DES MOINES—Today, Attorney General Bird led a coalition of 25 states in an emergency brief to protect businesses from California’s illegal and burdensome regulations.  

New California laws that go into effect on January 1, 2026, will impose reporting mandates on companies requiring them to express a certain viewpoint on climate change. Even companies that do very little work in California will be mandated to agree to the viewpoint-discriminatory statements.  

The laws go a step further, requiring all businesses that make $500 million in revenue anywhere, and any California business, to disclose California’s preferred climate narrative and explain in “specific and complete” detail their plans to respond to any climate change “doomsday” scenarios. 

Also at issue are new California mandates that companies must report all direct and indirect emissions from sources the company controls and those they don’t control — from purchased energy and from suppliers, contracts, and customers. The laws impose nightmarish compliance costs and liability that will cripple companies across the country.  

“California needs to stay in California. California has no right to tell Iowa or any other state what to do. Their attempt to continually tell other states and businesses how to do business outside California is radical overreach and needs to be stopped,” said Attorney General Bird. “We are leading 25 states to ask the Court to step in and protect our free market from the tyranny of California.”   

The Iowa-led brief is joined by Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming. 

Read the full brief here.  

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For More Information:

Jen Green 

jen.green@ag.iowa.gov