There are two part to the bill. One is about preventing food products from being created using cultured animal cells.
The other part is about marketing and labeling, and it also include plant based food products and insect based food products. Similar to trademark, it limits things from being called meat.
Out of those, the article only brings a rationale for the second part. It is similar to the EU discussion around oat milk being called milk, or stuff like vegan butter, vegan cheese and so on.
On a personal note, I am sympathetic to limit labeling of alternative meat as meat. Just the other day here in Sweden, I noticed in the supermarket that next to the ground beef there was a new product with the product name "household ground beef", with a fairly reduced price. However after looking a bit closer I noticed a small fine print at the bottom, barely visible light white text over a white-yellow background, that said 70% beef, 30% plant based material. It is a very obvious attempt to mislead consumers, and given online reactions, many have been.
"Cultural reasons" is why some states mandate cage free eggs, to much applause from the HN demographics.
One could charitably interpret it as trying to get ahead of next decade's "turns out that shit we spend all last decade telling you to eat isn't good in large doses" problem.
That said, I disagree with this law because I expect lab grown meat to beat normal meat in certain use cases (namely making lean ground beef cheaper) very shortly after it becomes economically viable.
Yes, in case your comment weren't a joke: animals not being slaughtered is quite an important reason. I eat meat but I'd me much happier to eat less cruel meat
