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Senate committee sends House Bill 202 to floor; bill strips outdated departmental references and shifts some pool regulation to local health boards
Summary
House Bill 202 passed from committee after testimony that it removes obsolete statutory references to functions moved from the Department of Health and Welfare to other agencies, and reduces state oversight of public pools so local health districts can adopt regulations without DHW rulemaking.
A Senate committee voted to advance House Bill 202 to the floor after department staff said the measure corrects outdated statutory references and returns certain regulatory authority to local entities.
Jared Larson, legislative and regulatory affairs chief at the Department of Health and Welfare, told the committee the bill updates language in state code to reflect agencies that were created after earlier statutes were enacted. "Two departments of state government were spun off from the Department of Health and Welfare years ago," Larson said, naming the Idaho Department of Juvenile Corrections and the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality as examples. He said sections of code that reference the former are no longer operative.
Larson described changes across multiple sections (he cited sections 3, 7–13, 14, 15, 16–20 and others) that remove references to the Department of Health and Welfare and replace them with the appropriate agency where work now resides. Section 18 specifically removes the state's role in promulgating rules for a small number of public pools, Larson said, and allows local health boards to adopt and enforce regulations under existing statutory authority in title 39.
Senator Wintrow asked whether the changes had been cleared with affected departments. Larson said he had checked with agency directors and they "have signed off," and that the change should have no detrimental impact on those agencies. Senator Lenny, who moved the measure, said the change has long been a priority for him and specifically welcomed the shift away from state‑level prescriptive rules — he noted, half in jest, a long interest in modifying what the state required for diving boards.
The motion to send House Bill 202 to the floor with a due‑pass recommendation was moved by Senator Lenny and seconded by Senator Burkey. The committee approved the motion on a voice vote; the transcript does not include a numeric roll‑call tally.
Why it matters: The bill is a statutory cleanup that transfers specific regulatory responsibilities to the agencies or local entities that now carry out the work, and eliminates outdated language that could cause confusion about which entity has authority.
