Rep. Emerson Levy, D-Bend

Help women who need breast reconstruction. Encourage schools to install panic alarms. Shift homeowner’s insurance for wildfire to a separate policy. Require the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality to be more accountable to the Legislature.

Those are just some of the bills that state Rep. Emerson Levy, D-Bend, is working on for the 2025 session. She shared a list with us this week.

We don’t have the full text of the proposed bills, so we can only provide a brief overview. There are more than 15.

“I am really excited about a bill that we haven’t filed yet but we are working with DCBS (Department of Consumer and Business Services) on expanding coverage for women who need breast reconstruction,” she wrote in an email. “This bill came to me from a constituent who has become an expert in the insurance world around this issue and is helping other women navigate insurance to be able to get reconstruction covered after a double mastectomy.”

One of the issues that Levy focused on even before she was elected was school safety. She wanted schools to be able to install panic alarms in classrooms. Levy was able to provide direction in the education budget in 2023 for about $2.5 million for a grant program. Installation of the alarms costs about $2,000 per school. She told us no schools have taken advantage of it.

Levy wants to continue pushing that issue this session with a bill requiring districts to consider installing the alarms.

We believe Levy’s bill on homeowner’s insurance with wildfire may be the first of its kind in the country. It “would change the law to separate fire risk from wildfire risk, so wildfire risk would be a stand-alone hazard policy,” she told us.

There are many issues the Legislature will need to explore. Obviously, what’s driving some increases in homeowner’s insurance is wildfire. Breaking it off into a standalone policy may make the rest of homeowner’s insurance more reasonable for many. But we, surely like you, have many questions about how it would work. We don’t know the answers, yet.

We have written about another topic Levy plans for legislation — the Department of Environmental Quality’s difficulty in keeping air quality permits up to date. A state audit exposed the problem in 2018. It persists. Levy’s bill would create more accountability with the Legislature. It would require “the Department of Environmental Quality to establish clear rules and internal directives regarding permits and to expedite applications if the deadline is missed.”

There are also bills that should help some Oregonians afford the costs of prescription drugs; require nonopioid directives for some patients to help reduce the likelihood of addiction to opioids; require more consolidation by the state for consumers of information about energy efficiency programs; require more coordination on a state facility for disaster response; and others.

Not every planned bill ends up becoming law. But bills legislators are working on do give constituents a partial window of some of their priorities.