Cross Over Day at the West Virginia Legislature separates the living bills from those that are most likely dead for the session. At the conclusion of the floor sessions on April 2, all bills have to be out of their house of origin, or they are essentially dead. There are exceptions, which will be explored below, where we also separate the living from the dead for you.
For this legislative session, the Spilman Thomas & Battle Government Relations Practice Group will provide bi-weekly updates to its clients and other interested readers concerning the progress of significant legislation in certain areas such as environment, oil & gas, tax reform, healthcare, insurance, consumer finance, and civil justice reform.
Significant Remaining Dates in the 2025 Legislative Calendar:
- April 9: Last day to consider bills in committee to ensure readings on three consecutive days
- April 12 (midnight): Session ends
CROSS OVER DAY
Under the rules of the Legislature, all bills have to pass out of their house of origin by no later than the end of the 50th day of the 60-day regular session in order to be considered for passage. This is known as cross over day and it typically serves as a dividing line between those bills that have a chance of passage and those that are most likely dead for the session. This session’s cross over day fell on April 2. Out of a combined total of 2,457 bills that have been introduced this session, only 446 have crossed over to the other chamber. Those bills that failed to cross over are considered dead, though they could be revived by amendment into any of the surviving viable bills. There are limits to that practice. The West Virginia Constitution requires that bills must embrace a single object, or purpose, unlike the federal system where bills of a completely unrelated topic may be amended in as riders to the principal legislation. Sponsors and advocates of dead legislation spend the first days post cross over scouring the list of viable bills to find a suitable vehicle for amendment. Ultimately, however, the determination of whether an amendment to a bill is germane, that is reasonably related to that bill and lies with the presiding officer. And, to be sure, proponents of the viable bills often resist these amendments as such may imperil the passage of their bills.
PROGRESS UPDATE ON BILLS THAT REMAIN ALIVE
Here is a brief progress update on those bills of interest that remain alive after cross over, or have already completed legislative action:
H.B. 2354 bans certain products from food in West Virginia. West Virginia became the first state to comprehensively ban certain food additives when Governor Morrisey approved H.B. 2354 on March 24. This bill garnered significant attention because it designates several commonly used food additives as “poisonous or injurious to the health,” including red dyes No. 3 and No. 40, yellow dyes No. 5 and No. 6, blue dyes No. 1 and No. 2, among others. Use of the listed ingredients results in a food being deemed “adulterated,” which criminalizes the manufacturing of or the sale of the product. While the ban on the sales of food containing those additives is not effective until January 1, 2028, such additives will not be permitted as ingredients in any meal served in the school system after August 1, 2025. Governor Morrisey touted the legislation as a step toward “a productive dialogue about how West Virginia and our country can eat healthier and address some of the vexing health care problems facing our citizens.”
The Governor’s microgrid data center bill, H.B. 2014, passed overwhelmingly out of the House and is now pending before the Economic Development Committee in the Senate. The bill is similar in some ways to other bills intended to attract data centers to the state, such as S.B. 552 and S.B. 583, but since this is the Governor’s bill, it will be the one to receive consideration. Briefly, the bill creates a Certified Microgrid Program to be administered by the Division of Economic Development and defines “High Impact Data Centers" as a facility or group of facilities that is used to house and operate equipment that receives, stores, aggregates, manages, processes, transforms, retrieves, researches, or transmits data; has a critical IT load of 50 megawatts or higher; and is placed into service on or after July 1, 2025. The principal benefit this bill provides to data centers is that it permits them to operate their own independent energy grids and thus, presumably, be able to operate without overburdening the state’s energy infrastructure or raising electricity rates for existing customers. The bill further exempts these projects from local zoning rules or ordinances or other siting requirements. Its supporters argue that these data centers could generate between $160 million to $200 million in tax revenue annually for the counties where they are located. Revenue from these data centers will be split between certain priorities, such as a further reduction of the state personal income tax and other initiatives such as infrastructure development and business recruitment.
The Governor’s three bills reorganizing parts of the Executive Branch,
H.B. 2008, H.B. 2009, and H.B. 2013, have all crossed over and are close to completing legislative action in the Senate. Briefly, these bills reshape state government by merging certain governmental units within the certain executive branch departments. The controversial aspect of all those bills centers on those provisions relating to new and current employees. Specifically, the bills grandfathered current employees who are members of the classified civil service system into that system as long as they remained in their current position. Further, the bill permitted those employees who currently have recourse to the state grievance procedures to maintain such access as long as they remain in their current position. However, new hires as of July 1, 2025 and current employees who change their current position after that date are transferred to the classified-exempt service system and exempted from the state grievance procedure.
The House of Delegates advanced its budget bill, H.B. 2026, by a vote of 80-17. The House's $5.1 billion budget is about $208 million less than that proposed by the Governor in the introduced version of that bill. The House Finance Chairman explained the difference between the House’s budget and Governor’s by remarking that the Governor’s bill would have spent every dollar and failed to create any reserve account for contingencies. There were no salary increases for teachers or public employees, though there was an increased cost associated with public employee insurance.
In the meantime, the Senate passed its budget bill, S.B. 300, out of Finance Committee, and it is expected to pass the full Senate by the middle of this week. In that bill, the Senate spends $5.321 billion of general revenue; this budget is more in line with the Governor’s proposed budget of $5.323 billion.
The West Virginia Constitution requires the Legislature to pass a balanced budget. In recent years, the Legislature has been able to meet that requirement before the conclusion of the last day of the regular session, thus avoiding an extended session. If there is to be an extended session for budget purposes, it must be proclaimed by the Governor three days prior to the end of the session on April 12. It is still too early to predict whether the House and Senate can come to an agreement on their competing versions of the budget bill before then. Ultimately, once a budget bill is presented to the Governor, he has five days, excluding intervening Sundays, to act. In West Virginia, the line-item veto is permitted.
The Senate advanced S.B. 585, which placed West Virginia at the forefront of those states mandating the use of padded helmets in scholastic sports. The bill, named after Cohen Craddock, a student athlete who died as a result of a head injury during football practice, requires the use of padded helmets during high school and middle school football practices. The bill also creates an advisory council tasked with studying safety rules and protocols in football as well as other sports; evaluating relevant statistics related to athletic injuries; evaluating the safety equipment used by student athletes; and making recommendations to the Legislature and Governor on any measures that may improve safety for student athletes. The bill passed the Senate unanimously and is now pending before the House Health Committee.
H.B. 2002 is the House version of the Governor’s bill designed to improve the state’s competitiveness by creating the One-Stop-Shop Permit Program that would feature a Permitting Dashboard to operate as a "one-stop-shop" for obtaining and renewing qualifying permits. The bill would also create a refund requirement for late action by the regulatory agency in responding to permit requests. The bill passed the House unanimously and is now pending before the Senate Government Organization Committee.
S.B. 458 is another Governor’s bill specifically focused on making the state more competitive by easing licensure qualifications for people who move to this state. Specifically, the bill establishes universal professional and occupational licensing reciprocity in West Virginia and standards used by boards of examination and registration for accepting the professional and occupational licenses issued by other states. The bill passed both chambers unanimously and was recently presented to the Governor.
BILLS THAT FAILED TO CROSS OVER
Other bills previously reported on that either failed to cross over or were otherwise rejected:
Of the bills previously introduced, the most high profile failure of this session is likely S.B. 460, Governor Morrisey’s school immunization exemption bill. As previously reported, the House Health Committee deleted the religious and philosophical exemptions in favor of a broad medical exemption, thus garnering enough votes to come out of the committee and be presented to the full House. At amendment stage, the full House narrowly restored the religious objections to immunizations, thus mostly reviving the Governor’s bill. However, opponents of the bill used an intervening weekend to marshal opposition and present a unified front that included the Chamber of Commerce and various healthcare associations and affiliated groups. When the bill was brought up for a vote, it was rejected by a margin of 56-42. Given the highly charged debate surrounding the topic, both opponents and supporters of the legislation are trying to identify which one of the viable bills can be amended to revive the non-medical exemptions contained in the Governor’s bill.
The bill eliminating the preferential tax treatment accorded to wind power projects, S.B. 439, never advanced beyond the Finance Committee.
The purpose of S.B. 34 was to create a community solar pilot program. This bill would have allowed subscribers to purchase an interest in a solar facility and use credits against their electric utility costs.
S.B. 115 The purpose of this annual bill was to establish a tax credit for physicians who are new graduates and locate in West Virginia to practice medicine for at least six years.
The House of Delegates sent a message to the federal government as well as local healthcare providers when it originated H.B. 3518, a bill designed to disenroll and eliminate state coverage in the Medicaid waiver expansion program if the federal medical assistance for the expansion program were reduced. As drafted, any reduction whatsoever by the federal government to the current 90-10 match rate would trigger the full disenrollment of approximately 165,000 beneficiaries. Opposition to this bill among healthcare providers and citizen groups mobilized quickly as the bill was dubbed the “Killing Rural Hospitals Act of 2025.” The impact to the healthcare system was summarized by Cindy Beane, the Commissioner of the Bureau of Medical Services, the state agency in charge of the Medicaid program, “If the federal funding were cut then the department would be directed to immediately begin to disenroll people who qualify under Medicaid expansion…those funds don’t go to the enrollees. They go to our doctors, our hospitals, our providers.” Beane noted that, if implemented as written, the trigger law would result in a combined loss of over $1 billion in Medicaid spending, thus imperiling healthcare finances across the state.
While the bill was reported out of the House Finance Committee to the full House of Delegates, it was immediately placed on the inactive calendar and failed to advance as required by April 2, thus ensuring that it would not be enacted this legislative session.
