A measure that would have put tight restrictions on fertilizers that homeowners from Edgewater to Ringwood use on their lawns went into legislative limbo on Monday.

The bill was considered the most prohibitive of its kind in the nation and a major protection for ponds and lakes, including several in North Jersey, that have been polluted by fertilizer runoff. It came out of a package of legislation to restore Barnegat Bay, but its impact would have been statewide.

Republicans refused to move the bill to the Assembly floor Monday through a procedural vote.

Assemblyman Scott Rumana, R-Wayne, said the bill was put on the agenda at the last minute and Republicans did not have enough time to review it. He also said the Democrats’ refusal to address any of Governor Christie’s property tax “tool-kit” reforms made his members less responsive to the fertilizer bill, whose primary sponsors are Democrats.

“The most important thing in this state is the property tax agenda, and [the Democrats] are not addressing it even if we’re facing a crisis right around the corner,” Rumana said. “It’s not that the [fertilizer] bill isn’t important. But this isn’t the priority.”

Supporters of the bill, which had two Republican co-sponsors, said it was a victim of petty politics. They hope it can be revived when the Assembly meets again in early December.