First Funnel Deadline has Arrived; Which Bills Survived and Which Died

It was a very busy week at the Capitol as the first legislative deadline has come and gone. At this time, most bills, excluding ways & means, appropriations and a few others, must have passed through a full committee in either chamber in order to be eligible for further consideration this year. Policymakers kept dozens of pieces of legislation alive by advancing them through the process this week. Below is a robust list of bills ABI is closely following that either “survived” or “died” this week. If you have any questions about these bills or others, please contact JD Davis or Brad Hartkopf. 

Alive

ABI Supports

SF 586 - Third Party Litigation Financing Regulation
The Senate Judiciary Committee advanced bipartisan legislation that would crack down on the practice of third party litigation financing by imposing regulations that will help protect consumers and businesses from bad actors who fund lawsuits for the purpose of seeking a cut of the financial outcome. This kind of funding ultimately drives up costs for industry and perverts the justice system. The bill also would enact a prohibition on sovereign wealth funds and nations that are hostile to the United States from funding lawsuits as well. Several states have tackled this issue and Iowa might be the next. The bill manager noted there will be a broader floor amendment to fix some of the issues that exist within the current bill.

HF 2327 / SF 2168 - Codifying the Re-employment Case Management Program
Both the House and Senate Workforce Committees have passed a bill that would put Iowa Workforce Development’s re-employment case management program (RCMP) into law. Right now, the program exists only as an administrative function. The RCMP was implemented in early 2022 and helps connect Iowans who lose their jobs through no fault of their own with a caseworker who will assist claimants in finding that next job sooner rather than later. This program, along with legislative changes that have transformed our unemployment system over the last several years, is very beneficial to both the claimant and the employer.

SSB 3133 / HF 2527 - Greenhouse Gas Liability Reform
In certain areas of the country, lawsuits are being filed against farmers, ranchers and businesses alleging the greenhouse gases they are responsible for emitting are causing or potentially causing climate change that is creating damages. The bill heightens evidentiary standards and creates other requirements for plaintiffs to meet, should they believe they have been harmed by defendants. As we have seen in other instances, policymakers want to pre-empt these types of lawsuits from coming to Iowa. This legislation has passed out of the Senate and House Agriculture Committees.

SF 2292 - NCFCTI Fix (Single Factor Formula Protection)
Bipartisan support has been displayed as a measure preserving Iowa’s single factor formula for business income is moving through the Senate. The bill is necessary as federal tax changes made in 2025 would have exposed business income from outside Iowa to Iowa taxes. This is an echo of changes that were required by federal tax changes made in 2017. Having passed the Senate Commerce Committee, the bill is now in the Senate Ways and Means Committee for further consideration.

HF 2592 / SF 2286 - Investment of Public Funds
ABI members, the Iowa Bankers Association and the Community Bankers of Iowa, have highlighted a practice of local governments and school districts to pool deposits of property tax revenues and place them with out-of-state organizations for deposit and management. This forgoes local use by hometown banks that could keep deposits and loans from those funds in local economies. The Senate took action last week, and the companion bill moved out of the House State Government Committee this week.

---

ABI Opposes

HF 2480 - Posting Veterans Benefits in the Workplace
The House Veterans Affairs Committee has approved a bill that would mandate that employers hang a poster in a conspicuous location of their business that highlights benefits veterans are entitled to. This new requirement comes on top of all the other posters that state and federal law already require of industry. ABI is opposed as it could potentially create new penalties and open the door to litigation against businesses who are alleged to be in violation. A companion bill in the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee did not advance through the funnel.

HSB 751 / HF 2529 - Right to Repair
Many farm implement manufacturers, including ABI member John Deere, have worked with the American Farm Bureau Federation to manage right to repair public policy to make sure farmers have access to parts and can make their own repairs to equipment. It comes as a bit of a surprise then that two bills were introduced in the Iowa House Agriculture Committee to address this issue. The first would allow those with an interest in an implement to make modifications to defeat federally required emissions controls. The second was a traditional right to repair bill that in similar forms has been introduced in the past in other states. Unique to Iowa’s version were requirements that replacement parts must be sold at cost and software be transferred for free.  ABI testified on behalf of all manufacturers in this intrusion into open markets.

HSB 629 / SSB 3092 - Community Solar
Companion bills were introduced in both the House and Senate that would enable aggregation of electric customers by third parties that would provide solar energy to groups of customers when available. The House and Senate Commerce Committees took different paths with the Senate declining to advance the measure and the House reporting an amended bill out of committee. The bills were opposed by ABI as they violated our current energy policy against cross-subsidization of energy costs amongst customers.

---

ABI is Nuetral

SSB 3001 / HSB 563 / HSB 596 - Property Tax Proposals
As today marks the official “first funnel” deadline where all policy bills must have passed out of an initial policy committee, some focus now turns to budget and tax matters. Three property tax proposals are now before the legislature. One from House Republicans, one from Senate Republicans and Governor Reynolds’ proposal. On Wednesday of next week, a Senate subcommittee will be held on the Reynolds’ proposal. It is Senate Ways and Means Chairman Dawson’s goal to fully vet the competing proposals publicly, gauging the support of taxpayers and the preferences of taxing districts to the various proposals. We will measure the proposals against current law and be guided by the principle that at the end of this process, no property tax burden going forward is shifted to the commercial and industrial classes.

ABI is neutral to each individual bill to build support for consensus.

HF 2466 - Iowa Skilled Workforce Act
This week, the Higher Education Committee in the House advanced a bill that targets training programs designed for the building trades. The bill increases the amount annually appropriated to the apprenticeship training fund from $3 million to $4.5 million, aids in grants to establishment of training facilities and addresses the ratios of journey/lead employees to apprentices. As currently drafted, the bill would also allow a participant to a training program to be supported by benefits from the Iowa Unemployment Trust Fund for a week of their annual training. As this violates the policy of the unemployment system that requires that those supported by unemployment benefits be able and available for work, ABI objected to that language. It is understood that language is being developed to replace the funding source for this support and if that effort succeeds, ABI could then reconsider its position on the legislation.

SF 2412/HF 2608 - E-verify for the Public Sector
The Senate Workforce Committee and the House Judiciary Committee have both signed off legislation that would require prospective state government employees and those seeking a professional license to be vetted through the e-verify system to ensure their eligibility to work in the United States. The Senate bill was amended in committee to also require prospective city, county and school employees be verified as well. The House bill does not include this language. Neither bill impacts the private sector and ABI staff is working to ensure that remains the case all the way through the legislative session.

HF 2640 - Prohibition of Weather Engineering
The House Environmental Protection Committee voted to pass legislation that would prohibit individuals and businesses from intentionally emitting, releasing or injecting chemicals into the atmosphere for the express purpose of altering the temperature, climate or intensity of the sun that is presently not regulated by state or federal law. Those found doing so would be charged with a Class D felony and significant fines. ABI is monitoring this to ensure there are no unintended consequences of allowing opponents of industry to start filing frivolous litigation against businesses for the sake of simply causing problems. A similar bill has gone through the Senate Technology Committee.

SF 2263 - Guns on Public Property Parking Lots
Over the last several years, ABI has worked to ensure that employers are able to maintain their private property rights by defeating legislation that would tell businesses they cannot have a policy in place that prohibits employees from having guns in their locked vehicles on the employer’s private property.

At this point, there is no bill moving that would do this, but SF 2263, which passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee, would permit guns in vehicles on publicly accessible parking lots that are operated by the state, county, city or township. The bill would also allow guns on the parking lots of regent schools, community colleges and K-12 schools, but the bill manager noted during the committee meeting that the school provisions would be struck out of the bill via amendment when this is brought to the floor. ABI is tracking this and a few other gun bills closely to ensure that language is not added that would impact the private sector.

HSB 595 / SSB 3107 - Second Injury Fund Appropriations
Attorney General Brenna Bird has legislation that would double the amount of money her office receives from the second injury fund for workers’ compensation from an annual $450,000 to $900,000. That amount would rise every year in line with the consumer price index. ABI has been told the need for the increase arises from two Iowa Supreme Court decisions recently made that open the door to new theories of liability being offered by plaintiff attorneys that has increased the caseload for the AG’s office to defend against. ABI is not opposed to the increase in funding, but in conjunction with that, we would like to see policy language added to the bill that would take us back to how the law was before these decisions were made by the Court. ABI and the AG’s Office are having conversations and working together on this matter. Appropriations Subcommittees in both chambers have advanced this legislation.

SF 2301 - Iowa Economic Development Authority Omnibus
This week, the Senate Commerce Committee advanced the EDGE program (Expansion and Development for Growth and Employment). The bill perfects earlier work on a MEGA bill to attract very large economic development projects, and the BIG program for traditional projects.  The draft also proposes changes to the financing of worker training at community colleges by eliminating bonding capabilities for 260e programs and also creates an opportunity for alternative training to be supported through a payroll tax funding source. ABI members continue to assess the measure as it advances.

HF 2365 - Integrated Resource Planning and Rate Case Requirements
A bill very similar to a portion of the energy omnibus introduced by Governor Reynolds last year was passed this week by the House Commerce Committee. Not like last year the bill also required rate regulated utilities to file a general rate case every three years. Interestingly, this section modifies a portion of the Iowa Code that was created to prevent utilities from filing rate cases too frequently.  An amendment was recommended by the Commerce Committee to remove the rate case language.

---

Dead

ABI Opposed

HF 2287 - Vaccine Manufacturers’ Liability
A House Judiciary Subcommittee passed a bill that would require a vaccine manufacturer who wants to sell their product in Iowa to give up lawsuit immunity under the federal Childhood Vaccine Injury Act. If the manufacturer refused to give this up, not only could they not sell their product in Iowa, but no Iowan could take that vaccine, even if they wanted to voluntarily do so. This legislation could create extraordinary public health issues in our state if it were to become law. Given the magnitude of the negative impact of the bill, every single lobbyist registration publicly made has been opposed to the bill. Fortunately, the bill did come out of the House Judiciary Committee before the end of the funnel.

HF 2368 - Iowa Medical Freedom Act
Another troubling bill that passed the subcommittee level, but failed to come out of committee is the Iowa Medical Freedom Act. This bill takes a direct shot at Iowa’s status as an “at-will” employment state by prohibiting employers from taking certain actions within their business as it relates to “medical interventions” for employees. The bill would dictate terms and conditions employers set with their employees regarding their work, tell employers how much they have to pay their employees and would allow the Attorney General or county attorneys to sue the business for violating the bill. Businesses would also be required to pay attorneys fees to those parties if they were to prevail.