2022 Kansas legislative session wraps up

The 2022 Kansas legislative session officially adjourned for the year May 23. The Kansas Soybean Association monitored a number of bills throughout the session, including:

HB 2530/SB 261 – KSA joined other state commodity organizations to advocate for the bill related to “prohibiting the use of identifiable meat terms on the labels of meat analogs when such labels do not include proper qualifying language to indicate that such products do not contain meat.” It was approved by the Governor May 5.

HB 2106 – This bipartisan bill was signed by the Governor May 11, effectively eliminating the state sales tax on groceries. The legislation lays out a plan to phase out the tax by 2025.

HB 2686 – This is a water-related bill “requiring groundwater management districts to provide certain reports to the legislature and distributing a portion of the sales and compensating use tax to the state water plan fund.” The Kansas Agricultural Alliance opposed the legislation, stating it “would create a single water and environment agency which draws upon too much power, guided by a political appointment that will change with every administration,’’ and it never made it to vote in the House after approval by the House Water Committee.

H.B. 2239 – This bill was a conglomeration of 29 different initiatives that would ultimately lead to a $90 million tax cut. This was passed by Committee ahead of the April 1 adjournment and included two proposals supported by KSA. The first KSA-supported initiative was sales tax exemptions on purchases of materials for fencing destroyed by natural disaster between Jan. 1, 2021 and June 30, 2022. The second initiative was property tax abatements for property destroyed by natural disaster and permanent sales tax exemptions on all purchases for agricultural fencing after July 1, 2022. Another part of the bill related to creation of an agricultural grassland property tax classification. The Governor signed the bill April 14.

Questions related to bills or others may be directed to the Kansas Soybean Association office.