Tennessee 2025 2025-2026 Regular Session

Tennessee Senate Bill SB0838 Draft / Bill

Filed 02/04/2025

                     
HOUSE BILL 415 
 By Davis 
 
SENATE BILL 838 
By Pody 
 
 
SB0838 
001620 
- 1 - 
 
AN ACT to amend Tennessee Code Annotated, Title 4; 
Title 9; Title 12; Title 45 and Title 47, relative to the 
Tennessee advisory commission on 
intergovernmental relations. 
 
BE IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF TENNESSEE: 
 WHEREAS, the United States is now facing and managing growing global competition 
for resources and capital, including tariffs and trade wars, the growth of the BRICS alliance and 
its increasing control on significant world resources, and developing payment systems that 
operate outside the dollar system, the expansion of war and territorial disputes, and changes in 
federal government funding and regulation; and 
 WHEREAS, the adaptation of new technologies creates new opportunities and risks, and 
changes the fundamental economics of trade, impacting both what and how Tennessee imports 
and exports; and 
 WHEREAS, increasing dependence on information technology creates growing 
vulnerabilities for the functionality and reliability of electronic communications and payment 
systems, and the commerce depending on them; and 
 WHEREAS, these changes and challenges have the potential to impact the wellbeing 
and quality of life for the people of Tennessee, including increased prices and shortages of fuel 
and electricity, food and water, housing, health care, and commodities; now, therefore, 
BE IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF TENNESSEE: 
 SECTION 1.  The Tennessee advisory commission on intergovernmental relations 
(TACIR) shall conduct and produce a study addressing steps that this state can take to protect   
 
 
 	- 2 - 	001620 
 
its financial security and soundness and ensure state sovereignty and resiliency.  The study 
must address the following matters: 
 (1)  Steps this state can take to improve its sourcing, availability, and quality of 
food, oil, medicine, and other essential goods in the event of significant changes in its 
relations with its current import and export partners; 
 (2)  Steps this state can take to improve its sourcing, availability, and quality of 
food, oil, medicine, and other essential goods in the event of significant price inflation; 
 (3)  Steps this state can take to decrease its dependence on centralized financial, 
communications, energy, and transportation systems that, in the event of disruption as 
the result of natural disaster or change in the reliability of such systems, may jeopardize 
the interests of state residents; 
 (4)  How the state will conduct its financial transactions and related 
communications in the event that transactions and communications conducted by 
existing electronic means are interrupted, compromised, restricted, or subject to 
unaffordable prices or sanctions;  
(5)  Steps this state should take to ensure it has proper oversight and jurisdiction 
concerning its contractual obligations and relations with vendors, contractors, and other 
trade contracts, as well as steps it can take to ensure that no agreements adopted for 
public or private funding violate the Constitution of the State of Tennessee; and 
(6)  Opportunities to provide increased local and statewide supply of essential 
goods, services, and capital for Tennessee-based banks, manufacturers, businesses, 
and farms. 
 SECTION 2.  On or before September 1, 2025, TACIR shall report its findings and 
recommendations, including any proposed legislation, to each member of the general assembly 
and shall provide a copy to the legislative librarian.  The report may be delivered electronically.   
 
 
 	- 3 - 	001620 
 
 SECTION 3.  This act takes effect upon becoming a law, the public welfare requiring it.