Iowa County Conservation System and
Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation
Legislative Update | February 12, 2022
Five weeks down, ten to go … maybe. Monday, February 14th will mark Day 36 of the 100-day scheduled session. Monday also marks the first day of the first funnel week. By close of business Friday, February 18th, all bills that have not been passed by a full committee as dead for the year (excluding tax and spending bills). 
 
Since most bills have to be first passed by a 3-person subcommittee, that means last week and the first part of funnel week was and will be PACKED with subcommittee meetings. As this week progresses, full committee meetings will start taking the place of subcommittees and will be packed in through at least Thursday morning. By the time it’s over, hundreds of bills will be dead for the year.
 
Meanwhile, bills are still being introduced at a higher rate than a couple of weeks ago. Most of them won’t have time to be considered. For the ones that are being scheduled for subcommittees and committee right away, it’s very common to have legislators agreeing a bill needs more work but advancing it in order to keep it alive for further discussion. 
 
Floor Work Heats Up the Week of February 21st
Once the funnel is over this week, the Legislature’s focus will shift to floor work as the chambers will move as many bills as they can to the other chamber in preparation for the second funnel deadline on March 18th. This flurry of activity in the weeks surrounding the first funnel should explain to a lot of people outside the building why the Legislature’s budget process doesn’t start to heat up until March every year. With that said though, it’s clear that both chambers are assembling their budget priorities behind the scenes.
 
Education Funding
The only bill that the Legislature is required to debate and get to the Governor early every session is the School Supplemental Aid (SSA) bill that sets funding for the upcoming school year. Late Thursday, the House passed a 2.5% increase in the SSA ($150 million), which the Governor supports. The Senate’s bill has an increase of 2.25% that they will debate early this week. While the Senate’s percentage increase is lower, their proposal devotes more money to paying down the difference between the district cost per pupil and the state cost per pupil.  
 
Log Into Zoom
For those of you wishing to virtually attend and speak on bills that are in a Senate subcommittee, you can do so on Zoom. However, you MUST be logged into an account. It doesn’t need to be a paid account, but it must be an account with your information. The reason for this is that the Senate, upon initial availability of Zoom for meetings, had problems with people abusing the system by being logged in anonymously and carrying out activities that didn’t belong in the meeting. 
 
The House uses the WebEx system for their subcommittees. You can watch their meetings, but you cannot speak about a bill under consideration unless you are physically in the room.
 
Tax Bills
In the last update, we talked about the similarities and differences between the House, Senate and Governor’s tax bills. Since then, the Senate (SF 2206) and House (HF 2317) both have their bills ready for debate in their respective chamber and we anticipate the House going first this week with consideration of HF 2317. 
 
The non-partisan Legislative Services Agency (LSA) is responsible for analyzing the fiscal impact of legislation. They did release a fiscal note this week on HF 2317 that you can review HERE
 
LSA has not yet completed an analysis of SF 2206 which is much bigger in scope than the House bill. However, the Iowa League of Cities did an analysis of the effect of the Local Option Sales Tax (LOST) changes in the bill and created a tool that you can review HERE. Since the bill would convert the LOST to a statewide penny and since not all jurisdictions have approved the LOST, that means some counties will see some shifting in the distributions of those revenues. The Legislature is still discussing possible changes to the bill that would alleviate this.
 
Remember that the Senate's tax bill - SF 2206 - is the ONLY tax reform bill that includes the constitutional funding for the Natural Resources and Outdoor Recreation Trust Fund. 
County Conservation Acquisition Limitations

While the ICCS and INHF are working with other groups to push support for the IWILL provision in SF 2206, we have also had to react to other legislation at the Statehouse, namely SSB 3134 which was filed on Wednesday night. The bill would seriously curtail the rights of private property owners trying to sell their land to a public entity for conservation. You can view an alert that went out about this HERE.

Thank you to those of you that were able to react quickly and weigh in with Senators before the Thursday night subcommittee. Despite unilateral opposition to the bill in the subcommittee, Senators Sweeney and Shipley voted to advance the bill to full committee in order to continue the discussion. It is likely to be voted out of the Senate Natural Resources and Environment Committee (Link) this week in order to have a live bill that can be worked on after the funnel deadline.

We have offered to be at the table to help come up with something that fixes the problem they are targeting but without harming conservation and private property rights. Please take some time to weigh in with your Senator about this important issue.
SSB3134_AnnaGray_02102022.jpg
Anna Gray with the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation (above) and Mike Cox with Story County Conservation (below) address the crowded SSB 3134 subcommittee.
SSB3134_MikeCox_02102022.jpg
ICCS & INHF Bills of Interest - Bill Link
Bottle Bill
Repeals the beverage containers control program.

Makes changes to bottle redemption and repeals beverage container control law on January 1, 2024.

Civil Rights
Prohibits someone of a different biological sex from using a school bathroom designated for the other biological sex.

Environment & Natural Resources
Creates a restore the outdoors program.

Amends definition of private land available for public recreational use and amends definition of "recreational purpose."

Requires DNR to maintain its online inventory of state lands.

Makes changes to DNR programs.

Makes changes to the Lake Manawa and Waubonsie State Park user fee pilot program.

Directs DNR to administer the habitat and public access program.

Eliminates requirements for a person seeking a general permit to publish notice and requires the DNR to publish electronic notice.

Places spending restrictions on county conservation boards and DNR when purchasing certain properties.

Hunting
Makes youth deer hunting licenses available for sale at the same time as adult licenses.

Directs DNR to administer the habitat and public access program.

Local Government
Defines protecting information from cyber-attacks as an essential county/corporate purpose.

Changes requirements for zoning commission and board of adjustment members.

Other
Places requirements for local government lobbying and contracts.

Eliminates the requirement that a resident snowmobile operator must obtain a user permit to operate a snowmobile on public land, public ice, or a designated snowmobile trail.

Includes various traffic offenses by vehicle drivers against bicyclists that allow for increased fines and license suspensions for causing serious injury or death.

Prohibits any group that receives tax funds from providing training that teaches, advocates, encourages, promotes, or act upon stereotyping, scapegoating, or prejudice toward others on the basis of demographic membership or identity.

Allows a governmental body to conduct a meeting electronically even when it is possible or practical to conduct the meeting in person.

Property Tax
Strikes changes to the commercial and industrial property tax replacement payments made in the 2021 session to reduce or eliminate the payments.

Public Health
Prohibits employers from requiring employees or applicants from having to receive a vaccine that has not been approved by the FDA.

Tax
The House's tax reform bill.

The Senate's tax reform bill.

Governor's Tax Plan.

Tourism
Creates a scenic byways enhancement fund.
Your Bill Tracker
Click above to see status of important bills, or create your own report with our custom download.
Town Halls & Public Forums
Find a local event with your state or federal elected officials here. Three weeks are shown at a time on this website.