Pesticide lawsuits, property taxes among issues likely to return to Iowa state lawmakers in 2026

DES MOINES — State lawmakers have finished their work for 2025, and Gov. Kim Reynolds is working through the 172 bills they sent her way.

Which issues remain unresolved by the Iowa Legislature and are likely to be back on legislators’ plates in 2026?

We know at least one answer to that question: property taxes. Despite it being a top priority of legislative leaders and extensive work on legislation during the session, no property tax bill made it out of the Iowa Legislature this year. Property taxes are certain to be addressed again next year.

We do not yet know about another possible repeat issue: eminent domain. Whether that’s a legislative topic for discussion again in 2026 depends on what Reynolds decides to do with House File 639. As of Friday, she had not yet acted on the bill.

What other issues may make a repeat appearance on legislators’ plates when they resume their work in January? Let’s explore a few likely candidates.

As has been the case every year since 2017, statehouse Republicans in 2026 will have complete control of the state lawmaking process with their agenda-setting majorities in both chambers of the Iowa Legislature to go with Reynolds in the governor’s mansion.

Property taxes

Republican Rep. Bobby Kaufmann, of Wilton, and Sen. Dan Dawson, of Council Bluffs, worked on property tax policy throughout the 2025 session. The two lawmakers are the respective chairmen of the House and Senate Ways and Means Committees that write tax policy.

Kaufmann told reporters during the final day of the session that he felt the legislation he and Dawson produced was “80 percent there.” Their bill, Senate File 651, would have phased out the current rollback over 10 years; created a 25 percent exemption up to $125,000 of a home’s assessed value; capped property growth at a 2 percent increase over the previous year’s property tax revenues or guarantee a 0.5 percent increase, whichever is greater; and shifted roughly $426 million in funding for K-12 schools from local property taxes to the state.

Reynolds said last weekend on Iowa PBS’ “Iowa Press” that after letting legislators take the lead in 2025, she plans to be more involved in property tax bill discussions in 2026.

“We have to think differently about how we deliver services to our citizens. We can’t continue to have the level of government that we have and expect the property taxes to go lower. It’s just not feasible. The math doesn’t work,” Reynolds said.

“So everything needs to be on the table. We need to talk about what that looks like and how we move forward and what is their priority,” Reynolds added. “Do they want to operate like we’ve done for the last 40 years? Or do they want to really, significantly, take a look at reducing those property taxes and thinking about how we can take advantage of those (services) differently.”

Pesticide lawsuits

For a second consecutive year in 2025, Iowa Senate Republicans passed legislation that would add agricultural chemical companies from lawsuits over their products’ warning labels, and Iowa House Republicans declined to advance the bill.

Opponents argue the bill would shield Bayer, the company that owns glyphosate-based herbicide Roundup, which is used by farmers across Iowa and manufactured in the state, from liability over failure to warn about the product’s health risks like cancer.

The bill would shield Bayer from lawsuits claiming the company failed to warn consumers of health risks if the product label complies with federal labeling requirements. Bayer argues that since the Environmental Protection Agency has determined glyphosate is not carcinogenic, the company should not be required to put cancer warnings on Roundup.

The 2025 bill, Senate File 394, just barely cleared the Senate with a 25-21 vote. That was fewer votes in support than the 30 the bill had in 2024.

“We are disappointed that inaction by some legislators in Iowa meant the needs of the litigation industry were prioritized over the needs of farmers,” a Bayer spokesperson said in a statement to The Gazette. “Farmers and consumers need certainty reaffirming the authority of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s science-based rulings that crop protection tools are safe when used as directed. Without these tools, Iowa’s farmers could face lower yields, and families across the country could face higher grocery costs.”

The statement from Bayer went on to praise laws passed in North Dakota and Georgia and said the company plans to continue working with state and federal lawmakers on the issue.

Reynolds said she would have liked to see the bill make it to her desk.

“I would because it’s based on common sense,” Reynolds said on “Iowa Press.” “The FDA said that in the labeling requirement that it wasn’t a carcinogen. … I think the bill was just a common sense bill that said if the FDA says that it’s not, then we shouldn’t be sued for using that product.”

The advocacy organization Food and Water Watch has opposed bills like Senate File 394. Jennifer Breon, the group’s Iowa organizer, expects similar legislation to be debated again in Iowa in 2026.

“Bayer will stop at nothing to protect their profits at our expense. From the Supreme Court to a dozen state houses and the halls of Congress, the corporation is desperately pushing their Cancer Gag Act anywhere they can,” Breon said in a statement to The Gazette. “When they come back to peddle their dangerous legislation in Iowa next year, people power will be ready to stop them, just like we did this year.”

Breon said Food and Water Watch is organizing in communities across the state to talk to Iowans about cancer rates, agricultural pollution and agribusiness. She said the group also is monitoring potential federal legislation.

“While we look ahead to next session, we also must be vigilant to ward off any efforts to pass this bill in Congress. Such a move would jeopardize the hard fought win Iowans secured this session,” Breon said.

Cancer

Iowa has the second-highest and fastest-growing rate of new cancers in the nation, but few bills that would address cancer concerns passed the Iowa Legislature in 2025.

Lawmakers did approve Reynolds’ request for $1 million to seed University of Iowa research to determine the causes of Iowa’s high rate of cancer.

But of the five policy bills the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Action Network registered in support of this session, four failed to pass the Iowa Legislature.

Those four bills proposed to require Iowa casinos to be smoke-free, restrict teens from using tanning beds, prohibit cost-sharing requirements for breast exams to be less favorable than for mammograms, and create and fund an Iowa Cancer Research Program. The tanning bed and breast exam bills passed the Iowa House, but not the Iowa Senate.

The only bill supported by the American Cancer Society this year that made it to Reynolds’ desk still is awaiting her final decision: a bill that would regulate pharmacy benefit managers. As of Friday, Reynolds had not yet acted on it. The bill contains a provision that is designed to help make co-pay assistance programs more cost effective for patients.

On the other hand, most legislation opposed by the American Cancer Society also failed to pass. The only bill opposed by the group that passed the Legislature was Republicans’ work requirements for Medicaid patients.

The group opposed bills that would have banned all gene-based vaccines, required parental consent for the HPV vaccine, allowed physicians to decline to deliver medical services based on personal objections, and addressed taxes on tobacco and vape products — as well as the aforementioned pesticide lawsuits bill. None of those bills passed the Legislature.

“We made some progress in helping reduce the cancer burden, but we have a lot of work to do to protect access to health care next session,” American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network Iowa government relations director Jackie Cale said in an emailed statement to The Gazette.

Child care and preschool

Addressing child care — especially via a “continuum of care” between preschools and child care centers — was one of Reynolds’ top legislative priorities in 2025. But her bill, Senate File 445, did not pass the Iowa Legislature, primarily over concerns with how her proposals were funded.

Less than a week after the legislative session ended, Reynolds introduced her own child care plan, similar to her proposed bill and free of the need for lawmakers to approve.

Reynolds’ proposal has three pieces: $300,000 in Early Childhood Continuum of Care grants, the expansion of a Child Care Assistance pilot program that is deemed to have been successful in supporting child care workers by allowing them to qualify for state child care assistance, and the creation of a new Statewide Solutions Fund with the goal of boosting child care workers’ wages.

“When individuals, businesses, and government all work together to solve a problem, Iowans benefit. Nowhere is this more evident than in child care,” Reynolds said in a statement when her office announced her plans.

“Programs like the Child Care Assistance pilot and the Statewide Solutions Fund will continue to increase our child care workforce and capacity,” Reynolds said. “And, the Early Childhood Continuum of Care grant will help give working parents what they need — a full day continuum of care for their children.”

Reynolds’ plan earned praise from Deann Cook, president and CEO of the Iowa Women’s Foundation, which orchestrated the regional program that Reynolds’ office plans to expand.

“We know that our pilot communities who piloted child care solutions funds made incredible strides in increasing the number of child care spots available for families and increasing wages for workers in those communities,” Cook said. “So we’re excited to see what it can do at the statewide level.”

Cook said there remains more work for state lawmakers on child care; among them, she advocated for raising the income threshold for the state’s Child Care Assistance program to provide assistance to more families.

Energy policy

Reynolds proposed sweeping legislation on energy policy, but the bill did not make it to the finish line in 2025.

Among many other provisions, Reynolds’ proposal — in the form of twin bills House File 834 and Senate File 585 — sought to convey the state’s intent to develop nuclear power generation and attract energy storage; allow for advanced ratemaking for new or renovated electric power generating, alternate energy production, or energy storage facilities; and create a right of first refusal provision by which incumbent electric transmission companies in Iowa would be granted the first opportunity to construct any new transmission line project.

That final provision was particularly divisive and even drew interest — and opposition — from President Donald Trump’s administration.

Opponents of right of first refusal laws argue they stifle competition and thus lead to higher project costs; supporters argue they help ensure projects are completed efficiently and reliably, and by local workers.

“Going into the year we knew that that may be one of the more difficult challenges before the Legislature,” Iowa House Speaker Pat Grassley, a Republican from New Hartford, said recently on “Iowa Press.”

“The right of first refusal piece … I look at that from the standpoint of making sure that Iowa companies who we have worked with in the state, who we know use good practices, they don’t use eminent domain, they don’t cut kitty corner across their field, they do land restoration. The governor is pushing that policy to make sure that we can move these projects, working with people that we know, much quicker,” Grassley said. “(But) there was a level of opposition in the Legislature that want to just let the free market rule.”

Gazette Deputy Bureau Chief Tom Barton and Lee Bureau Chief Maya Marchel Hoff contributed to this report.

Comments: (515) 355-1300, erin.murphy@thegazette.com

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