Tennessee Senate Bills

Foster Care - As enacted, requires the department of children's services to provide a copy of a petition to terminate parental rights for a child in the custody of the department to the child's foster parent, if the foster parent has served as the physical placement for the child for a period of nine or more consecutive months; requires the department to provide the required copy within seven days of the filing or being served with the petition. - Amends TCA Section 36-1-113 and Section 37-2-415.

Expunction - As enacted, permits a court to expunge certain violent offenses for which a person has been pardoned; requires the court to consider, in weighing the best interests of justice and public safety, whether the offense sought to be expunged was violent and any other relevant factors presented by the petitioner and the district attorney general. - Amends TCA Title 40.

Professions and Occupations - As enacted, decreases from 18 to 16, the minimum age an individual must be to apply for a license to be a bid caller auctioneer. - Amends TCA Title 62, Chapter 19.

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.

Education, Dept. of - As enacted, requires the department to collaborate with the department of safety to develop guidelines for LEAs and public charter schools providing a driver education and training course that include certain criteria. - Amends TCA Title 49 and Title 55.

Optometry - As enacted, redefines the practice of optometry. - Amends TCA Title 63, Chapter 8.

Administrative Procedure (UAPA) - As enacted, generally establishes that permanent rules filed in the office of the secretary of state on or after January 1, 2025, that are in effect on the effective date of this act, and that are scheduled for expiration on June 30, 2026, do not expire on June 30, 2026, but remain in effect until repealed or amended by subsequent rule of the appropriate rulemaking agency or until otherwise superseded by legislative enactment. -

Children - As enacted, specifies that a parent's or legal guardian's action of raising, guiding, or instructing the parent's or legal guardian's child in a manner consistent with the child's biological sex is not a basis for certain findings or actions by the court, does not constitute the criminal offense of child abuse, child neglect, or child endangerment, and must not be considered as a negative factor by a court in determining a custody arrangement in the best interest of the child. - Amends TCA Title 36, Chapter 6; Title 37, Chapter 1 and Title 39, Chapter 15.

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.

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.

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.

Public Funds and Financing - As enacted, specifies the conditions that must be satisfied for monies from the governor's response and recovery fund to be provided to eligible local governmental entities and to eligible individuals in qualifying counties following an emergency or disaster. - Amends TCA Section 9-4-216.

Child Abuse - As enacted, requires, rather than permits, the child protective team for a case involving a human trafficking offense to include a representative from a non-governmental agency specialized in combatting the commercial sexual exploitation of minors; extends the time within which the department or child protective team must determine whether reported abuse was indicated or unfounded from 60 days to 90 days or, in cases involving a child fatality, 180 days. - Amends TCA Title 37, Chapter 1.

Comptroller, State - As enacted, prohibits an LEA or public charter school from using public funds to initiate or maintain any civil action or proceeding against this state or an agency or officer of this state to challenge a school or district accountability measure established under state law. - Amends TCA Title 49.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Firefighters - As enacted, extends the period for the estate of an emergency responder killed in the line of duty from three years from the date of death to the later of such date or the date of a final order of a court, administrative law judge, or authorized state or local official designating the death as being in the line of duty; extends the period for an estate to file an appeal of a denial from 90 days to one year; adds a mechanism of appeal of a denial of a claim for the estates of firefighters, volunteer rescue squad workers, and emergency medical technicians. - Amends TCA Title 4, Chapter 24; Title 7, Chapter 51, Part 2; Title 38, Chapter 8 and Title 68, Chapter 140.

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.

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

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.

Motor Vehicles - As enacted, authorizes, effective January 1, 2027, temporary placards to be issued to a female who has a pregnancy certified to be high risk by her physician. - Amends TCA Title 55, Chapter 21.

Nurses, Nursing - As enacted, requires the commissioner of health to use existing resources to conduct a study of neighboring states to examine the varying levels of practice independence that may or may not be granted to certified nurse midwives in such states; requires the commissioner to compile the findings of the study and any recommendations in a report and transmit the report to the general assembly no later than December 31, 2026. - Amends TCA Title 4, Chapter 29; Title 56, Chapter 32, Part 1; Title 56, Chapter 7, Part 24; Title 63; Title 68 and Title 71, Chapter 5.

Veterans Services, Dept. of - As enacted, requires the department to conduct a study that includes an evaluation of county veterans service office resources; the identification of underserved areas; operational capacity; local outreach efforts, community outreach events, partnerships, and other entities providing, or sources of, assistance for veterans at the local level; and the identification of potential funding mechanisms to support local veterans service offices; requires the department to compile a report of the study by December 31, 2026. - Amends TCA Title 4, Chapter 25 and Title 58, Chapter 3.

Insurance Companies, Agents, Brokers, Policies - As enacted, increases from $100,000 to $250,000 the retained risk limit for a single risk covered by a policy of insurance issued by a county mutual insurance company. - Amends TCA Title 56, Chapter 22.

Agriculture, Dept. of - As enacted, restricts the authority of the commissioner to order tests or vaccinations of animals within the state or that are imported into the state to those for purposes of detecting or treating a notifiable disease or monitored disease, rather than for purposes of protecting the health of animals in Tennessee generally; allows the commissioner to recommend tests or vaccinations of animals within the state or that are imported into the state for purposes of protecting the health of animals. - Amends TCA Title 44.