In other legislative action
The Senate, voting 13-8 along party lines, approved Assembly Bill 458, which ends the annual 10 percent increase to the Opportunity Scholarship program enacted in 2015, freezing it at this year’s level of approximately $6.7 million. The program allows businesses to donate toward private-school tuition for lower-income students in exchange for tax write-offs. The bill heads to the governor.
The Senate voted 20-1 to approve Assembly Bill 226, barring employers, insurers and certain other entities from compelling someone to implant a microchip, either as a condition of employment or, in the case of an insurer, to track a person’s health. The bill was amended twice to limit its scope, balancing privacy protections against concerns that the bill limited voluntary implanting of chips for a variety of uses, such as opening doors with a hand wave. Sen. Melanie Scheible, D-las Vegas, cast the sole vote in opposition. The bill heads to the governor.
The Senate unanimously approved Assembly Bill 465, requiring electric utilities to implement expanded community-based solar projects that help lower-income residential customers go solar. That bill also goes to the governor’s desk.
The Assembly voted 24-16 to approve Senate Bill 224, which would make PERS recipients’ names public, but limits release of other information about benefits to only the annual payment amount. Energy got its first hearing. Senate Bill 547 would set up more robust requirements for those large customers to leave, including defining what types of customers could leave and requiring an application to be filed at least 280 days before attaining electricity from other providers.
“This is meant to set parameters, define terms and regulate businesses that are coming into our state,” Sen. Chris Brooks, D-las Vegas, the bill’s sponsor, told a joint meeting of the Senate and Assembly Growth and Infrastructure committees.
Nevada Consumer Advocate Ernest Figueroa called the bill “a good first step and a necessary step to protect individual ratepayers.”
Contact Bill Dentzer at bdentzer@reviewjournal.com or 775-461-0661. Follow @Dentzernews on Twitter. Contact Colton Lochhead at clochhead@reviewjournal.com or 775-461-0661. Follow @Coltonlochhead on Twitter.