Senate Labor and Business committee advances a slate of bills to the Senate floor

The Oregon Senate Committee on Labor and Business on Tuesday advanced multiple work‑session bills to the full Senate with due‑pass recommendations, moving the measures out of committee and selecting Senate carriers for floor consideration.

The package included administrative changes to economic development statutes, adjustments to grant limits for ports, a provisional cosmetology certificate, modest increases in witness fees for workers' compensation claimants, and other technical fixes.

Committee members said the measures were largely technical or delegated to agency rulemaking, and they voted on the bills individually during the morning session. Several bills were carried over or assigned Senate carriers as part of the votes.

Among the items the committee forwarded: House Bill 2348 (administrative changes to economic development grant statutes administered by the Oregon Business Development Department, with a dash‑1 amendment that revises Oregon Growth Board membership to require two members not of the same political party); House Bill 2380A (creates a provisional certificate for cosmetology under rules to be adopted by the Health Licensing Office; operative Jan. 1, 2027, emergency clause on passage); House Bill 2415A (removes a $50,000 cap on certain Oregon Infrastructure Finance Authority grants to ports and directs the Oregon Business Development Department to set a maximum by rule; grants must not exceed 75% of a project's total cost or the rulemax, whichever is less); House Bill 279A (raises the cap on witness fees, expenses and costs in prevailing workers' compensation claimant cases to $3,500, with an annual adjustment tied to average weekly wage changes); House Bill 3187A (employment practice changes limiting employer requests for applicant age/date of birth prior to interview or conditional offer; discussed and forwarded with a due‑pass recommendation); House Bill 3550 (exempts minor league baseball players who are subject to a collective bargaining agreement from certain wage and hour requirements); House Bill 3588A (allows a commercial mail receiving agency address to serve as a business entity's principal office and lets the Secretary of State protect the address from public disclosure upon request); and House Bill 3875 (clarifies that the Oregon Consumer Privacy Act applies to motor vehicle manufacturers and affiliates processing vehicle user personal data).

Most measures carried by voice vote or roll call with no objections in committee. Committee chairs assigned Senate carriers for floor consideration where appropriate and noted that several bills had minimal fiscal impact or delegated substantive details to rulemaking by the relevant state agencies.

The committee said some items were carried over to later hearings because companion bills or additional documentation were not yet ready for discussion.

Less urgent technical changes and rulemaking delegations were placed ahead of the public‑hearing items the committee planned for later that day.