This Week at the Capital

This bill would create an Interstate Medical Licensure Compact in North Carolina, which is an agreement among participating states to streamline the process for physicians to obtain licenses to practice across state lines.

Why we’re supporting: The bill would bolster the state’s health care workforce and enhance access to health care by allowing qualified doctors to more quickly acquire multi-state licensure while maintaining the authority and standards of state medical boards.

This bill aims to ensure admissions deferment and provide in-state tuition for active duty service members and certain honorably discharged veterans in college admissions in North Carolina.

Why we’re supporting: The NC Chamber supports efforts to support and retain military personnel and their families in North Carolina.

This bill would revive and expand the high-need retired teacher program to allow retired teachers to return to work in high-need schools.

Why we’re supporting: Empowering North Carolinians through excellent education is essential to securing a skilled talent pipeline and achieving a competitive, diverse, and world-class workforce.  This bill would expand North Carolina’s supply of educators, bolstering the state’s education and workforce development efforts.

This bill aims to enhance financial support for disabled veterans in North Carolina by increasing the property tax homestead exclusion. Eligible veterans would be allowed to exclude a portion of their property’s appreciation value due to housing grants from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. The bill also introduces a prequalification process, enabling veterans to determine their eligibility for this property tax relief even before owning a permanent residence. These changes are designed to ease the financial burden on disabled veterans and facilitate their home purchasing process.

Why we’re supporting: The NC Chamber supports efforts to retain and support  transitioning military personnel and their families in North Carolina.

This bill aims to simplify the process for active duty military members to renew their driver’s licenses remotely. The change is designed to ease the burden on service members who may find it difficult to return home for in-person renewals while fulfilling their military duties.

Why we’re supporting: The NC Chamber supports efforts to support and retain military personnel and their families in North Carolina.

This bill would create an Interstate Medical Licensure Compact for physician assistants (PAs) in North Carolina, enhancing the ease of PA practice across stateliness. The bill benefits military families by simplifying PA licensure for active-duty personnel and their spouses, allowing them to practice wherever they are stationed.

Why we’re supporting: The bill would bolster the state’s health care workforce and enhance access to health care by allowing qualified PAs to more quickly acquire multi-state licensure. The bill also benefits military families by simplifying PA licensure for active-duty personnel and their spouses, allowing them to practice wherever they are stationed.

This bill would create an Interstate Licensure Compact in North Carolina for the practice of social work. Interstate Licensure Compacts are agreements among participating states to streamline the process to obtain licenses to practice across state lines.

Why we’re supporting: The bill would promote mobility and address workforce shortages by  eliminating the need for separate licenses across states.

This bill would enhance the penalties for assaulting utility or communications workers in North Carolina. The legislation specifies that if such an assault occurs while the worker is identifiable as a utility employee and performing their duties, it should be treated as a Class A1 misdemeanor.

Why we’re supporting: The bill would protect those who serve essential utility and communications services.

This bill would establish a new classification under the North Carolina State Building Code specifically for family child care homes.

Why we’re supporting: The bill would simplify regulatory compliance while maintaining high safety standards for child care, expanding access to child care and addressing growing workforce challenges.

This bill would establish a two-year pilot program that expands the child care workforce academies currently operating in Johnston and Wayne Counties.

Why we’re supporting: The bill supports education and workforce development and strengthening North Carolina’s talent pipeline by providing training for child care workers.

Businesses and the people they employ are the real payors to the health care system, and they want accessibility, predictability, and affordability in their health care. Increased costs in the system, through any means, but also including additional mandates, do not help us maintain our competitive position as a state.

Why we’re supporting: This bill would avoid increased costs in the health care system.

Businesses and the people they employ are the real payors to the health care system, and they want accessibility, predictability, and affordability in their health care. Increased costs in the system, through any means, but also including additional mandates, do not help us maintain our competitive position as a state.

Why we’re supporting: This bill would avoid increased costs in the health care system.

The legislation increases weekly unemployment insurance benefits and authorizes an employer tax credit for contributions to the Unemployment Insurance Fund.

Why we’re supporting: The NC Chamber is always vigilant about unemployment policy as we recognize it is your business’ money that is funding this system. This bill would help maintain the balance, integrity, and solvency of North Carolina’s unemployment system and give employers tax credit for contributions to the Unemployment Insurance Fund.

This legislation amends the workers’ compensation act definition of “injury and personal injury” regarding breakage or damage to eyeglasses and hearing aids.

Why we’re opposing: Workers’ compensation is an area where years of collaboration from all stakeholders yielded results for North Carolinians. The NC Chamber was key to an effort to modernize North Carolina’s workers’ compensation laws to ensure greater certainty for businesses while providing for injured workers’ medical needs, getting employees back to work as soon as possible, and ensuring that those permanently disabled receive needed benefits. Any policy that disrupts the balance of the workers’ compensation system is concerning for business.

This bill would grant labor organizations the full right to negotiate labor agreements and eliminate existing restrictions on public employees’ ability to organize.

Why we’re opposing: To be as competitive as possible in attracting new companies and enhancing the economic prospects of all North Carolinians, the NC Chamber continues to advocate to protect North Carolina’s right-to-work statute and ensure every person in North Carolina can pursue gainful employment without the requirement to join a union or pay union dues.

This bill supports union membership by allowing North Carolina taxpayers to deduct the amount they pay in labor organization membership dues from their taxable income. This would make union dues eligible for a tax break.

Why we’re opposing: To be as competitive as possible in attracting new companies and enhancing the economic prospects of all North Carolinians, the NC Chamber continues to advocate to protect North Carolina’s right-to-work statute and ensure every person in North Carolina can pursue gainful employment without the requirement to join a union or pay union dues.

This bill creates government mandates that are harmful to the business community.

Why we’re opposing: The NC Chamber opposes burdensome mandates on North Carolina employers that restrict their ability to predictably manage their operations. We believe the best way to ensure North Carolina remains a leading state to live, work, and raise a family is not by imposing mandates on employers, but by better aligning our talent development systems with the needs of our modern workforce to connect more North Carolinians with high-paying jobs.

This bill would eliminate the interim date for carbon reduction by certain electric public utilities and allow an alternative cost recovery mechanism for construction work in progress for baseload electric generating facilities.

Why we’re supporting: As our state continues to experience exponential growth, it is more important now than ever before that North Carolina has a comprehensive, environmentally responsible strategy in place to ensure every corner of the state has access to reliable and affordable energy. We must keep all generation and storage solutions available to support grid modernization and improve access to renewables, solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, natural gas, oil, coal and nuclear power. This legislation does not pose a threat to organizations with renewable goals of their own as programs and tools will remain available to meet those goals.

This bill would allow local governments in North Carolina to borrow money to speed up local transportation projects funded under the State Transportation Improvement Program (STIP).

Why we’re monitoring: The NC Chamber is committed to innovative solutions for funding transportation projects in our growing state. The needs in our infrastructure system are only growing and greatly outpace the revenue we commit to transportation projects as a state. Ideas as an infrastructure bank should also be reviewed for their ability to leverage private dollars and other public dollars to fund projects.