Policy Blog – February 2, 2026 – Committee Vote Crunch Begins for Policy and Tax Bills

As the 2026 legislative session moves into its fourth week, the process is shifting from public hearings on new bills to executive sessions, where policy and fiscal committees debate, amend, and vote on whether legislation moves forward. This marks a key point in the legislative process as lawmakers balance public testimony with policy priorities and fiscal realities.

Both 340B bills will be heard in their respective fiscal committees, SB 5981 on Thursday and HB 2145 on Friday.  Our message to lawmakers on the House Appropriations and Senate Ways and Means Committees remains that expanding contract pharmacy arrangements will further strain the state’s Medicaid budget.

Last week, legislative committees also considered four bills aimed at regulating and shaping the use of artificial intelligence across public and private sectors. Notable bills include:

• HB 1170 focuses on AI transparency, mandating that large generative AI providers disclose when content is AI-generated, offer provenance information, and provide user-friendly detection tools. The bill has a fiscal note that may prevent its moving forward.
  
• HB 2157 seeks to regulate high-risk AI systems that influence consequential decisions in areas like employment, housing, education, healthcare, insurance, and legal services. This bill includes exemptions for HIPPA related data.
  
• SB 6284 proposes a framework for high-risk AI, emphasizing risk mitigation, regular reviews, transparency, and consumer notification while balancing innovation and trade-secret protections, including research exemptions similar to those secured by LSW for previous health data privacy laws. It has a significant fiscal note and will be referred to Senate Ways and Means for review.

Last week, bills that would enact a new capital gains tax on the sale of small business stock were heard in the House Finance and Senate Ways and Means Committees. Life science founders take huge personal financial risks and often spend years building new technologies and starting new companies. Taxing their success, and the early friends and family who back them, puts us out of step with the federal capital gains framework. Lawmakers heard intense backlash from the state’s tech startup community at the bills’ public hearings. Read more here.

SB 5915, the bill changing the review criteria for the Health Technology Clinical Committee (HTCC), is now awaiting a vote by the full senate.  Prioritization must be given to a technology that is established or recommended under Medicare.  For rare disease drugs, the HTCC must evaluate all clinical trials published in peer-reviewed literature and must consider information submitted by clinical experts when randomized, controlled trials would be unethical, impractical, or impossible. This would be a major win for rare disease patients and families.

HB 2542 would ban animal testing in drug development when alternative methods are available. LSW and BIO submitted a joint letter raising our grave concerns with the bill, emphasizing that while the industry supports continued development of alternatives, no current methods can fully replace animal testing for ensuring safety and efficacy before therapies reach patients. We noted that restricting these tools would not eliminate animal testing globally but could instead push innovation and investment out of Washington. We have been assured that the bill will not advance, and will continue engaging with lawmakers to educate them about drug development.