Tennessee Bills

Local Education Agencies - As enacted, revises law relative to LEAs providing enrollment and services to certain students who are the dependent children of service members. - Amends TCA Title 49.

Adoption - As enacted, clarifies that a court may waive the requirement for a home study in an adoption when the prospective adoptive parent or parents are not related to the child if certain requirements are met. - Amends TCA Title 36 and Title 37.

Local Government, General - As enacted, prohibits local governmental entities from relocating homeless individuals unless the relocation meets certain criteria; authorizes the receiving jurisdiction to seek damages and injunctive relief for violations. - Amends TCA Title 5; Title 6; Title 7 and Title 71, Chapter 5.

Public Records - As enacted, designates records of the office of homeland security related to critical infrastructure as confidential and exempts such records from public records requests; makes related changes. - Amends TCA Title 10, Chapter 7, Part 5.

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.

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.

Education, Higher - As enacted, enacts the "Charlie Kirk Act." - Amends TCA Title 49.

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

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.

Agriculture, Dept. of - As enacted, requires the department to promulgate rules to implement and administer a voluntary program for the promotion of meat and byproducts from livestock raised in Tennessee, which may be labeled with an appropriate statement that indicates the meat or byproduct is a Tennessee meat or byproduct. - Amends TCA Title 43; Title 44 and Title 53.

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.

Tennessee Fish & Wildlife Commission - As enacted, authorizes the executive director of the wildlife resources agency to enter into agreements with local law enforcement agencies for the purpose of enforcing wildlife management laws and rules; creates a criminal offense for feeding black bears under certain circumstances. - Amends TCA Title 70.

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.

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.

Criminal Offenses - As enacted, makes various changes to the law relative to fraudulent freight theft. - Amends TCA Title 4; Title 5; Title 6; Title 7; Title 16; Title 17; Title 18; Title 20; Title 22; Title 24; Title 25; Title 26; Title 27; Title 28; Title 37; Title 38; Title 39; Title 40; Title 43; Title 54 and Title 55.

Child Custody and Support - As enacted, specifies that a parent's obligation for the support of a child does not continue after the child reaches 19 unless the child is handicapped or disabled. - Amends TCA Title 34, Chapter 1; Title 36, Chapter 5 and Title 37, Chapter 1.

Children's Services, Dept. of - As enacted, generally prohibits the department from requesting information regarding the number or type of firearms or ammunition or identifying information about such firearms or ammunition that a foster parent or prospective foster parent owns or possesses, or requesting a foster parent or prospective foster parent to display or provide access to a firearm or ammunition owned or possessed by the parent. - Amends TCA Title 37.

Criminal Offenses - As enacted, creates the Class C misdemeanor offense of knowingly using an unmanned aircraft over the grounds of a school. - Amends TCA Title 39 and Title 49.

Real Property - As enacted, enacts the "Sen. Frank Niceley National Security and Economic Protection Act." - Amends TCA Title 66, Chapter 2, Part 3.

Teachers, Principals and School Personnel - As enacted, clarifies that tenure and the process for dismissing a nontenured, licensed employee by a director of schools does not apply to individuals who hold a temporary academic permit or temporary clinical permit. - Amends TCA Title 49.

Courts - As enacted, enacts the "Parental Rights Protection Act." - Amends TCA Title 36, Chapter 8 and Title 40, Chapter 11.

Consumer Protection - As enacted, requires a third-party booking site that includes information about ancillary hotel services available at a hotel to disclose that there are additional fees required to access the services and which services require payment of additional fees by the consumer if access to the services requires payment of such fees; establishes violations of the requirement as violations of the Tennessee Consumer Protection Act of 1977; makes related changes. - Amends TCA Title 47, Chapter 18.

Registers of Deeds - As enacted, authorizes all bonds for the conveyance of real or personal estate to be registered only if the bond contains the signatures of all parties subject to the bond and the expiration date of the bond; authorizes all agreements for the conveyance of real property or contracts, memoranda, abstracts, or affidavits for the sale of real property, or similar documents by whatever similar or other name, to be registered if such documents contain the signature of the owner of the property or the owner's attorney-in-fact or court-appointed representative, the signature of the proposed purchaser, and the expiration date of the agreement. - Amends TCA Section 66-24-101.

Local Education Agencies - As enacted, requires the state board of education, in consultation with the department of education, to qualify an advanced degree in media and technology as an advanced degree that leads to a library information specialist endorsement; establishes certain staffing requirements for libraries in public schools that serve students in any combination of grades nine through 12 based on current student enrollment; requires a public school that serves any of the grades 9-12 to employ a full-time library information specialist with an endorsement as a library information specialist if certain criteria is met. - Amends TCA Title 10 and Title 49.

Local Government, General - As enacted, authorizes a local government to use any project delivery method that the local government determines most effectively meets the needs of the local government for the construction of qualified local projects, if the local government meets certain requirements. - Amends TCA Title 12, Chapter 3, Part 12.

Children - As enacted, revises various provisions regarding children, including requiring a parent educational seminar in certain juvenile cases. - Amends TCA Title 36 and Title 37.

Naming and Designating - As enacted, designates the annual winner of the Old Time Bluegrass and Fiddlers' Jamboree as the state champion fiddler in this state. - Amends TCA Title 3; Title 4 and Title 15.

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.

Local Education Agencies - As enacted, requires that, in situations where an order of protection is issued to protect a student who is enrolled in a public school from another student in the same school, the school principal and, when reasonably practicable and appropriate, the building-level school safety team with input from the parent or legal guardian of the student who is named as the petitioner in the order of protection, to develop and implement a student safety plan that includes certain protocols; requires such parent or legal guardian to notify the school within 48 hours of any changes to the order of protection. - Amends TCA Title 36 and Title 49.

Health Care - As enacted, requires the department of health to make available to the public on its website all inspection criteria required for compliance by pain management clinics; makes other changes relative to pain management. - Amends TCA Title 63 and Title 68.

County Government - As enacted, prohibits the director of accounts and budgets for Overton County from being terminated or discharged without the approval of the county legislative body if such prohibition is approval by a 2/3 vote of the Overton County legislative body. - Amends TCA Title 5.

Holidays and Days of Special Observance - As enacted, designates November 9 of each year as "Gold Star Father's Day," to honor and recognize fathers who have lost children in service to the United States as members of the United States armed forces. - Amends TCA Title 15, Chapter 2.

Real Property - As enacted, provides that a provision of a document requiring a transferor or transferee to pay a fee, charge, assessment, dues, contribution, deposit, or other amount to purchase, issue, reissue, maintain, or transfer a club membership that is related to the real property or the community in which the property is sited is not a transfer fee covenant. - Amends TCA Title 66.

Consumer Protection - As enacted, authorizes a small business that believes an online search engine has blacklisted the small business to contact the online search engine and request a response concerning the action; authorizes a small business affected by an online search engine's failure to comply with the response requirement to bring a civil action. - Amends TCA Title 4; Title 29; Title 47 and Title 65.

Traffic Safety - As enacted, establishes process regarding traffic violations committed by autonomous vehicles, including mailing the notice of violation or citation to the registered owner of the vehicle. - Amends TCA Title 55, Chapter 30 and Title 55, Chapter 8.

Courts, Juvenile - As enacted, expands the disposition allowed when a person under 21 is found to have unlawfully purchased, possessed, accepted receipt of, or presented fraudulent proof of age to purchase tobacco, smoking hemp, a vapor product, or a smokeless nicotine product to include requiring community service work, the successful completion of a prescribed court program, or placing the person on an informal adjustment for a period of 90 days for a first violation, and, for a second or subsequent violation, placing the person on probation for up to six months in addition to requiring community service and the successful completion of a prescribed court program focusing on the dangers of tobacco and vapor products. - Amends TCA Title 39, Chapter 17, Part 15.

Public Records - As enacted, generally makes the addresses on a nominating petition for the office of judge, chancellor, district attorney general, and public defender confidential; clarifies that such addresses may be made open to public inspection upon the request of a candidate or law enforcement authority in anticipation of, or as part of, a contest of candidacy or contest of election. - Amends TCA Title 2 and Title 10, Chapter 7.

Flags - As enacted, authorizes a county mayor and the chief executive officer of a municipality to order the flags flown on county or municipal property to be lowered to half-staff to honor the death of a prominent citizen of that county or municipality. - Amends TCA Title 5; Title 6 and Title 7.

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.

Taxes, Severance - As enacted, extends from 30 to 90 days, the time following the end of a county's fiscal year within which a county must submit an annual report to the commissioner of transportation and the chairs of the house and senate transportation committees regarding mineral severance tax revenue the county deposits into its county road fund; removes the comptroller of the treasury as a recipient of the report; subjects the report to audit by the comptroller. - Amends TCA Section 67-7-207.

Flags - As enacted, requires any flag flown over the state capitol building to be flown at half-staff from sunrise to sunset in observance of Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day each December 7. - Amends TCA Section 4-1-406.

Highways, Roads and Bridges - As enacted, makes various revisions to law relative to the naming of certain roads and bridges. - Amends TCA Title 54.

Special License Plates - As enacted, makes various revisions to law relative to license plates, including, but not limited to, creating new specialty earmarked license plates and cultural license plates, granting extensions to certain license plates, and making other related changes. - Amends TCA Title 55, Chapter 4.

Courts, Municipal - As enacted, prohibits a municipality from remediating a property maintenance violation if the cost may negatively impact the municipality's financial position, or if the cost is budgetarily prohibitive; specifies that, in addition to assessing remediation costs against a property owner in the form of a lien, a municipality may recover remediation costs through all other legal means. - Amends TCA Title 6; Title 7; Title 13; Title 16, Chapter 18 and Title 29, Chapter 3.

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.

Health Care - As enacted, requires the department of health to make available to the public on its website all inspection criteria required for compliance by pain management clinics; makes other changes relative to pain management. - Amends TCA Title 63 and Title 68.

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.

Real Property - As enacted, provides that a provision of a document requiring a transferor or transferee to pay a fee, charge, assessment, dues, contribution, deposit, or other amount to purchase, issue, reissue, maintain, or transfer a club membership that is related to the real property or the community in which the property is sited is not a transfer fee covenant. - Amends TCA Title 66.

Child Custody and Support - As enacted, specifies that a parent's obligation for the support of a child does not continue after the child reaches 19 unless the child is handicapped or disabled. - Amends TCA Title 34, Chapter 1; Title 36, Chapter 5 and Title 37, Chapter 1.

Holidays and Days of Special Observance - As enacted, designates November 9 of each year as "Gold Star Father's Day," to honor and recognize fathers who have lost children in service to the United States as members of the United States armed forces. - Amends TCA Title 15, Chapter 2.

Children - As enacted, revises various provisions regarding children, including requiring a parent educational seminar in certain juvenile cases. - Amends TCA Title 36 and Title 37.

Local Education Agencies - As enacted, requires the state board of education, in consultation with the department of education, to qualify an advanced degree in media and technology as an advanced degree that leads to a library information specialist endorsement; establishes certain staffing requirements for libraries in public schools that serve students in any combination of grades nine through 12 based on current student enrollment; requires a public school that serves any of the grades 9-12 to employ a full-time library information specialist with an endorsement as a library information specialist if certain criteria is met. - Amends TCA Title 10 and Title 49.

Local Government, General - As enacted, authorizes a local government to use any project delivery method that the local government determines most effectively meets the needs of the local government for the construction of qualified local projects, if the local government meets certain requirements. - Amends TCA Title 12, Chapter 3, Part 12.

Naming and Designating - As enacted, designates the annual winner of the Old Time Bluegrass and Fiddlers' Jamboree as the state champion fiddler in this state. - Amends TCA Title 3; Title 4 and Title 15.

Traffic Safety - As enacted, establishes process regarding traffic violations committed by autonomous vehicles, including mailing the notice of violation or citation to the registered owner of the vehicle. - Amends TCA Title 55, Chapter 30 and Title 55, Chapter 8.

Registers of Deeds - As enacted, authorizes all bonds for the conveyance of real or personal estate to be registered only if the bond contains the signatures of all parties subject to the bond and the expiration date of the bond; authorizes all agreements for the conveyance of real property or contracts, memoranda, abstracts, or affidavits for the sale of real property, or similar documents by whatever similar or other name, to be registered if such documents contain the signature of the owner of the property or the owner's attorney-in-fact or court-appointed representative, the signature of the proposed purchaser, and the expiration date of the agreement. - Amends TCA Section 66-24-101.

Agriculture, Dept. of - As enacted, requires the department to promulgate rules to implement and administer a voluntary program for the promotion of meat and byproducts from livestock raised in Tennessee, which may be labeled with an appropriate statement that indicates the meat or byproduct is a Tennessee meat or byproduct. - Amends TCA Title 43; Title 44 and Title 53.

Tennessee Fish & Wildlife Commission - As enacted, authorizes the executive director of the wildlife resources agency to enter into agreements with local law enforcement agencies for the purpose of enforcing wildlife management laws and rules; creates a criminal offense for feeding black bears under certain circumstances. - Amends TCA Title 70.

Children's Services, Dept. of - As enacted, generally prohibits the department from requesting information regarding the number or type of firearms or ammunition or identifying information about such firearms or ammunition that a foster parent or prospective foster parent owns or possesses, or requesting a foster parent or prospective foster parent to display or provide access to a firearm or ammunition owned or possessed by the parent. - Amends TCA Title 37.

Consumer Protection - As enacted, requires a third-party booking site that includes information about ancillary hotel services available at a hotel to disclose that there are additional fees required to access the services and which services require payment of additional fees by the consumer if access to the services requires payment of such fees; establishes violations of the requirement as violations of the Tennessee Consumer Protection Act of 1977; makes related changes. - Amends TCA Title 47, Chapter 18.