Idaho Bills

Idaho's H 630 amends state law to allow permits for shooting coyotes, wolves, and red foxes from aircraft to protect livestock, crops, or land. Landowners must provide written permission for operations on their property, and permit holders must submit quarterly reports to the agriculture department. The bill specifies that red fox control is permitted year-round in designated hunting areas or where predation is causing problems outside those areas. It also eliminates existing administrative rules about this practice, effective July 2026.

Idaho's H 760 revises property tax exemptions for low-income housing owned by nonprofit organizations. It requires qualifying nonprofits to meet specific criteria, including federal 501(c)(3) status and ensuring no private benefit from tax exemptions. The bill mandates that 55% of units must rent to residents earning ≤60% of local median income, 20% to those earning ≤50%, and 25% to those earning ≤30%, with annual compliance reports to counties. It also adds protections preventing evictions for three months after certified medical emergencies and prohibits the exemption for properties with financing closed by July 1, 2026, unless undergoing rehabilitation.

H 763 prohibits Idaho's public pension funds, university endowments, and other state-managed investments from making new investments in countries designated as "foreign adversaries" (including China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea) starting July 1, 2026. The bill defines "governmental entities" to cover state agencies, public universities, and local governments, and bans new investments in foreign adversaries, their state-owned enterprises, or companies domiciled in those countries. Existing investments prior to July 1, 2026, are exempt, and the law does not override required fiduciary investment standards. This applies specifically to funds managed by Idaho's public institutions, not private investments.

H 727 updates Idaho's laws on video voyeurism and the disclosure of realistic computer-generated media (like deepfakes). It revises definitions to better protect privacy, clarifying what constitutes "intimate areas" and places where people reasonably expect privacy, such as changing rooms or bedrooms. The bill creates a new offense for knowingly sharing synthetic media depicting an identifiable person in sexual acts or intimate areas without consent - this is a misdemeanor, but becomes a felony (up to 10 years in prison or $25,000 fine) if the victim is under 18 or the person has a prior conviction. This directly affects individuals who create or share such media without consent and law enforcement handling related cases.

This bill (H 627) amends Idaho's open meetings law to explicitly permit the public to record meetings using electronic devices like phones or cameras. It prohibits governing bodies from preventing or restricting recording and bars removing people for doing so. The change applies to all public meetings covered by the law, including city councils and school boards, except for specific exceptions like tax appeals deliberations. The law will take effect on July 1, 2026.

This Idaho bill (S 1224) amends traffic laws for slow-moving vehicles like farm tractors, construction equipment, and farm machinery. It requires these vehicles to have rear emblems, headlights during nighttime hours (30 minutes after sunset to 30 minutes before sunrise), and prohibits operation above 25 mph unless designed for higher speeds. The bill also adds an exception for emergency/snow removal vehicles during public safety operations and clarifies when drivers must pull over on two-lane highways when three or more vehicles follow a slow-moving vehicle. It takes effect July 1, 2026.

This Idaho bill (H 530) requires health insurance plans to cover anticancer medications with equal cost-sharing for oral and injected treatments. Specifically, it mandates that out-of-pocket costs for oral anticancer drugs cannot exceed $250 per 30-day supply, matching the cost limits for injected options. The law clarifies that plans aren’t required to classify anticancer medications as "medical benefits" but prohibits them from increasing costs or reclassifying coverage to avoid compliance. It takes effect July 1, 2026, directly affecting insurers and patients using oral anticancer medications under Idaho health plans.

This bill changes how Idaho pays counties for housing state prisoners in county jails. Counties will now receive $80 per day for the first seven days of each inmate's stay (up from $55), then $75 daily thereafter. The state must also cover all medical/dental costs for these inmates, and counties must bill the state every 60 days with payment due within 60 days. The changes take effect July 1, 2026, as an emergency measure.

This bill repeals multiple outdated Idaho Code sections related to water resources, including provisions about groundwater recharge, water conservation trust accounts, and specific water compacts (like the Salmon Falls Creek and Columbia Interstate Compacts). It directly affects the Department of Water Resources by removing obsolete legal requirements from its operational framework. The bill's purpose is to streamline Idaho's water law code, ensuring it remains current and essential for public administration. This is a procedural cleanup measure with no new policy changes or direct impact on water users or projects.

This bill allows Idaho state funds and pension assets to be invested in physical gold and silver, expanding investment options beyond traditional financial instruments. It authorizes the state investment board and pension fund managers to allocate up to 7.5% of their invested money into physical precious metals, which must be stored in secure depositories meeting industry standards within Idaho, neighboring states, or Texas. The law requires that any gold and silver held be insured, independently audited, and physically separated from other assets, with storage permitted in qualified bank vaults or specialized precious metals depositories. These changes apply to both state permanent endowment funds and pension system assets, with provisions for annual audits and clear guidelines on investment policies.

This bill appropriates approximately $25.9 million to Idaho's Department of Fish and Game for fiscal year 2027, covering administration, enforcement, fisheries, wildlife, and communications programs. The funding comes from state, federal, and other dedicated funds, with specific amounts allocated to personnel costs, operating expenditures, and capital outlays. The legislation also allows the department to use any unspent money from fiscal year 2026 for nonrecurring expenses in the following year. An emergency provision sets the effective date as July 1, 2026.

This bill establishes the Office of the Administrative Rules Coordinator within Idaho's Division of Financial Management Legislative Services Office, creating a new nonclassified position to oversee administrative rule formatting and review. The coordinator will have authority to make clerical corrections and typographical fixes to proposed and existing rules without changing their meaning, and will enforce a uniform style and numbering system for all agency rules. Additionally, the bill repeals the existing periodic review of administrative rules provision, removing the requirement for regular comprehensive reviews of agency regulations. The changes aim to streamline rule documentation and standardization processes for state agencies.