North Carolina General Assembly · 2025–2026 session
Showing 1129–1152 of 2,338 bills
Introduced by Julia Greenfield
This bill requires pregnancy centers that receive state funding to establish a competitive grant application process with detailed reporting requirements and performance standards. It mandates that funded centers provide extensive information about their operations, staff qualifications, services, and client demographics, and allows the state to recover funds from centers that fail to comply with established standards.
Taxes & Budget
Introduced by Jake Johnson
This bill makes several changes to North Carolina's broadband programs under the Department of Information Technology. It redirects satellite broadband grant funding to disaster relief in Hurricane Helene-affected counties, allows up to $50 million in broadband funds to be used for repairing damaged broadband infrastructure, expands the Broadband Pole Replacement Program to include underground facility placement, and creates flexibility for mobile carriers to provide Lifeline service.
Technology & Privacy
Introduced by Mary Harrison
This bill changes North Carolina's dangerous dog law to allow case-by-case evaluation of dogs trained for dog fighting, rather than automatically classifying all such dogs as dangerous. It also clarifies that local animal control ordinances must be consistent with state law.
Local Government
Introduced by Charles Miller
This bill creates 'gatekeeper orders' in North Carolina civil courts that require people adjudicated as incompetent to file legal documents only through their guardian or attorney. It also requires the Administrative Office of the Courts to maintain a database of all people adjudicated incompetent so courts can identify and enforce these restrictions, with exceptions allowing direct filing in cases involving guardianship disputes, competency restoration, or cases where the person is being sued.
Introduced by Terry Brown
This bill creates the North Carolina Missing with Disability Alert System, a statewide system to rapidly spread information about missing persons or children with disabilities who may be at risk of abuse, neglect, or exploitation. The system requires the NC Center for Missing Persons and law enforcement agencies to issue alerts through media outlets and highway message signs while protecting the missing person's private health information.
Criminal Justice & Public Safety
Introduced by Tracy Clark
This bill requires landlords in North Carolina to provide and maintain operable air conditioning in residential rental units capable of cooling the premises to a reasonable temperature during warm weather. The requirement applies to new rental agreements and renewals starting when the law takes effect.
Housing
This bill bans the manufacture, use, and distribution of PFAS (per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances, also called "forever chemicals") in North Carolina, with limited exceptions for federally authorized uses. It also requires water systems to disclose PFAS test results to customers, directs state agencies to study PFAS contamination, and appropriates approximately $100 million for drinking water treatment, environmental monitoring, and research on PFAS impacts.
Environment & Energy
Introduced by Brian Echevarria
This bill requires North Carolina district courts to video and audio record all criminal trials, pretrial motions, pleas, sentencing hearings, and infraction hearings. It also requires courts to collect and publish detailed annual reports on how impaired driving cases are resolved, including information about charges, dismissals, evidence suppression, and sentencing factors.
Introduced by Julie von Haefen
This bill clarifies North Carolina law to make most deed restrictions that prohibit solar collectors void and unenforceable on residential properties. It allows restrictions only on the location or screening of solar collectors if they don't reduce efficiency by more than 10%, or if the panels would be visible from public areas or common spaces.
Introduced by Renee Price
This bill directs the North Carolina Collaboratory at UNC-Chapel Hill to study how microplastics (tiny plastic particles) harm North Carolina's waterways and to develop strategies to address the problem. The bill provides $150,000 in funding and requires a comprehensive report to the General Assembly by July 1, 2026.
Introduced by Howard Penny
This bill requires drivers whose licenses have been revoked to display a special, distinctly-colored license plate on any vehicle they operate for 3-7 years after their license is restored. The special plate must be readily identifiable by law enforcement and costs an additional $10 per registration. Drivers may operate employer vehicles without the plate if the employer is notified and the driver carries proof of notification.
Introduced by Laura Budd
This bill modifies how North Carolina grades schools by requiring separate grades for school achievement and school growth, instead of combining them into one overall grade. Schools will receive an achievement grade (based on test scores, graduation rates, and college/career readiness) and a growth grade (based on how much students improve year-to-year), with both displayed prominently on school report cards starting with the 2025-2026 school year.
Education
Introduced by Hugh Blackwell
This bill expands protections for school employees who use physical force in schools by creating a legal presumption that force is reasonable unless proven otherwise, preventing discipline or license revocation based solely on criminal allegations that don't result in conviction, and prohibiting retaliation against employees for using force consistent with school policies.
This bill makes two major changes to North Carolina law: it reduces the abortion restriction threshold from 12 weeks to 6 weeks of pregnancy (with exceptions for medical emergencies, rape, incest, and life-limiting fetal anomalies), and it expands adoption-related support by requiring information on adoption benefits in schools, creating support programs for at-risk adoptive families, and streamlining some adoption procedures.
Social Services & Welfare
Introduced by Beth Helfrich
This bill requires state agencies and local government entities to install water safety rescue equipment—primarily ring life buoys with attached lines—at public piers and water access points across North Carolina. The bill sets specific standards for the equipment, including size, visibility, placement, and maintenance requirements, and provides $25,000 in state grants to help economically disadvantaged local governments comply.
Introduced by Jeff Zenger
This bill requires local governments to complete an administrative review of development applications within two business days and either approve them as complete or provide a detailed deficiency list. It also requires building inspections to be completed within two business days of request, and allows developers to hire third-party reviewers (engineers or architects) if local governments cannot meet these timelines; if a third-party reviewer certifies plans comply with codes, the local government must issue permits within two business days and waive review fees.
Introduced by Karl Gillespie
This bill requires North Carolina state buildings and parking areas to replace the traditional international symbol of access (static wheelchair icon) with a dynamic symbol of access (a figure leaning forward in motion) on new or replaced signs starting January 1, 2026. The bill also updates driver's license tests, handicapped parking permits, and license plates to recognize both symbols, with new permits and plates using the dynamic symbol by January 1, 2026.
This bill creates a permitting system for large-scale dry litter poultry operations in North Carolina, prohibits new animal waste management systems in 100-year floodplains, requires the Environmental Review Commission to study poultry waste impacts, and increases transparency about farm operations by allowing public access to location and size information.
Agriculture
Introduced by Mitchell Setzer
This bill shifts the financial responsibility for relocating utility facilities (like phone lines, broadband, water pipes, and wireless infrastructure) from utility companies to the government entities requiring the relocations. When state, city, or public authorities require utilities to move their infrastructure due to road construction or public projects, those government entities would now pay the relocation costs instead of the utility companies.
Transportation & Infrastructure
Introduced by Edward Goodwin
This bill designates May 1st of each year as Women Veterans Day in North Carolina. The day would be officially recognized by the state to honor women who have served in the military.
Other / General Government
Introduced by Donny Lambeth
This bill expands North Carolina schools' ability to treat severe allergic reactions (anaphylaxis) by allowing them to stock epinephrine nasal sprays in addition to the auto-injectors currently permitted. It also extends similar permissions to other organizations like camps, restaurants, and sports venues to acquire and use epinephrine delivery systems, provided staff complete required training.
Healthcare
This bill establishes a statewide leashing law for dogs and creates strict liability for dog owners when their unleashed dogs injure people or other animals in public. It defines 'at large' to include dogs not under reasonable physical control, such as those off-leash, on overly long leashes, or escaped from enclosures, and makes violations a Class 3 misdemeanor.
This bill clarifies how North Carolina schools must notify parents about health screenings (vision, hearing, dental, and developmental screenings) and establishes that schools may conduct these screenings without prior parental consent, though parents must be informed at the beginning of the school year and notified of results.
This bill establishes three major environmental protections: (1) Extended Producer Responsibility requiring packaging manufacturers to reduce non-reusable packaging by set percentages over time, achieve minimum recycling rates, and use recycled content; (2) a ban on toxic substances in packaging materials including PFAS, heavy metals, and certain plastics; and (3) a ban on intentionally added PFAS in food packaging and compostable containers. Manufacturers must register, join producer responsibility organizations that coordinate compliance, and comply with labeling and reporting requirements.