Bills on lab-grown meat, labor unions, tax breaks on table (2024)

Seven meeting days remain in Alabama’s annual legislative session, and among the bills still under consideration are several that would lower taxes or create new tax exemptions.

Those include an exemption for baby products and feminine hygiene products, as well as a tax breaks for hearing aids and agricultural fencing, a state income tax exemption for National Guard members called up for duty, and others.

When lawmakers return Tuesday, the first bill on the agenda in the House of Representatives concerns labor unions, which are drawing attention in Alabama because of the United Auto Workers campaign to organize workers at Mercedes-Benz and other auto assembly plants in the state and across the South. The legislation scheduled for consideration Tuesday says companies could lose eligibility for state tax incentives if they voluntarily recognize unions.

Legislators still have to pass the education and General Fund budgets for the fiscal year that starts Oct. 1, their main constitutional responsibility. The budgets are about halfway to the finish line. The House passed the education budget, and the Senate passed the General Fund.

Legislation to allow voters to decide whether to establish a lottery and other forms of state-regulated gambling is in the hands of a conference committee of three representatives and three senators. They will try to reconcile vast differences between versions passed by the House and Senate. The committee has not announced an official meeting since it was formed last Tuesday.

Tax breaks

Bills by Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, and Rep. Neil Rafferty, D-Birmingham, would exempt diapers, baby formula, baby bottles, baby wipes, breast milk pumping equipment, maternity clothing, and menstrual hygiene products from the 4% state sales tax. A fiscal note with Orr’s bill said it would reduce sales tax receipts to that fund the education budget by about $11 million a year.

Bills by Sen. Jack Williams, a Republican from Mobile County, and Rep. Danny Crawford, R-Athens, would exempt wood posts, barbed wire, metal gates, and other materials used for livestock fencing from the state sales tax. The bill is on the House agenda Tuesday.

Also on the agenda Tuesday is a bill by Rep. Kenneth Paschal, R-Pelham, that provides an exemption to the state income tax to members of the Alabama National Guard and Reserve who are deployed outside country or activated to support state or federal response to emergencies within or outside the country.

Labor unions

A bill by Orr says a company that recognizes a union solely on the basis of signed union authorization cards instead of holding a secret ballot election will be ineligible for the tax incentives the state uses to recruit industry. A company that voluntarily discloses an employee’s personal contact information to a union without the employee’s written consent would also lose eligibility for tax incentives.

The bill passed the Senate last week by a vote of 23-5. It could get final passage in the House on Tuesday.

Inside UAW’s latest Alabama Mercedes-Benz plant union push: Vote set for workers to decide

Sex and gender discussion in schools

The House agenda Tuesday includes a bill by Rep. Mack Butler, R-Rainbow City, that expands a prohibition on classroom instruction regarding sexual orientation or gender identity. The Legislature previously banned that in kindergarten through 5th grade. Butler’s bill extends it through 12th grade. Butler’s bill also prohibits teachers and school employees from displaying “a flag or other insignia relating to or representing sexual orientation or gender identity in a classroom or on the property of a public K-12 school.”

Read more: Alabama lawmakers push to expand ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law to all grades

Budgets

Last week, the House approved a $9.3 billion education budget for next fiscal year, a 6.25% increase over this year. The budget would boost starting pay for teachers to $47,600, highest among neighboring states. Nearly all education employees will get a 2% raise.

The budget provides funds to establish a new, residential, state health sciences high school in Demopolis. The budget has moved to a Senate committee.

In conjunction with the regular budget for next year, the House passed two supplemental appropriations totaling $1.7 billion include for the current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30.

$1 billion from the Advancement and Technology Fund in HB147 and a $651 million appropriation of unexpected tax revenue from the 2023 tax year in HB144.

Earlier this month, the Senate passed a General Fund budget for next fiscal year that totaled $3.3 billion, the largest General Fund budget ever, plus a supplemental spending plan of $214 million. The budget was $300 million more than the current year. It includes a 2% raise for state employees and has moved to the House.

Meat from cultured animal cells

Another bill on the House calendar on Tuesday would create a state ban on the production and sales of meat produced from cultured animal cells, rather than from live animals. The bill, by Sen. Jack Williams, a Republican from Mobile County, passed the Senate in February by a vote of 32-0.

Violations of the ban would be a misdemeanor. A business that violated the law would be subject to disciplinary action, including the suspension or revocation of its food safety permit from the state.

The bill says the Department of Agriculture and Industries and the Department of Public Health may adopt rules to implement the law.

Last year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S Food and Drug Administration for the first time approved companies to produce cell-cultivated meat products to be sold in the United States. In July 2023, UPSIDE Foods and GOOD Meat sold the first cell-cultured chicken at restaurants in San Francisco and Washington, D.C., according to the Congressional Research Service.

This story was edited at 8:14 a.m. to update information in the last paragraph.