Capitol Reflections Week 4 - 2026

Dexton Lake recaps week 4 of the Idaho legislative session with bills dealing with E-Verify use in Idaho, including agriculture employees, conforming with tax changes made at the federal level, resolutions recognizing the importance of water infrastructure investment across the state, and an extension dealing with federal management of grizzly bears that could affect Idaho.

Transcript

Welcome to Capitol Reflections from the Idaho Farm Bureau Federation where we bring you the latest policy updates affecting Idaho Agriculture.

I’m Dexton Lake and we are out the door of week four. 

House Bill 584 was introduced this week Business Committee by Representative Jordan Redman. This legislation would require broader use of the federal E-Verify system by all employers in Idaho and would mandate compliance beginning July 1, 2026. The only exclusion in the bill applies to the relationship between a hiring party and the employees of an independent contractor.

IFBF supports the rule of law and lawful employment practices. Nonetheless, this proposal raises important concerns for agriculture, particularly given the ongoing workforce shortages facing farms, ranches, and dairies across the state. Producers are already operating in an extremely tight labor market, and any policy change that affects workforce availability deserves careful consideration.

For more than three decades, agriculture has operated within a broken federal immigration system that offers limited, costly, and often unworkable legal pathways for hiring the workers needed to plant, harvest, milk, and process food. Mandating E-Verify at the state level, before meaningful federal immigration reform, risks further destabilizing an already fragile agricultural workforce.

Farm Bureau’s message is clear: farmers are not seeking loopholes or special treatment; they are seeking workable, legal solutions that allow them to comply with the law while meeting real-world labor needs. Asking farmers and ranchers to shoulder additional enforcement responsibilities without fixing the underlying labor system is unrealistic and counterproductive. Workforce instability ultimately threatens food security, farm viability, and rural economies.

While mandated E-Verify may be part of a broader long-term solution, it should not move forward ahead of comprehensive federal immigration reform and modernization of the H-2A visa program. Farm Bureau policy supports those federal reforms before mandating E-Verify for agricultural employers. Secure borders and strong agriculture are not competing values — both are essential to Idaho’s future. IFBF opposes House Bill 584 as written.

Another major piece of legislation moving quickly is Idaho’s annual tax conformity bill. Each year, the Legislature updates state tax law to align with changes made at the federal level so taxpayers and businesses do not have to keep two separate sets of books. Conformity helps keep tax compliance simpler and more predictable.

This year’s bill, House Bill 559, comes amid significant federal tax changes included in President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill. Those sweeping changes prompted debate over whether Idaho could afford to fully conform. It appears a compromise has been reached. Representative Jeff Ehlers presented the bill on the House floor on Tuesday. 

QUOTE: “We do this conformity bill every year. Normally it’s a simple one. We change a date or things here or there. But because of the One Big Beautiful Bill that was passed in July and then made retroactive back to the first of 2025, we find ourselves in this situation.

Finalizing the conformity bill quickly is important because accountants are already working on Idahoans’ tax returns and need certainty about what laws apply. H559 conforms to nearly all federal tax changes, including making permanent individual and corporate income tax reductions that were previously temporary.

There are two exceptions. First, Idaho will continue its longstanding policy of not conforming to federal bonus depreciation. Second, Research and Experimentation, or R&E, expenditures from 2022 through 2024 that are already being amortized will continue on their existing five-year schedule, while R&E expenses from 2025 forward will conform to the new federal treatment.

H559 moved swiftly through the House and was also approved in the Senate Local Government and Taxation Committee on Thursday. It is sponsored by Senator Scott Grow, Senator Doug Ricks, Representative Jeff Ehlers, and Representative David Cannon.

The Idaho Farm Bureau is also supporting four Senate Concurrent Resolutions — SCR 116, 117, 118, and 119 — that recognize the importance of continued water infrastructure investment across the state.

These resolutions highlight the foundational role water infrastructure plays in supporting agriculture, rural communities, tourism, and public safety. Together, they reflect a balanced, statewide approach to protecting aquifers, modernizing aging systems, and ensuring long-term water reliability.

From an agricultural standpoint, these investments are fiscally responsible and necessary. Proactive funding for storage, conveyance, aquifer recharge, and system rehabilitation helps prevent far more expensive emergency repairs and economic disruption later. Reliable water remains essential to Idaho food production, processing, rural jobs, and the broader economy. Farm Bureau supports SCR 116, 117, 118, and 119.

On the federal side, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has received an eleven-month extension to decide whether grizzly bears in the lower forty-eight states should remain protected under the Endangered Species Act. 

In the final days of the Biden administration, a proposed rule would have combined separate grizzly bear recovery ecosystems into a single lower forty-eight population, making delisting even more difficult. The current extension, granted under the Trump Administration, was justified by staffing shortages, administrative backlogs, the complexity of the rulemaking, updated science, and the need to review more than 200,000 public comments.

For Idaho Farm Bureau and livestock producers, the delay may be beneficial because it keeps the rulemaking process open rather than locking in a decision that could move management further away from state control. The additional time allows state leaders, producers, and agricultural organizations to continue advocating for a management framework that gives Idaho more authority, improves conflict response tools, and better balances bear recovery with livestock depredation and rural safety concerns.

This development comes as Senate Joint Memorial 108 continues advancing through the Idaho Legislature. That memorial urges the federal government to ensure livestock producers are not penalized through grazing permit reductions when they report wildlife depredation. Farm Bureau supports SJM108 and continues to advocate for grizzly bear delisting and broader Endangered Species Act reform.

Lastly, be sure you subscribe to Capitol Reflections on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. 

You can learn more, become engaged, and advocate for Idaho agriculture policy by visiting idahofb.org.

This has been Capitol Reflections with the Idaho Farm Bureau Federation, the Voice of Idaho Agriculture.