The Rozenboom Report – April 4th, 2025
by Senator Ken Rozenboom
The 12th week of the 2025 legislative session was full of (very long) committee meetings as we rushed to get priority bills through committee before the April 4 legislative deadline known as the second funnel. Several of the Governor’s priority bills advanced this week as well.
Senate File 575, the governor’s rural health care bill, is designed to coordinate and expand programs to address health care workforce needs in our state. It designates $10 million to the Health Care Professional Incentive Program to help identify high-demand health sector jobs in communities and counties across the state. It also utilizes partnerships with Iowa hospitals to add an estimated 115 new residency slots at Iowa’s 14 teaching hospitals. When fully implemented over four years, the goal is to have 460 new physicians being trained through the residency program. The bill continues alignment goals by streamlining the state’s certificate of need process and improving oversight of the state’s health information exchange entity.
Senate File 591 is the governor’s emergency disaster recovery and housing assistance bill. It implements policy changes from lessons learned and best practices utilized during last year’s flood and tornado responses. It ensures that funds are available to communities for assistance with recovery from storms and natural disasters. It also implements consumer protections to regulate the insurance industry during the disaster recovery process. The bill also appropriates money from the Economic Emergency Fund to ensure cash is available to state entities for immediate disaster response when the governor declares an emergency.
The Senate Commerce Committee passed HF 639, which advances expanded protections for landowners and strengthens private property rights in Iowa. The bill includes additional requirements for Iowa Utilities Commission (IUC) members, such as requiring at least one member attend public informational meetings and pausing those meetings if that member leaves for any reason. It also requires that a majority of IUC members must be present for any hearing, including hearings on requests for eminent domain. The bill empowers landowners to recover any damages caused by a project, implements additional protections for crop loss and soil restoration, and includes indemnification requirements to protect landowners and hold them harmless from damage throughout the life of a project. Additionally, the bill requires more timely decisions by the IUC and expands the use of voluntary easements.
Last week, Senate File 394 passed the Senate and I hope to see the issue discussed in the House. There are many regulations companies must follow to sell their products, and many restrictions of what can and cannot be on the labels of their products. This bill simply clarifies that a company cannot be sued for what is on their EPA-required pesticide labels. This bill does not prohibit any Iowan from suing the company if it can be proven they were injured by a product in any way. These products, used by farmers all over the world because of their effectiveness, are critical tools for agriculture because they significantly reduce the amount of tillage needed to produce food. We cannot allow the trial lawyer industry to rob Iowa farmers of such important and effective tools.
We continue to get good news about Iowa and how we are comparing to other states. Recently, WalletHub rated our state in the top ten best states for taxpayer return on investment (ROI) in the country, looking at the rate at which taxpayers send their money to the state relative to the services given in return. This top ten ranking shows the strength of the state’s current direction, led by a fiscally responsible state government that will ensure Iowa’s success, not just today, but for years to come.
There are four weeks left before the May 2 target day to wrap up the 2025 legislative session. It seems we made a lot of progress this week, but a lot of matters have yet to be resolved and agreed to by the House, the Senate and the Governor before we can shut this down.
