Rural Development, Agriculture, & Natural Resources January 29th. Substitute passed out of committee February 5th; referred to Rules February 10th. Failed to pass out of the House by cutoff.
Next step would be – Dead bill.
Legislative tracking page for the bill.
SB6329 is a companion bill in the Senate.

Comments – If you’re interested in the potential disruption of the current meat and dairy industry by precision fermented proteins like the heme in Impossible Burgers, you might read  Tony Seba’s “Rethinking Food and Agriculture.”

The substitute shifts from requiring the phrase, “this product does not contain meat”, to requiring at least one of several possible words or phrases that indicate that the product does not contain meat, like “plant-based,” “veggie,” or “meat-free.”

Summary –
The bill prohibits using “identifiable meat terms” in labeling or advertising food that doesn’t contain meat, unless there’s a disclaimer in the same type immediately after the term saying, “This product does not contain meat,” or the term is preceded by “imitation” in the same type, like “imitation burger.”

Using the terms without the disclaimers would qualify as misbranding and presumably subject one to legal penalties, though I don’t know what those are.