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Committee advances bill to remove 150 obsolete Health & Welfare code sections
Summary
The Senate Health and Welfare Committee voted to send House Bill 91 to the floor with a do-pass recommendation after hearing from Department of Health and Welfare Director Alex Adams that the bill deletes roughly 150 obsolete statutory sections and carries no fiscal impact.
Alex Adams, director of the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, told the committee that House Bill 91 would remove about 150 obsolete or inoperative sections of code across the department’s statutes. "We have 897 pages of law," Adams said. "We found 150 sections that we identified as obsolete, and that's what's represented in this bill." (00:40:57.260)
Adams told senators the items include committees that "haven't met since the Samuelson administration" and grants unused since the Clinton administration. He said the deletions are largely housekeeping and that the bill carries no fiscal impact. "None of these are operative or in effect," Adams said.
Senators asked whether removing the obsolete sections would accidentally strip authorities still in use. Senator Wintrow raised concerns about an assisted‑living inspection section in Title 39 and asked what would happen if companion legislation did not pass. Adams said the department coordinated with lawmakers: some sections were updated in other bills, and the department worked with House sponsors to ensure the cleanup would not remove currently used authority. Adams described the effort as a decluttering exercise that aims to harmonize the code and avoid redundancy.
A motion to send HB 91 to the Senate floor with a do-pass recommendation was made by Senator Harris and seconded by Senator Keiser; the committee approved the motion and sent the bill to the floor.
Background and context: Adams said the department posted the proposed deletions publicly and worked with stakeholders and House leadership to reduce the risk that any active authority would be removed. He referenced legislation earlier in the session requiring agencies to identify obsolete code, which the department said prompted the proactive review.
Key details: The sponsor and department said the bill targets sections that are obsolete, arcane or redundant; the department reported a $0 fiscal impact at the hearing. The committee approved the bill and sent it to the floor with a do-pass recommendation.
