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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: February 7, 2005
Time and Place: Monday, 1/2 hr. after Session, Senate Room B, Gen. Assembly Bldg

S.B. 713 Parental leave for school involvement; employer requirement.

Patron: Potts

Parental leave for school involvement.  Requires employers to permit employees who are parents or guardians of, or who stand in loco parentis to, a school-aged child to take up to four hours of leave annually in order to attend or otherwise be involved in the child's school. The employer and employee must mutually agree to the time for the leave, the leave need not be compensated, and the employer may require both 48 hours' advance notice of the leave and written verification from the school of the employee's involvement in the school.

S.B. 886 Consumer Finance Act; revolving loans secured by non-purchase-money security interest in motor veh.

Patron: Bell

Consumer Finance Act; motor vehicle title loans.  Makes revolving loans that are secured by a non-purchase-money security interest in a motor vehicle subject to the provisions of the Consumer Finance Act if they are for amounts of less than $6,000 and are made for personal, family, household, or other nonbusiness purposes. Currently, revolving loans are exempt from the Consumer Finance Act. The maximum annual rate of interest on loans subject to the Consumer Finance Act of up to $2,500 is 36 percent.

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. 959 Telecommunications and cable television; release of information.

Patron: Wampler

Telecommunications and cable television service by localities; release of information.  Exempts from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act any public record of a local government that contains confidential financial or proprietary information pertaining to its provision of telecommunications or cable television service.

S.B. 960 Telecommunications services provided by localities; cost allocations. 

Patron: Wampler

Telecommunications services provided by localities; cost allocations.  Removes State Corporation Commission jurisdiction to reconsider, amend or disapprove a locality's manual or methodology for allocating costs in connection with its provision of telecommunications services, if within the preceding 10 years the Commission approved the locality's cost allocation manual or methodology, and the manual or methodology and its application by the locality have not substantively changed.  The measure also provides that if a for-profit competitor of a locality providing telecommunications services unsuccessfully asserts in a proceeding that the locality is improperly subsidizing its telecommunications services, then the Commission may require the provider to pay the locality's expenses, including attorney's fees, incurred in defending the assertion.

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. 1159 Wireless E-911 Services Board; changes in provisions.

Patron: Stolle

Wireless E-911 Services Board.  Amends the Board’s enabling legislation to resolve a potential constitutional debt conflict. The bill also removes the exemptions to E-911 deployment, excludes governments from the surcharge collection, and establishes a deadline for late funding requests of July 1 each year. In addition, the bill clarifies the appeals process and expands the Board’s responsibilities to include development of a single, statewide electronic addressing database.

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. 1260 Liability insurance; limitations on policies.

Patron: Norment

Motor vehicle, aircraft, and watercraft liability insurance policies.  Authorizes a liability insurer to limit its liability, under an insurance policy covering bodily injury or property damage, to liability limits for such coverage set forth in the policy for each person using or responsible for the operation or use a motor vehicle, watercraft, or aircraft, for each accident or occurrence, or for both.

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. 1291 Workers' compensation; definition of hypertension.

Patron: Edwards

Workers' compensation; definition of hypertension. Defines hypertension to include stroke, cerebrovascular accident (CVA), or any cerebral vascular event.

S.B. 1307 Tourism Authority; to promote historical destinations in anticip. of 400th anniv. of Jamestown.

Patron: O'Brien

Virginia Tourism Authority.  Requires the Virginia Tourism Authority to develop a comprehensive plan to promote destinations of historical and other significance located throughout the Commonwealth in anticipation of the 400th anniversary of the Jamestown settlement.

S.B. 1321 Health care provider panels; definition.

Patron: Saslaw

Health care provider panels.  Includes in the definition of "provider panels" providers under contract with a health maintenance organization or preferred provider organization regardless of the payment methodology utilized by such organization.

S.B. 1328 Fire insurance policies; limitation for mold coverage.

Patron: Colgan

Residental dwelling insurance policies.  Limitations for mold coverage applicable to residential dwellings.

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.

 

S.B. 1337 Video infrastructure development; equalizing franchise requirements for competitors.

Patron: Stosch

Video Infrastructure Development.  Seeks to encourage video infrastructure development by equalizing franchise requirements for all competitors to use the public rights-of-way.

S.B. 1338 Health insurance; coverage for certain persons.

Patron: Howell

Group accident and sickness insurance coverage.