Tennessee House Bills

Employees, Employers - As enacted, requires a public safety employer to provide an employee or prospective employee with reasonable access to the employee's or prospective employee's full employment record, including the results of any mental health evaluation or screening; makes certain other changes relative to employment by a public safety employer. - Amends TCA Title 4; Title 8; Title 38; Title 50; Title 62 and Title 68.

Schools, Charter - As enacted, requires the department of education to annually collect and report certain data for opportunity public charter schools on the department's website; requires a director of schools, juvenile court judge, or department of children's services caseworker who has knowledge that a student is an at-risk student and is eligible to attend an opportunity public charter school to provide the student and the student's parent or legal guardian with information regarding the student's eligibility to enroll in an opportunity public charter school and the location of any opportunity public charter schools that are located in or adjacent to the student's county of residence. - Amends TCA Title 49.

Drugs, Over the Counter - As enacted, increases the amount of products containing ephedrine or pseudoephedrine a person may purchase in a one-year period from 43.2 grams to 61.2 grams; changes references to the "National Precursor Log Exchange" to the "electronic sales tracking system"; requires any manufacturer of an ephedrine or pseudoephedrine product that is sold in or into this state to, on a monthly basis, pay fees to the administrator of the electronic sales tracking system. - Amends TCA Title 39, Chapter 17, Part 4.

Education - As enacted, revises the requirements for electronic participation in school board meetings under certain circumstances. - Amends TCA Title 49.

Estates - As enacted, states that the Uniform Partition Heirs Property Act does not apply to sales of land to pay the debts of an estate; revises the method for determining a decedent’s gross estate for purposes of calculating a surviving spouse's elective share. - Amends TCA Title 29; Title 31 and Title 34.

Mass Transit - As enacted, enacts the "Subterranean Transportation Infrastructure Coordination Act." -

Game and Fish Laws - As enacted, enacts the "Hunting for Heroes Act"; creates the Tennessee national guard sportsman license. - Amends TCA Title 70, Chapter 2.

Professions and Occupations - As enacted, authorizes graduates of certain accredited engineering technology curriculums to apply for and become registered as engineers, provided, that such persons have prior engineering experience and meet certain examination requirements. - Amends TCA Title 4 and Title 62, Chapter 2, Part 4.

Holidays and Days of Special Observance - As enacted, designates January 22 of each year as "Sanctity of Life Day." - Amends TCA Title 15, Chapter 2.

Cemeteries - As enacted, clarifies eligibility and required documentation for interment in state veterans' cemeteries for military service members and veterans, including certain members of a reserve component of the armed forces of the United States, the army national guard, or the air national guard, and spouses and children of such service members and veterans. - Amends TCA Title 46, Chapter 6.

Fire Prevention and Investigation - As enacted, requires certification from the peace officer standards and training commission and certain other criteria to be met in order for the commissioner of commerce and insurance, the commissioner's deputies, a municipal fire investigator, or a salaried county fire investigator to exercise police powers, including the power to arrest, relative to cases of arson or suspected arson. - Amends TCA Title 5; Title 6; Title 38 and Title 68.

Criminal Offenses - As enacted, requires a person convicted of vehicular homicide proximately resulting from the person's intoxication to be punished as no lower than a Range II offender if the person, as a result of the same course of conduct, is also convicted of leaving the scene of the accident. - Amends TCA Title 39; Title 40 and Title 55.

Medical Occupations - As enacted, changes references to marital and family therapists to marriage and family therapists throughout the code, and makes other changes relative to marriage and family therapists. - Amends TCA Title 4, Chapter 29; Title 8, Chapter 50; Title 33; Title 36; Title 52; Title 56; Title 63 and Title 68.

Safety, Dept. of - As enacted, removes present law that requires an offender sentenced to a period of incarceration for a DUI to begin their sentence within 30 days of conviction or, if space is not immediately available in the appropriate municipal or county jail or workhouse within such time, as soon as such space is available; requires, instead, the sentencing court to determine when such an offender is required to commence service of their sentence. - Amends TCA Title 55 and Title 65.

Nurses, Nursing - As enacted, enacts the "Tennessee Nursing Education Integrity and Oversight Act." - Amends TCA Title 49 and Title 63.

Federal Aid - As enacted, enacts the "Federal Tax Credit Scholarship Act." - Amends TCA Title 4; Title 9 and Title 49.

Alcoholic Beverages - As enacted, adds the bottling of distilled spirits to the definition of "manufacture" for purposes of licensing and regulation of the manufacturing of alcoholic beverages. - Amends TCA Title 57, Chapter 3.

Local Education Agencies - As enacted, requires, beginning with the next adoption of academic standards in the subject of social studies, the standards recommendation committee to include in their final recommendations of academic standards in the subject of social studies to the state board of education, and the state board, to adopt, grade-appropriate academic standards on the history of communism. - Amends TCA Title 49.

State Government - As enacted, enacts the "Recognizing Judea and Samaria Act." - Amends TCA Title 3; Title 4 and Title 8.

Gas, Petroleum Products, Volatile Oils - As enacted, makes various changes concerning oil and gas drilling operations; specifies procedural requirements for review of certain administrative actions. - Amends TCA Title 59; Title 60 and Title 68.

Workers Compensation - As enacted, adds a requirement that an award of attorneys' fees and costs incurred when an employer unreasonably denies a workers' compensation claim or unreasonably fails to timely initiate any of the benefits associated with the claim must be based on a finding by the workers' compensation judge that the employer's conduct was unreasonable; makes related changes. - Amends TCA Title 50, Chapter 6.

Children - As enacted, allows a high school student who is older than 16 but younger than 19 to work in a child care center outside of school hours or during school hours through a work-based learning program if the student meets certain criteria. - Amends TCA Title 37; Title 49; Title 50, Chapter 5 and Title 71.

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State Government - As enacted, prohibits a state agency from issuing or renewing a certification, registration, license, or permit to a corporate entity if an officer, director, or employee of the entity provides material support or resources, meeting spaces, or other forums to certain terrorist groups or organizations for the purpose of soliciting material support or recruiting new members; requires a state agency to deny, revoke, or refuse or renew a certification, registration, license, or permit issued to such entities upon receipt of satisfactory proof of such activity. - Amends TCA Title 4; Title 8; Title 48 and Title 67.

Health Care - As enacted, increases the number of members on the medical cannabis commission from nine to 10, and provides that the additional member must be a member who is a specialist in the area of substance abuse prevention and serve as a nonvoting member. - Amends TCA Title 4 and Title 68, Chapter 7.

Workers Compensation - As enacted, authorizes the chief administrative officer of the bureau of workers' compensation of the department of labor and workforce development to disburse funds from the subsequent injury and vocational recovery fund for costs associated with implementing and maintaining a computer system for the bureau of workers' compensation; makes other changes related to workers' compensation. - Amends TCA Title 50, Chapter 6, Part 2.

Hospitals and Health Care Facilities - As enacted, requires the attorney general, in making a decision as to whether to object to a public benefit hospital conveyance transaction, to consider whether the proceeds will be controlled as funds independently of the acquiring or related entities; makes certain exemptions. - Amends TCA Title 48, Chapter 68 and Title 68, Chapter 11.

Sewage - As enacted, makes revision to present law concerning sewerage systems using land application; exempts Hamilton County from the provisions requiring the developer of a subdivision or neighborhood that proposes to construct a treatment works to submit an application to the utility serving the area in which the system is located. - Amends TCA Title 7; Title 8; Title 9; Title 62, Chapter 2; Title 65; Title 68, Chapter 221 and Title 69.

Criminal Offenses - As enacted, defines "seriously bodily injury" for the purposes of the present law offense of vehicular assault, which occurs when a person who, as the proximate result of the person's intoxication, recklessly causes serious bodily injury to another person by the operation of a motor vehicle or vessel subject to registration; makes related changes. - Amends TCA Title 39 and Title 55.

Local Education Agencies - As enacted, enacts the "Tennessee Religious Freedom Act," which authorizes a local board of education to open a meeting of the board with a prayer led by a member of the board as long as the prayer does not require participation of any person in attendance at the meeting and no person is harassed or coerced to participate in the prayer. - Amends TCA Title 49.