MORGANTOWN — A bill to lighten the car inspection burden for West Virginia drivers divided the House Finance Committee on Thursday. And down the hall, Senate Finance moved one of the governor’s few pieces of legislation this session: his bill to create a Medicaid reserve fund.
HB 4639 is the car inspection bill. Sponsors said it began, in concept, as a bill to eliminate annual inspections. After talks, the introduced version changed it to one every three years. After more talks, the House Technology and Infrastructure Committee changed it to once every two years.
That’s the version that came to finance. Currently, inspections cost $14: $3 for the sticker that supports State Police, and $11 for the garage that does the job. The bill raised the price for the biannual inspection to $17, which doubles the sticker price to $6 to keep State Police revenue intact.
Two witnesses testified against the bill. State Police Sgt. Schoolcraft opposed it on safety grounds. Brakes, tires and auto frames are the primary issues discovered during inspections, he said. In conversation with Delegate Larry Rowe, D-Kanawha, it was shown that about 1,300 crashes per year occur in the state stemming from vehicle malfunctions, and 900 of those stem from bad tires and brakes.
Schoolcraft agreed with Rowe that biannual inspections would be likely to increase, perhaps double, the number of crashes.
Jared Wyrick, representing the West Virginia Auto Dealers Association, said the state sees about 1.2 million inspections per year and about 116,000 vehicles fail for critical safety issues: tires, brake pads, brake lines. And crashes caused by those problems are twice as likely to lead to fatality.
He cited various statistics about fatality rates in states that lack or have stopped doing safety inspections. South Carolina and Mississippi don’t require them and have the two highest death rates. Florida’s rate climbed significantly when it stopped requiring them.
Delegate Isaac Sponaugle, D-Pendleton, offered an amendment to raise the inspection price to $28 to make sure garages don’t lose money from the less-frequent service, but it failed 8-14.
Bill co-sponsor Jim Butler, R-mason, said it was intended to give constituents a break in the fees and taxes they pay.
Rowe said, “This is a safety measure,” and biannual inspections will do no favors to consumers by doubling the danger.
Delegate Dave Pethtel, D-Wetzel, said repair costs are going to rise for people who delay essential fixes. “What it comes down to for me is common sense.”
It passed 14-10 and goes to the House floor.
Medicaid bill
SB 633 is the governor’s Medicaid Families First Reserve Fund bill, which he touted in his State of the State Address. It will be an interest-bearing Department of Health and Human Resources account initially funded by $150 million drawn from other DHHR funds.
It’s intended as a stabilization fund. DHHR Deputy Secretary Jeremiah Samples told the members that Medicaid is flush now, but is facing a $6 million deficit for Fiscal Year 2022, and depending on various factors, the deficit could reach $156 million.
That would present serious questions, such as what services or what clients to cut. They might have to eliminate the roughly 160,000people added through the Obamacare Medicaid expansion. “Setting this money aside is really the prudent course.”
Sen. Ron Stollings, D-Boone, was concerned that not spending the money now would sacrifice the 9-1 federal matching Medicaid dollars, but understood Samples’ point about future deficits. “I hope this is a buffer-type bill that gives us some smoothing,” he said.
It passed in a voice vote and goes to the Senate floor.
Other bills
Here’s a glimpse at some other bills passed during committee action on Thursday.
SB 827 looks at the road damage caused by the oil and gas industry and requires any oil and gas operator to enter into a road use agreement with the Division of Highways in order to receive a Department of Environmental Protection permit. It also sets up bonding requirement. Senate Transportation passed it quickly without discussion and sent it to Judiciary. Committee counsel pointed out that the bill contains some code conflicts with other bills in the legislative pipeline.
SB 106 was introduced to permanently establish Daylight Savings Time year-round in West Virginia, Senate Government Organization took it up and learned from counsel that the bill would violate federal law, which allows states to either observe DST as scheduled or keep Standard Time year-round.
So the bill was rewritten to adopt DST year-round as soon as Congress makes it legal. It passed and goes to Judiciary, thought the committee chair said they’ll ask to have that reference waived so it goes straight to the floor.
SB 554 sets up a notification process for mineral owners that would lead to an affidavit of termination for an inactive lease — for a non-producing well or wells. Sometimes producers stop producing wells but don’t release the leases, prohibiting the owner from signing a new lease to generate income. Many leases don’t have release provisions requiring the producer to release them.
This bill would help them get their minerals back into production. It passed the Senate unanimously last week and sailed through House Energy without discussion on Thursday. Its next stop is House Judiciary.
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