BOISE, Idaho — “Coming soon to a canal bank near you”: rats.

That was Middleton Republican state Sen. Tammy Nichols’ warning to the Idaho Senate Agricultural Affairs Committee on Tuesday if the Idaho Legislature doesn’t take action to curb the spread of the pest that’s already snowballing across the Treasure Valley.

So far lawmakers haven’t, slowing, softening and then shooting down a bipartisan measure that would have enlisted the state Department of Agriculture to take on the burgeoning pest.

Now, Nichols, state Rep. John Gannon, D-Boise, and state Rep. Dori Healey, R-Boise, are trying one more time. To appease budget-conscious conservatives in the House, the Treasure Valley trio is taking the state out of the solution, simply empowering local governments to control rats — something Ada County officials previously said they weren’t allowed to do in Idaho.

Senate Bill 1445 would declare Norway, roof and other wild rats invasive species and allows — but doesn’t require — cities, counties and other jurisdictions to control them.

The bill comes at the continued request of Ada County, according to County Commissioner Ryan Davidson.

“What was communicated to me is that cities need the authority,” he told the Agricultural Affairs Committee on Tuesday. “You don’t want cities and counties to determine what’s a pest and go around killing animals willy-nilly.”

For the past several years, rats in the Treasure Valley have been a pest in everything but Idaho code. For Davidson, that’s the problem: Idaho follows Dillon’s Rule, a legal doctrine stating that local governments can only do what the state government empowers them to do. The state has native rat species: namely the bushy-tailed woodrat (or pack rat) and two types of kangaroo rat, according to Idaho Fish and Game. But Norway and roof rats have existed outside state code for the simple reason that they weren’t known to be in the state.

That has changed in the past four or five years, according to Jane Rohling, who runs a 1,200-member social media group monitoring rats in and around her home in Eagle.

“We’re at a tipping point,” Rohling testified during Tuesday’s hearing. ”If we don’t take action on this very quickly, we might be New York City. We’re not going to be able to get this under control.”

Idaho lawmakers try local rat solution

Rohling, who said she has spent about $30,000 battling the rat infestation at her home, was disappointed that the Department of Agriculture wouldn’t be involved in the proposed solution. Rats don’t respect borders, and Idaho needs a solution — and funding — on a broader scale than cities and counties can provide on their own, she said.

In March, an amended version of a previous bill passed the Senate with minimal opposition, only to die in a divided House, 38-32. Back then, opponents of Senate Bill 1271a successfully argued against over-deploying state tools — and, potentially, state funds — to address what critics called a local problem isolated to urban areas around Boise.

Gannon voted in favor of that bill. But on Tuesday, he agreed with its opposition, saying local governments should have already taken action to curtail rats.

“I just hear excuses,” Gannon said of local governments. “Personally, I think the excuses aren’t as valid as they should be.

“I think they should have been more eager to do something,” he added. “But anyway, now you have the power — go for it.”

Davidson said Ada County would likely set up a way to map rat sightings and then contract with pest control companies to kill them.

“I think private-public partnership can really nip this in the bud,” he said.

Gannon told the committee he “has indications” that the new bill could pass the House. And one Senate opponent, Twin Falls Republican state Sen. Josh Kohl, said the new bill was “getting closer” to a solution he could accept. But Kohl, who voted against the earlier bill, reserved his right to say no on the full floor. His concern: money.

“Eventually, we’re going to see a fiscal note out of JFAC every year” funding rat control, he worried, referring to the Legislature’s powerful budget-setting committee.

Rats roam in Eagle, Boise

Nancy Daniels lives on Boise’s Depot Bench, where she and her neighbors see rats scurrying along fence lines and through back yards. Like Rohling, she’s adopted a “bottom up” approach to control, coordinating block-wide efforts to drive rats out.

“We are not just sitting around and doing nothing,” she told the committee. But, “there are places in my neighborhood that we can’t get to. We ask for help doing that.”

If Senate Bill 1445 becomes law, it would provide less help than Nichols envisioned when the 2026 session started.

Her original “Idaho Rodents of Unusual Size Act” would have declared the two common rat species a “public health and safety nuisance,” as well as invasive species, agricultural pests and “vermin and public health and welfare pest(s).” The kitchen-sink approach sought to authorize a range of local and state authorities to take on the problem under the oversight of the state Department of Agriculture.

The bill explicitly allowed county commissioners, pest control and abatement districts, and public health districts to take action on rats of their own accord. Any state agency as well as “any other public or private entity” could “summarily abate” rats if the director of the Department of Agriculture deemed it necessary.

Lawmakers pared back the idea through the amendment process in February, citing concerns that the original language would swell state spending, box out private pest-control companies and create an unfunded mandate to counties, which historically handle pests that threaten farms and infrastructure.

The new bill is still unfunded, but it’s not a mandate.

“We’ve had a lot of prosperity down here,” Gannon said. “I think they can find money in their budgets to get this done.”

Rats in Idaho: A statewide concern?

Early indications suggest that rats first arrived in Eagle after hitching rides on shipping containers from the coast, Davidson said. In the years since they have spread through the Treasure Valley. So far, though, there’s little evidence that they’ve gone beyond. The localized damage presented a challenge in the House in March, where some lawmakers divided along geographic lines.

“I don’t think it’s fair for the whole state to fund something that’s only in the Treasure Valley, for the most part,” state Rep. Faye Thompson, R-McCall, said on March 17.

In a January information session, Ada County Weed, Pest and Mosquito Abatement Director Adam Schroeder reiterated that his department was not funded, staffed, equipped or trained to fight rats.

While they may be the agency “best positioned” to take on the task, he said, that doesn’t mean they are “well positioned” to do it.

The Senate bill would do little to help that right away, but it would check one item off his wishlist: “a framework” for control.

“Legislators need to take a look at some sort of statewide effort,” he said in January, “so we’re not just moving rats all over Idaho.”

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