The 2023 Iowa Legislative Session begins on Monday and one state senator lays out some topics that he believes will be dealt with this year.

District 24 Senator Jesse Green (R-Boone) says aside from school vouchers being at the top of the priority list is also going to be eminent domain. He tells Raccoon Valley Radio there were discussions last year about private companies using eminent domain to forcibly take landowner easements. Green is hoping this topic is addressed this session with several companies looking to install underground carbon dioxide pipelines through Iowa, including Summit Carbon Solutions and Navigator that are planning to do just that in his senate district.

“I think you’re seeing this tone that keeps coming up that we would desire to have a threshold level that has to be met before eminent domain can be considered. Farm Bureau came out with their opinion that it should be a 90-percent threshold. I am grateful that they were bold coming out publicly what their opinion is.”

Greene believes another important topic concerns individuals who have been on Medicaid since the covid pandemic. He says an additional 100,000 Iowans went on Medicaid when the White House put in place an emergency declaration because of the pandemic.

“And so whenever (President Joe) Biden declares that we’re no longer in an emergency anymore, due to covid, the vast majority of those 100,000 people are going to have to be disenrolled off Medicaid. That is a big concern of how we do this in a smooth manner to get the people off. To put that into perspective, there’s 800,000 Iowans that are on Medicaid, so this 100,000 is a very large portion.”

Other topics Green thinks will be tackled during this year’s session includes property tax reform and abortion.