Twenty four bills across twelve states and the federal government have passed so far in 2026. These bills impact PPE grants in South Dakota, liability protections in California, disease training in Virginia, cell phone use in Indiana, and Emergency Operations plan requirements in Michigan.
Topic: EMS licensure and liability
Status: Chaptered (2025-06-30)
Why It Matters: Allows out-of-state EMS personnel to provide services at LA 2028 Olympic/Paralympic sanctioned sites under EMS Authority authorization, with good-faith liability protection; operational planning issue for EMS mutual aid and event safety.
Who It Impacts: EMS agencies; event safety planners; health systems; local governments
Topic: Federal funding / workplace safety & health
Status: Signed into law (2026-02-03)
Why It Matters: Funds federal agencies/programs for FY2026; relevant to OSHA/NIOSH and WTC Health Program stakeholders, though implementation details depend on appropriations accounts and agency actions.
Who It Impacts: Safety inspectors; first responders; healthcare leaders; public employers
Topic: K-12 cell phone / personal device restrictions
Status: Sent to Governor (2026-04-06)
Why It Matters: Requires local school systems and public schools to enact policies and procedures for student personal electronic device use at school and school-sponsored events for grades 9–12; operationally relevant for administrators, school safety planning, and emergency communications protocols.
Who It Impacts: School administrators; school safety leaders; first responders; IT/network administrators
Topic: Health care operations / medical regulation
Status: Sent to Governor (2026-04-10)
Why It Matters: Substantial health-system operations bill; likely affects patient-care delivery, provider oversight, or payer/provider processes depending on final enrolled text.
Who It Impacts: Healthcare leaders; nurse leaders; commercial operators
Topic: Health workforce / scope & liability insurance
Status: Approved by Governor (2026-04-09)
Why It Matters: Lets licensed physical therapists perform specified capillary blood tests and brings APRNs into health care provider insurance/stabilization fund requirements; affects clinical workflows and credentialing/compliance.
Who It Impacts: Health systems; nurse/APRN leaders; outpatient clinics
Topic: K-12 cell phone / personal device restrictions
Status: Approved by Governor (2026-03-19)
Why It Matters: Requires Kansas public schools and accredited private schools to prohibit student use of personal electronic devices during the school day on school premises, with exceptions; creates day-to-day requirements for storage, enforcement, parent contact, and emergency/medical exceptions.
Who It Impacts: School administrators; school safety leaders; teachers; law enforcement liaisons; IT/network administrators
Topic: Firefighter safety equipment
Status: Delivered to Governor / enrolled (2026-04-01)
Why It Matters: Expands Fire Commission grant program to technical devices such as AEDs and gas monitors; relevant to department equipment planning and incident-scene safety capabilities.
Who It Impacts: Fire departments; volunteer fire leaders; grant administrators
Topic: First responder scene operations / obstruction
Status: Became law without Governor’s signature; Acts Ch. 96 (2026-04-12)
Why It Matters: Creates the crime of impeding a first responder, while amendments/notes address recording/observation exceptions; important for field operations, training, and public-facing policies.
Who It Impacts: EMS; fire; police; school safety; public administrators
Topic: K-12 cell phone / personal device restrictions
Status: Public Act 2 of 2026 (2026-02-10)
Why It Matters: Requires school districts and public school academies to implement wireless communications device policies; relevant to classroom enforcement, parent/student communications, device storage, and emergency exceptions.
Who It Impacts: School administrators; school safety leaders; teachers; first responders; IT/network administrators
Topic: K-12 emergency operations planning
Status: Public Act 1 of 2026 (2026-02-10)
Why It Matters: Amends school emergency operations plan requirements connected to student wireless communications policy implementation; useful for emergency planning discussions, including managing device use and communication pathways during incidents.
Who It Impacts: School administrators; school safety leaders; law enforcement liaisons; first responders
Topic: Workplace safety administration
Status: Approved by Governor (2026-02-24)
Why It Matters: Changes/eliminates provisions on workplace safety committees and a workplace safety program and terminates a fund; relevant for safety managers, insurers, and business compliance planning.
Who It Impacts: Safety inspectors; commercial business owners; risk managers
Topic: Data privacy / compliance operations
Status: Approved by Governor (2026-03-20)
Why It Matters: Creates data privacy obligations and assessment requirements that can affect healthcare, schools, and businesses handling consumer/patient/student data.
Who It Impacts: Healthcare leaders; school administrators; commercial business owners; IT/security
Topic: EMS staffing / nursing practice
Status: Enrolled (2026-02-02)
Why It Matters: Establishes rules and liability protection for nurses on ambulance crews; affects EMS staffing models and rural response capacity.
Who It Impacts: EMS agencies; nurse leaders; rural health administrators
Topic: Firefighter PPE funding
Status: Enrolled (2026-03-05)
Why It Matters: Appropriates grant funding for volunteer fire department PPE purchases; directly supports day-to-day firefighter safety.
Who It Impacts: Volunteer firefighters; fire chiefs; local grant administrators
Topic: EMS funding / essential service study
Status: Enrolled (2026-03-04)
Why It Matters: Creates a task force to study making EMS an essential service and related funding; important for local EMS sustainability and future budget planning.
Who It Impacts: EMS agencies; county/city leaders; first responders
Topic: Firefighter scheduling / fatigue risk
Status: Approved by Governor; Chapter 299 (2026-04-06)
Why It Matters: Encourages employers to implement schedules so paid firefighters’ normally scheduled shifts do not exceed 42 hours per workweek; affects staffing and fatigue-risk policies.
Who It Impacts: Firefighters; fire chiefs; municipal managers
Topic: School health / nurse training
Status: Approved by Governor; Chapters 855/856 (2026-04-13)
Why It Matters: Requires school nurse training related to sickle cell disease; affects school health protocols, training calendars and student care planning.
Who It Impacts: School nurses; school administrators; healthcare leaders
Topic: Health workforce mobility / employment contracts
Status: Passed; final action pending or recent as of source (2026-04-22)
Why It Matters: Adds health care professionals to employees for whom employers may not enter into, enforce, or threaten to enforce noncompete covenants; significant for recruitment, retention and clinician mobility.
Who It Impacts: Healthcare workers; nurse leaders; healthcare employers
Topic: Worker safety / violence deterrence
Status: Signed by Governor (2026-03-14)
Why It Matters: Increases penalties for assaulting public service workers and law enforcement; relevant for safety policies and incident response in public-facing work.
Who It Impacts: First responders; public service workers; school/public administrators
Topic: Mine safety technology / business incentive
Status: Signed by Governor (2026-03-14)
Why It Matters: Extends mine safety technology tax credit; affects mine operators’ safety-equipment investment decisions.
Who It Impacts: Safety engineers; mining businesses; safety inspectors
Topic: EMS billing / patient financial operations
Status: Signed by Governor (2026-03-14)
Why It Matters: Bars certain surprise billing for ground EMS services by nonparticipating providers; affects ambulance billing, patient communications and payer contracting.
Who It Impacts: EMS agencies; healthcare finance leaders; commercial payers
Topic: School safety / K–12 cell phone restrictions
Status: Signed by Governor; Public Law 107 (2026-03-05)
Why It Matters: Requires school corporations and charter schools to update student wireless-device policies, with Department of Education model policy guidance and restrictions on student use during the school day. Operationally relevant for school administrators, emergency planning, classroom management, and potential law-enforcement coordination during threats.
Who It Impacts: School administrators; school safety leaders; SROs; teachers; local law enforcement
Topic: Law enforcement training / de-escalation / officer wellness
Status: Approved by Governor (2026-04-14)
Why It Matters: Changes annual continuing education requirements for law enforcement officers and keeps required training topics such as de-escalation, firearms, wellness, legal updates, mental health/substance abuse, anti-bias/implicit bias, and pursuit-policy training on specified cycles. Operationally relevant for agencies planning training calendars, staffing coverage, de-escalation readiness, officer wellness, and workplace-violence response.
Who It Impacts: Law enforcement leaders; first responders; public safety trainers; school safety leaders; emergency managers
Notable bills for law enforcement and security
- Kentucky’s SB 104 creates an offense for impeding the work of a law enforcement, EMS, firefighters, or other first responders.
- Michigan’s SB 495 modifies existing school emergency operations plan requirements, specifically by requiring schools to decide how to handle cell phones. While not a ban, many school districts are expected to use this as cover for district-wide bans during class time. The bill also requires schools decide how schools can or should be used during emergencies.
- Indiana and Kansas both passed more outright school cell phone bans.
- Nebraska’s LB 784 changes continuing education requirements for law enforcement and seeks to improve annual de-escalation, mental health, wellness, legal updates, firearm, and response-readiness training. Instead of a flat 32-hour annual continuing education requirement for all officers, the final bill sets annual hours at 24 hours for officers employed by agencies with fewer than 25 full-time law-enforcement officers, and 32 hours for officers employed by agencies with 25 or more full-time officers. LB 784 reduces annual hours for smaller Nebraska law-enforcement agencies but keeps de-escalation in the annual training requirement.
Law enforcement departments seeking de-escalation training can request a course now.
Cell phone bans are mostly geared for classroom instruction needs and some form of them have passed in over thirty states. But they do have a law enforcement response angle. Seemingly counterintuitively, 911 call centers can often receive too many calls during active threats at schools, with most calls reporting little original, helpful information, such as hundreds of “There’s a shooter in my school” calls with only one or two able to report exactly where in the building a threat might be.
One example comes from the September 4, 2024 Apalachee High School shooting in Georgia. ABC News reported that the emergency dispatch center was overwhelmed with 911 calls, including calls from worried parents, and that some callers heard a “high call volume” automated message or were placed on hold. This also impacts safety for residents not at the school, such as a heart attack victim on the other side of town or a traffic wreck elsewhere in the county.
In some areas, the sheer density of simultaneous calls to parents and 911 during a school emergency interfere with responding law enforcement as information fails to flow and hundreds of parents converge into campuses with little plan or coordination. The National Association of School Resource Officers has warned cellular network performance during emergencies can degrade, and that students are safer without cell phones even if reunification after an emergency is slower.
Legislation impacting fire, rescue, and EMS/EMT
- South Dakota’s SB 89 studies EMS as an “essential service”, at a time when rural ambulance services are struggling to maintain service.
- South Dakota’s HB 1023 adds to SB 89, by allowing RNs and LPNs to work on ambulance crews.
- Kentucky’s HB 419 seeks to improve access to AEDs and gas monitors for Kentucky fire departments. While standard in many larger departments and have been for years, there are 466 registered fire departments in Kentucky. 75.6% of them are volunteer and 14.6% are mostly volunteer. 90%, or 420 departments are volunteer fire departments, many working with hand-me-down gear or simply nothing at all.
Bills impacting healthcare delivery
As healthcare delivery costs continue to rise, legislatures are attempting to tweak supply-side economics by allowing cross-discipline professionals to do other work.
- Kansas HB2509 allows physical therapists to perform specialized capillary blood tests, and changes APRN-related insurance funding, which impacts clinical care.
- Oklahoma’s SB 546 impacts data privacy in healthcare, along with schools and businesses handling sensitive consumer, patient, or student information.
