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2005 SESSION

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Senate Committee on Commerce and Labor

Chairman: William C. Wampler, Jr.

Clerk: Jocelyn R. Lance
Date of Meeting: January 31, 2005
Time and Place: 1/2 hr. after Session, Senate Room B, General Assembly Building

S.B. 783 Electrical transmission lines; location underground in certain localities.

Patron: Mims

Electrical transmission lines; location underground.  Requires the State Corporation Commission, when considering a request for approval of the construction of an underground transmission line in a city or county with a population of over 225,000, to consider imposing a condition that the line be located underground, if requested by the governing board of the locality.  If the Commission approves the facility without such a condition, its reason or reasons for declining to do so shall be stated in its order.

S.B. 824 Payday loans; exclusions.

Patron: Williams

Payday loans.  Excludes any loan made in conjunction with tax return preparation or electronic filing services by a commercial entity that is approved by the Internal Revenue Service as an e-file provider from the definition of a payday loan.

S.B. 860 Health insurance; coverage for prescription contraceptives.

Patron: Howell

Health insurance; mandated coverage for prescription contraceptives. Requires health insurers, corporations providing accident and sickness subscription contracts, and health maintenance organizations, whose policies, contracts, or plans include prescription drugs on an outpatient basis, to include coverage for any prescribed drug or device approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration for use as a contraceptive.

S.B. 875 Consumer Real Estate Settlement Protection Act; prohibits separate charge.

Patron: Deeds

Consumer Real Estate Settlement Protection Act; separate charge prohibited. Prohibits settlement agents from making a separate charge on a settlement statement for complying with requirements that settlement agents collect, maintain, and report to the Department of Taxation information regarding transactions involving the transfer of title to real estate. Though the cost of compliance with such requirements may not be assessed as a separate charge, settlement agents are not prohibited from taking this cost into account in establishing their charges for performing escrow, closing or settlement services.

S.B. 904 Health insurance; prohibits health insurers, et al, from refusing assignments made to physicians.

Patron: Norment

Health insurance; refusal to accept assignments prohibited; physicians and osteopaths.  Prohibits health insurers, health maintenance organizations, and the state employees' health insurance plan from refusing to accept an assignment of benefits made to a physician or osteopath. 

S.B. 982 Title insurance; policies or contracts to be based upon published risk rates, penalty.

Patron: Watkins

Title insurance rates; penalties.  Prohibits title insurance companies, agencies, and agents from making or issuing a title insurance policy or contract except in accordance with the rate of premium, policy fee, or other charge that is published by the title insurance company. Title insurance companies are required to publish their risk rates, and to separately state, but not to publish, charges for separate or related services or for examining titles. A title insurance company, agency, or agent that fails to publish its risk rates, or issues a policy not in accordance with its published risk rates, may be assessed a penalty in an amount equal to the premium that should have been charged for the transaction based on the risk rates in use at the time of the transaction.

S.B. 1047 Unemployment compensation; independent contractor.

Patron: Wagner

Unemployment compensation; independent contractor.  Requires the Commission to use the 20-factor test the Internal Revenue Service uses to determine whether an individual is an independent contractor for purposes of the Federal Unemployment Tax Act.

S.B. 1106 Health insurance carriers; ethics and fairness in business practices. 

Patron: Saslaw

Health insurance carriers; ethics and fairness in business practices.  Prohibits health insurance carriers from automatically changing or bundling the code submitted by a physician or osteopath who utilizes the appropriate Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) or similar code, unless there are clear directions in the CPT to do so. Other provisions require carriers to use independent, binding external mechanisms to resolve billing and claims disputes, prohibit explanations of benefits that suggest that amounts paid by the carrier should be considered appropriate and full compensation for the services provided, and redefine what constitutes a retroactive denial of a previously paid claim. The measure also provides that an amendment to a contract shall not be effective unless the proposed amendment is delivered to the provider at least 90 days prior to its effective date.

S.B. 1172 Employer and employee; covenants restricting competition.

Patron: Stolle

Covenants not to compete.  Establishes that a covenant between an employer and employee that restricts the employee's ability to compete with his employer following the termination of employment is enforceable if the restrictions are reasonable in duration, geographic area, and scope, the agreement is signed by the individual, the covenant is justified by the former employer's legitimate business interest, and the individual's agreement to the covenant is supported by consideration. The measure does not apply in actions to enforce a covenant entered into prior to July 1, 2005.

S.B. 1190 Investment Partnership Act; qualified research & dev. services eligible to receive grants.

Patron: Colgan

Virginia Investment Partnership Act.  Allows qualified research and development services eligibility to receive investment performance grants. The bill also (i) lowers the maximum amount of individual awards that may be made, and (ii) reduces the time for payouts for all grants awarded on or after July 1, 2005.

S.B. 1201 Unemployment tax rate; penalties for transfering any trade or business for a lower tax rate.

Patron: Miller

Unemployment compensation; state unemployment tax dumping; penalties.  Establishes the civil and criminal penalties that shall be assessed against, and the unemployment compensation tax rates that shall apply to, persons who transfer any trade or business to another where at the time of transfer there is substantially common ownership, management, or control of the trade or business and the sole or primary purpose of the transfer is to obtain a lower unemployment tax rate.

 

S.B. 1215 Workers' compensation; definition of injury for use of a dealer motor vehicle.

Patron: Williams

Workers' compensation; demonstrator cars; noncompensable injury, disease, or condition. Provides that any injury, disease or condition resulting from the use by an employee of a dealer motor vehicle for commuting to or from work or any other non-work activity is not compensable under workers' compensation.

S.B. 1265 Health insurance; explanation of benefits.

Patron: Wagner

Communication of health insurance documents.  Authorizes health insurers to provide explanations of benefits, individual certificates, and evidence of coverage by means other than a printed document, if the person entitled to the document may request and receive a printed copy.

S.B. 1283 Unemployment compensation; VEC may furnish information to allow collection of monetary obligations.

Patron: Saslaw

Unemployment compensation reports.  Clarifies that the VEC may furnish information to the Commonwealth or its political subdivisions to allow collection of any monetary obligations owed them.

S.B. 1323 Birth-Related Neurological Injury Compensation Act; procedures for response to claimant's petition.

Patron: Devolites Davis

Birth-Related Neurological Injury Compensation Program.  Establishes that the Birth-Related Neurological Injury Compensation Program's response to a claimant's petition is not due until after the three-physician panel's report is filed with the Workers' Compensation Commission. Upon the filing of the Program's response, the Commission shall set the hearing date. The measure defines oxygen deprivation. Where the infant's birth weight is 1,800 grams or fewer, a rebuttable presumption shall arise that the injury alleged is not a birth-related injury, but resulted from the premature birth. Finally, the measure clarifies that the rebuttable presumption that a brain or spinal cord injury is a birth-related neurological injury only arises when the deprivation of oxygen or mechanical injury occurs in the course of labor, delivery, or resuscitation in the immediate postdelivery period in a hospital.

S.B. 1335 Communications services; various revisions to taxation thereof.

Patron: O'Brien

Communications tax reform.  Completely revises the taxation of communications services as follows:

Applies a statewide communications sales and use tax to retail communication and video services on a competitively neutral basis. The communications sales and use tax rate will be 5% on the following:

Local Exchange                           Paging                             

Inter-Exchange                            Cable Television

 (Both Interstate and Intrastate)     Satellite Television

Wireless                                     Voice over the Internet (VoIP)

A $0.75 "911 Tax" will be applied to each local exchange line (landline) and the current $0.75 "911 Fee" will continue to be applied to each wireless number.

The state communications sales and use tax and state 911 fees and taxes replace the following currently billed taxes:

Local Consumer Utility Tax (LCUT)

Local Gross Receipts Tax (BPOL) - (Only the portion above 0.5% currently billed to customers, where applicable)

Local E-911

Virginia Relay Fee

Cable Franchise Fee

A statewide Rights-of-Way Use Fee will be applied to all cable TV service lines as is currently applied on all local exchange telephone lines. The rate of the fee will be the same as determined annually by the Virginia Department of Transportation in accordance with 56-468.1 of the Virginia Code.

The sales and use tax, 911 tax and the cable rights-of-way fee assessed on consumers of video services from a single provider will be remitted to the Virginia Department of Taxation who will administer the distribution of the Communications Sales and Use Tax Trust Fund within 30 days of receipt of the collections for a given month. The rights-of-way use fee assessed on consumers of both cable video services and voice services from a single provider will be remitted in accordance with 56-468.1 (I). 911 Fees will be remitted directly to the Wireless 911 Board for administration.

The redistribution of taxes and fees is intended to be revenue neutral to localities and the Wireless 911 Board and shall cover the current cost of the Virginia Relay Center.