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This news story originally provided by The
Charleston Daily Mail
1/8/04
Richie Robb: The state should adopt a bottle bill
To its credit, the Charleston Daily Mail has recently devoted several editorials to discussing a cleaner and more beautiful West Virginia.
However, this newspaper's proposals for achieving that laudable goal have often worked at cross purposes.
A more comprehensive and realistic approach is necessary for West Virginia truly to enhance its beauty and to enjoy the benefits of that accomplishment, not the least of which would be greater economic dividends.
There is little question that West Virginia, with its natural beauty, small towns and larger cities, boasts attractive physical surroundings and friendly people comparable to anywhere in this nation.
A primary detriment to reaching its readily achievable potential has over the years been litter, trash and unsightly debris that we ourselves cause or have otherwise continued to tolerate.
Some undoubtedly view public cleanliness as namby-pamby, do-gooder hokum.
However, a quick glance at our own lives and habits readily reveals we much prefer to shop, live or visit clean, attractive and welcoming places.
Would visitors or investors be any different?
Studies consistently show that clean, bright and cheerful schools produce the best results. Fortunately, most of ours meet these criteria.
However, many of our more public areas, and numerous private ones, are sorely lacking.
It only makes sense that a truly cleaner West Virginia will do more to enhance our image than any costly publicity campaign.
Further, it will directly contribute toward making our state a better place, thus enhancing our quality of life.
While the Daily Mail rightly praises those volunteers who help rid our roadsides and streams of litter and debris, it unfortunately stops there and debunks other similar beautification efforts such as recycling and pecuniary incentives such as the "bottle bill."
The editors of this newspaper believe greater voluntarism and more aggressive law enforcement alone will do the job. However, voluntarism and more effective law enforcement will never be enough.
We have been there, done that, and are still doing it.
Extrapolating the costs for litter control in South Charleston statewide, this effort alone amounts to approximately $5 million borne by taxpayers of this state at all levels of government.
Recycling in West Virginia occurs on a volunteer basis and is mandated for all communities with more than 10,000 people. Little wonder that this patchwork system consistently produces unsatisfactory results and increasing frustration.
The proposed bottle bill, in effect in other states with commendable results, provides another tool for ridding our roadsides of unsightly debris.
Certain legislators and lobbyists all too quickly decry this proposal as a tax increase. But how many taxes also provide for total reimbursement?
West Virginia has made some commendable starts in the past. Gaston Caperton's "West Virginia, Make it Shine" provides us a splendid and inspirational slogan. And who can forget the late A. James Manchin, who made his initial fame sallying forth against those "jumbled jezebels of junkery"?
But greater follow-through is needed. We need to build on these earlier efforts.
I applaud the Daily Mail's contributions to the cause. However, we should not be satisfied with half measures toward our goal of keeping West Virginia Almost Heaven.
Robb, a Republican, is mayor of South Charleston.
This news story originally provided by The
Charleston Gazette
1/10/04
Janet Fout and Julie Archer
Clean Elections Act would ensure citizens’ voices heard
Small improvements have led to progress in the effort to clean up election financing in West Virginia — but much more is needed. Decades could be spent passing incremental reforms seeking to patch a fundamentally flawed system. It’s time for a comprehensive approach that will fundamentally improve and preserve our democratic electoral process.
The West Virginia Clean Elections Act is a voluntary system modeled after laws in Maine and Arizona, where 63 percent and 37 percent of the state legislators, respectively, are now free from special-interest ties.
“Voter-owned” elections had broad bipartisan support in those states, saw more women and people of color get elected, and increased voter participation. Arizona elected the nation’s first governor who owes her successful campaign to the people, not special interests.
To qualify for public financing, a candidate must pass a threshold test by collecting a substantial number of small contributions from registered voters in his or her district. Qualified candidates must agree to accept no private contributions and refrain from spending their own money. In exchange, they receive a modest amount of public money to run their campaigns.
Over the past several months, Subcommittee B of the Legislature’s Joint Judiciary Committee has been studying the Clean Elections Act (now the “Public Campaign Financing Act”). In December, it cleared a major hurdle. Both Subcommittee B and the full Joint Judiciary committee voted the bill out without recommendation. Even without recommendation, the step allows the discussion to continue.
Central to the debate is whether or not it is fiscally responsible to use taxpayer dollars to fund candidates’ campaigns. Unfortunately, under our current funding system, it is increasingly difficult for the average West Virginian to participate effectively in our democracy, either to be elected to office or to be heard above the special interests that finance campaigns. Comprehensive campaign finance reform is needed to reduce the influence of special interests and enable more qualified candidates to seek elected office.
Undoubtedly, a major hurdle for passing a clean elections law will be finding a stable funding mechanism. The legislative interim committee studying the issue received a report from a Charleston-based law firm on potential sources of money. This analysis identified sources outside of general-revenue accounts. The Reform Institute, a Washington-based educational organization working on campaign finance and election reform issues, commissioned the study. We hope lawmakers will take a closer look at this analysis as they consider the Clean Elections Act during the coming session.
Fout is coordinator of Citizens for Clean Elections, a coalition of 28 organizations supporting election reform legislation in West Virginia, and co-director of the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition. Archer is research director of the West Virginia Citizen Action Group and the Mountain State Education and Research Foundation.
This news story originally provided by The Herald-Dispatch
1/12/04
Only insurance industry will benefit from tort reform
MARVIN MASTERS - guest columnist
"The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers."
The sentiment is nothing new -- William Shakespeare wrote it more than 400 years ago. We’re used to it.
What Shakespeare meant, however -- and what state Sen. J. Frank Deem has apparently forgotten -- is that the road to tyranny is opened when you eliminate the advocates of the people.
Still, if you are going to criticize our efforts on behalf of West Virginia consumers, you should at least get your facts straight. Unfortunately, Sen. Deem didn’t do that in his recent guest column here.
The laws the insurance corporations want have nothing to do with insurance reform, but "tort reform." Their so-called reforms will strip away consumer protection laws that require these billion-dollar corporations to deal fairly with West Virginians.
More grievously, they will essentially take away your constitutional right to a jury trial.
Insurance corporations claim the laws should be passed because they’re impoverished. According to the Insurance Services Office, the industry’s profit for the first nine months of 2003 was more than $21 billion.
We’re to believe that $21 billion constitutes poverty?
The caps they want will do nothing to lower your insurance premiums. Don’t want to hear it from me? What about the American Insurance Association?
It said, "The insurance industry never promised that tort reform would achieve specific premium savings," (March 13, 2002).
The American Tort Reform Association? "We wouldn’t tell you or anyone that the reason to pass tort reform would be to reduce insurance rates," (July 19, 1999).
The only group that will get anything from these reforms will be the insurance industry because laws that require them to deal fairly with you will be stripped away. That will further increase their already outrageous profits, and you’re still going to pay more for insurance.
You’ll have given away everything and received nothing.
Votes for those so-called "reforms" are votes for billionaire corporations and against West Virginia’s working families.
If Sen. Deem wants to pass real insurance reform, then let’s get started. We’ve advocated insurance reform for two years.
What about a law requiring insurance corporations to open their books to justify their rate increases? A law that disallows rate setting based on your credit report, forcing you to pay higher rates even if you haven’t had a claim in years? What about creating an independent consumer advocate for the Insurance Commission, not one who is supposed to advocate for everyday people while still answering to the insurance industry?
And who’s trying to buy elections?
According to campaign finance data in the 2000 and 2002 People’s Election Reform Coalition reports, the insurance industry, health-care interests and the corporate attorneys who represent them donated $1.4 million to candidates in those elections -- more than three times what candidates received from consumer attorneys.
Sadly, they’re also trying to buy votes to take away your consumer protections and right to a jury trial.
If Sen. Deem and others refuse to listen to us on this issue, then perhaps they’ll listen to the Chief Justice William Rehnquist.
Rehnquist, appointed to the bench by President Nixon and made chief justice by President Reagan, has said, "The right to trial by jury in civil cases at common law is fundamental to our history and jurisprudence. A right so fundamental and sacred to the citizens ... should be jealously guarded."
We’re trying to do that. You should, too.
Marvin Masters is president of the West Virginia Trial Lawyers Association.
This news story originally provided by The
Daily Mail
1/12/04
West Virginia needs a bottle bill
Linda Mallett
This year, legislators have a rare opportunity to consider legislation that not only pays for itself but also saves taxpayers money.
Lawmakers have a chance to explore a concept created by the bottling industry, an idea which has worked for decades in other states in reducing beverage container litter by as much as 80 percent.
West Virginia could enjoy markedly reduced litter, too, if the Legislature passes a bottle bill providing for a 10-cent deposit collected from those purchasing beverage containers and returned when the empty container is brought back for recycling.
A bottle bill would reinstate a way of life that existed only a generation ago.
Children funded movie trips by collecting soda bottles to be sold back to venders for pennies apiece.
In those days, it was a matter of straightforward economics. It simply made no sense to throw away such a useful container.
West Virginia's residents use over 1 billion beverage containers each year. Under a bottle bill, millions more containers would be recycled than are today.
Companies in the businesses of purchasing used containers go to bottle bill states to get their product.
Bottle-bill states provide cleaner, well-sorted containers and lots more of them.
Think economy of scale and you'll understand why these businesses go to the 10 bottle bill states to get the materials they need.
North America's largest buyer of used glass containers has plants in all but one of our neighboring states and it currently cannot keep up with demand. With millions of containers to offer, we are poised for success.
In fact, there need be no losers.
Merchants inconvenienced by becoming part of the return cycle can be paid out of uncollected deposit revenue. Reverse vending machines that collect containers relieve some of the labor costs.
In other states, small businesses sprout up to collect containers. They receive a handling fee from the unclaimed deposits left behind by those who don't return their containers.
Thousands of West Virginians have signed petitions supporting the bottle bill. Statewide, city councils and county commissions have passed resolutions of support.
A bottle bill shifts the costs of litter cleanup from municipalities and taxpayers to beverage producers and consumers.
Citizens in the states that have bottle bills overwhelmingly support them, and no state bottle bill has ever been repealed.
Bottle bills work. in Michigan, 95 percent of containers are returned.
Bottle bill opponents inevitably and misleadingly describe container deposits as a tax, a convenient scare tactic.
No one wants a new tax. But how about a "tax" that affects only the consumers who choose not to return their containers, some of whom prefer to throw them out their car windows for the rest of us to pay to clean up?
West Virginia spends $3 million a year to clean up after these litterbugs.
The only barrier between the majority of thoughtful folks who would support this idea and the relatively few who apparently demand their right to litter is inertia.
It's time for a change. It's time to return to the habits of yesteryear. It's time to pass the bottle bill.
Please join the many bottle bill supporters, who include members of the West Virginia Farm Bureau, the council of churches, the Grange, city and county governments, student groups, environmental organizations and others.
For more information, please visit www.wvcag.org
.
Mallet is a program manager for West Virginia Citizen Action Group.
This news story originally provided by The
Daily Mail
1/13/04
Lawmakers discuss state water use study
Proponents of bill urge plan for future consumption
Kris Wise
Daily Mail Capitol reporter
A potential study on where West Virginia's water flows and what it's being used for has sparked controversy over the alleged industrial exploitation of the state's natural resources and the future of clear-running streams in the state.
Proponents of a state Water Preservation Act say foreign control over West Virginia water plants, increased pollution by industries and water shortages in other states are good enough reasons why lawmakers should set a plan for future water use in the state.
But some businesses say proposed legislation, which was to be taken up today by a special legislative committee, could eventually lead to taxation on a free-flowing resource and would distract lawmakers from other more pressing environmental priorities.
At a hearing held Monday at the Capitol, about 30 people spoke mostly in favor of a bill that says first and foremost that the citizens of West Virginia have rights to the water that flows through the state.
The bill, which could be introduced to the full Legislature as early as Wednesday, also calls for the state to complete a one-time study of how ground and surface water is pumped and how it is used. Large-use consumers also would face higher scrutiny, and a new commission would be appointed to decide if the state needs a long-term water management plan.
State residents like Ritchie County's Gary Zuckett said the bill is a long time coming and should be preserved in its entirety by the Legislature.
"We needed this bill years ago," said Zuckett, who is also a lobbyist for the West Virginia Citizen Action Group. "Water is going to be the oil and gas of the next century and if it can be exploited, it will be."
Representatives for some of the state's largest water consumers said, however, that the bill could prompt legal questions about how resources should be regulated and shared.
Scott Icard, government affairs manager for American Electric Power, said other states could be inspired to take legal action against West Virginia if the state tries to set boundaries on bodies of water like the Ohio River.
Icard also said rumors about taxation on water had stirred fear among companies looking to locate in the region and those who are already here. American Electric Power pumps about 2 million gallons of water through its six West Virginia generating plants every day.
The threat of that use costing more money only makes corporations shy away from doing business in the state, he said.
"West Virginia is a cold enough business climate as it is," he noted.
Sen. John Unger, D-Berkeley, tried repeatedly to squash misinformation he said abounds about the bill.
"It doesn't propose taxation and there are no plans to deal with taxation," Unger said.
He also countered a rumor that information about some of the state's largest water consumers would be kept confidential.
According to the bill, only statistics about companies who claim their water use is part of a "trade secret" would be kept confidential.
Despite Unger's reassurances, Tom Boggs, vice president for the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce, said the 4,000 members of his trade association don't support a potential water use plan that could affect the "fundamental rights of a property owners to surface and ground water."
"The common laws of West Virginia have worked well so far," Boggs said.
This news story originally provided by The
Daily Mail
1/13/04
Chamber blamed as water use bill stalls
By The Associated Press
An interim committee was unable to consider its bill creating the state's first-ever water use law, and its co-chairman blamed a false whisper campaign by the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce.
"They disrupted the legislative process by raising phantom issues," Sen. John Unger, D-Berkeley, said Tuesday. "They created a false perception about this bill."
The joint committee canceled a hastily scheduled evening meeting to consider its bill. A morning meeting had ended without a vote following last-minute objections from a handful of committee members.
Senate President Earl Ray Tomblin, D-Logan, and House Speaker Bob Kiss, D-Raleigh, both said they support the committee's work and want its bill introduced in each chamber once the regular session started today.
"I'm saddened that they were not able to pass out the bill today," Tomblin said. "I believe we will be able to get out that bill pretty soon."
The bill proposes a survey of major water users to inventory a year's worth of withdrawals. It would also create a commission and advisory group to recommend whether the survey shows the need for a statewide water management plan.
Chamber lobbyists could not be reached for comment after Unger alleged they "misinformed" the objecting lawmakers. Unger also alleged that chamber lobbyists worked to undermine the bill despite stating support for it during a public hearing Monday and in a closed-door meeting with Tomblin and Kiss.
"The Chamber of Commerce pulled the rug out from underneath the leadership," Unger said. "They went behind the president and the speaker's back and started working against the bill right after they left that meeting."
The chamber also had a leading role among issue "stakeholders" in repeatedly revising the committee's bill over the eight months that it studied the issue.
Unger and Delegate Nancy Houston, D-Monongalia, co-chaired committee meetings at which lawmakers learned that water rights have become a growing legal issue across that country. They also learned that West Virginia and Rhode Island are the only states east of the Mississippi without a water use policy on its books.
"They've educated the public," Tomblin said. "They've educated themselves."
Supporters of the bill had outnumbered foes 2-to-1 at the public hearing.
"I'm surprised and disappointed, based on the broad-based public support of the bill," said Conni Gratop Lewis of the West Virginia Environmental Coalition, after the morning committee meeting.
At that meeting, Delegate Jerry Mezzatesta said the bill went too far by declaring that West Virginia "reserves a sovereign interest in the waters of the state as a valuable public resource," and that the state "should manage state waters for the use and benefit of its citizens."
Delegate Robert Tabb, D-Berkeley, said he didn't think the state needed the bill to assert its rights.
"I certainly believe we would take up arms if Germany came in here and took our water," Tabb said.
Last year, German conglomerate RWE finalized its $4.6 billion takeover of West Virginia-American Water, the state's largest water company.
Delegates Bob Ashley, R-Roane, and Don Caruth, R-Mercer, opposed language added to the bill last month that said the state's water-related duties include "protection of the environment."
This news story originally provided by The
Charleston Gazette
1/14/04
Water use bill blocked
Issue isn’t dead, lawmakers promise
By Ken Ward Jr.
STAFF WRITER
Legislative leaders on Tuesday halted consideration of the state’s first water use bill, but promised that the issue is not dead for the year.
The measure’s main sponsor blamed industry lobbyists for the setback, but said the bill might re-emerge without changes made to try to placate those lobbyists.
“There will be a bill,” said Sen. John Unger, D-Berkeley. “Maybe it will even be a little bit stronger.”
On Tuesday, just a day before today’s start of the regular legislative session, an interim committee was scheduled to take up the bill. Observers expected the panel to approve the bill, and recommend to the full Legislature that it pass.
But during a morning meeting, Delegate Jerry Mezzatesta, D-Hampshire, complained that the bill went much further than lawmakers intended for the interim committee to go.
Mezzatesta said the committee was only directed to design a survey of how much water the state has and how that water is used.
“This bill goes far beyond anything about finding out about the water,” he said.
Last year, lawmakers called for the interim committee to write a new water management plan for the state. The resolution specifically called for the plan to consider protection of “water quality” as well as quantity.
Last fall, interim committee members voted not to include water quality in their efforts.
West Virginia is one of the only eastern states that does not have a water quantity law. Environmental groups and consumer advocates, including Attorney General Darrell V. McGraw, fear the lack of such a law puts the state’s ample water supply at risk of being siphoned off by thirsty neighbors.
Under pressure from the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce and the Manufacturers Association, committee members also narrowed the bill to focus on just a one-time survey of major state water users.
Unger held repeated meetings with industry group lobbyists, and made numerous changes based on their input.
At a public hearing on Monday night, those same lobbyists said that they generally favored the bill, but would continue to seek several changes.
Coal operators, chemical makers, utilities and other businesses have been particularly worried about any move by the state to write a new water management plan.
Currently, the right to use state waters is managed by common law rights given by court cases to the owners of land along rivers and streams. Any new management plan, the industry groups worry, would eat away at the rights of businesses that already own these “riparian” lands.
On Tuesday, several delegates objected to introductory language in the bill that said the state should “manage its waters effectively for the use and enjoyment of present and future residents and for the protection of the environment.”
“I think the statement ‘has a duty to manage’ is a little strong,” said Delegate Cindy Frich, R-Monongalia.
Delegate Robert Tabb, D-Jefferson, said he doesn’t see the urgent need to protect West Virginia water from outside interests.
“I certainly believe we would take up arms if Germany came in here and took our water,” Tabb said.
Last year, efforts to write a water use bill gained steam when the German conglomerate RWE finalized its purchase of West Virginia’s largest water utility.
Near the end of a scheduled two-hour meeting, Mezzatesta moved that the committee “postpone indefinitely” consideration of the bill.
The measure failed. But Unger recessed the meeting, with a plan to reconvene at 6 p.m.
Later, Unger said he had talked to House Speaker Bob Kiss, D-Raleigh, and that Kiss urged him to postpone a committee vote on the bill.
Kiss tried to blame Republican members of the House committee. But six of the seven members who voted to kill the bill were Democrats, and Mezzatesta is a member of Kiss’ leadership team.
By mid-afternoon, Unger had called off the evening meeting. He said Kiss told him not enough House members of the interim committee would support the bill for it to receive the panel’s recommendation.
Kiss said he supports the bill, but was concerned that an adverse vote by the interim committee would hurt its chance for eventual passage.
“I am generally supportive of what the committee is working on,” Kiss said. “This is not the end of the game.”
Kiss and Senate President Earl Ray Tomblin, D-Logan, both said they want the bill to be introduced in their respective houses once the regular session starts, Unger said.
Unger said he felt it was important for him to try to work out a consensus with business lobbyists. But in the end, he said, those lobbyists worked behind-the-scenes to try to kill the bill.
“What we’re hearing from the House side is that the Chamber had really lobbied members and brought up some concerns and confusion,” Unger said.
To contact staff writer Ken Ward Jr., use e-mail or call 348-1702.
This news story originally provided by The Charleston Gazette
1/15/04
Wise proposes own water-use bill
By Ken Ward Jr.
STAFF WRITER
Gov. Bob Wise dove headfirst Wednesday night into the growing battle over efforts to write West Virginia’s first water-use law.
Wise proposed his own version of the bill, calling for an annual survey of water use in each of the next three years.
In his State of the State address, Wise highlighted the issue. The governor said he wants to “establish a water usage program giving us information on our supply of clean water and on the industries that use it.”
‘Leadership’
The governor’s proposal drew quick praise from environmental groups and from the legislator who has led a yearlong study of water quantity issues.
“I’m very pleased,” said Sen. John Unger, D-Berkeley and co-chairman of a special interim committee on water. “I think a lot of people are starting to recognize the importance of this.”
Norm Steenstra, director of the West Virginia-Citizen Action Group, said, “I really applaud him for his leadership on that issue.”
Noting strong industry opposition to the water-use bill, Steenstra added, “It takes somebody who is not running for re-election to push that issue.”
Unger, Steenstra and others are concerned that West Virginia’s abundant water supply will be targeted by the growing Washington, D.C., area or by other thirsty neighbors.
West Virginia is one of the few states in the eastern United States that still doesn’t have a water-use law. No one keeps track of how much water various users pump out of state rivers, streams, lakes or underground pools.
After a number of meetings over the past few months, Unger’s committee recessed Tuesday without voting its bill up or down.
However, Senate President Earl Ray Tomblin, D-Logan, and House Speaker Bob Kiss, D-Raleigh, both announced that they support the issue.
Momentum
Joe Martin, Wise’s legislative liaison, predicted that the governor’s support would give the measure momentum.
“There is significant interest in the Legislature for passage of a piece of legislation of that type,” Martin said after an afternoon briefing with reporters. “We hope that the governor’s indication of interest in the legislation may be enough to tip that.”
Dave Flannery, a lawyer for the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce, said he was surprised that the governor took up the water-use issue in his speech and legislative agenda.
“I hadn’t appreciated that anyone was interested in that other than the Senate, but I welcome his leadership,” Flannery said.
Flannery said that he had not yet seen the governor’s bill and would have to analyze it before the Chamber would take a position.
In his proposal, Wise included the same statement that Unger wrote into the interim committee bill to claim West Virginia waters as a resource for state citizens.
“The West Virginia Legislature finds that it is the public policy of the state of West Virginia to protect and conserve the water resources for the citizens of the state and to provide for the public welfare,” the governor’s bill says. “The state’s water resources are a vital natural resource of the state that are essential to maintain, preserve and promote quality of life and economic vitality of the state.”
Under Wise’s bill, businesses that withdraw more than 750,000 gallons of water a month would be required to report water usage information to the state Geological and Economic Survey every year for three years. Various state regulatory agencies would assist with the survey.
The geologic survey would be required to report annually to a new Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on Water Management.
After the three-year project is completed, the geologic survey would submit a final report to lawmakers to provide recommendations on future data needs and the need for a state water management plan.
Stephanie Timmermeyer, secretary of the state Department of Environmental Protection, said her agency would now step up its work to promote the water-use bill.
“It’s a governor’s bill now,” Timmermeyer said. “Certainly, this issue has risen to much greater importance now.”
To contact staff writer Ken Ward Jr., use e-mail or call 348-1702.
This news story originally provided by The
Daily Mail
1/15/04
Environmentalists tepid to Wise speech
Groups happy to hear mention, but expected more
Brian Bowling
Daily Mail staff
The middle ground is a tough place to stand when it comes to environmental issues.
In his final State of the State, Gov. Bob Wise returned to the environmental theme he announced at the start of his four-year term.
"One of the guiding principles of this administration is that energy and economic development are not the enemies of the environment," he said Wednesday evening.
But those sides certainly have clashed in the past.
At the start of Wise's term, environmental groups had successfully sued the state over its mining program and, subsequently, had significantly slowed the mine permitting process. Their lawsuits also have forced coal companies to spend more on engineering and environmental studies to obtain permits.
The state also was facing the possibility that the federal government would take over part or all of the mining program after environmental groups demonstrated the state program was underfunded, understaffed and generally not meeting minimum federal requirements.
Now the mine program is secure and issuing permits.
As that fight has faded, so have Wise's comments on the environment. His first State of the State dwelled on the need to end a generations-long problem of pitting the good of the economy against a healthy, protected environment.
By his third year, Wise didn't mention the word "environment" once in his speech. On Wednesday night, the governor put it back on center stage. Wise announced he would fight two industry attempts to weaken environmental regulations while pushing for a water use inventory and greenhouse gas emissions inventory.
Some environmental activists who listened to his speech, however, were less than thrilled.
Norm Steenstra, executive director of West Virginia Citizen Action Group, said he was disappointed by the governor's focus on clean coal technology, golf tournaments and cancer survivors.
"I was led to believe there was going to be some boldness there," he said. "I guess I was foolishly thinking that a person not running again might provide some leadership."
The water use and greenhouse gas inventories are about the weakest step the state could take on those issues other than doing nothing, he said.
"With all of the environmental issues he talked about tonight, I'm sure the coal industry has no heartburn," Steenstra said.
In last year's regular session, the coal industry backed a bill that would have stripped the state's coal mining regulations to the minimum required by federal law. The West Virginia Coal Association and coal company representatives argued that having some laws more stringent than those of surrounding states puts the West Virginia coal industry at a competitive disadvantage.
During his speech Wednesday evening, Wise said, "We must not lower our expectations of the coal industry -- we can mine coal cleanly, without harming our water and land. However, West Virginia's stronger protections should not be lowered to the minimum federal standard. We will set our own standards in West Virginia."
Bill Raney, president of the West Virginia Coal Association, said the governor's comments don't bother him because the industry is focused on ensuring future regulations adhere to federal minimum standards.
"There's probably been conversation about going back, but that's not what we're talking about now," he said.
The coal industry has also pushed for loosening water quality standards with regards to some heavy metals associated with mining operations.
Wise, in his speech, apparently rejected that idea also: "We also must continue to protect the quality of water in our streams and rivers to preserve them for future generations. We must reject any attempt to weaken our water quality laws."
Raney said the industry isn't pushing for weaker standards.
"I'm not certain how you define ‘weaken,' but water standards need to be achievable," he said.
In setting water quality standards, the state needs to consider the background geology. Even agricultural areas have trouble meeting some of the metal standards because digging stirs up the metal found naturally in the ground, he said.
"There are many of them that need to be looked at and updated," Raney said.
Vivian Stockman, of the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, said the governor spent a lot of the speech discussing issues that she thinks are no-brainers, such as the tobacco tax and all-terrain vehicle regulations.
"He did touch on some issues that are tough and stepped on the toes of big business interests," she said.
On the other hand, she doubts the viability of his statement that the state can have coal mining while protecting the environment.
"The only way I see that happening is if there's a ban on mountaintop removal because mountaintop removal is burying streams and destroying wide swaths of forests," she said.
Don Garvin, a lobbyist for the West Virginia Environmental Council, said he was happy the governor at least mentioned three of the issues at the top of the council's list for this legislative session -- water use, water quality and mine regulation.
"I'm optimistic that the governor and the governor's staff will work with the environmental community this year," he said.
Writer Brian Bowling can be reached at 348-4842.
This news story originally provided by The Charleston Gazette
1/16/04
943 permits sold for heavier trucks
Fees raise about $416,000, PSC director estimates
By Ken Ward Jr.
STAFF WRITER
Nearly 1,000 coal trucks have been permitted to carry heavier loads allowed by a new state law, a Public Service Commission official said Thursday.
About three-fourths of the trucks were given permits to haul up to 120,000 pounds, the heaviest load legal under the new law.
Mike Browning, executive director of the state Public Service Commission, announced the numbers Thursday during an appearance at a West Virginia Coal Association meeting in Charleston.
About 700 of the 943 permits granted so far by the PSC were for the heaviest legal loads, Browning told the group. Overall, fees for all of the permits raised about $416,000, Browning said.
“We think we’re getting close to the saturation point in terms of selling permits,” Browning said.
Under the 2003 law, coal haulers can apply for special permits to carry the heavier loads on a select group of roads in 15 coalfield counties.
The law, signed by Gov. Bob Wise, raised the legal limit on those “Coal Resource Transportation System” roads to 120,000 pounds. Previously, larger highways in West Virginia had weight limits of 80,000 pounds, and smaller local roads had limits of 65,000 pounds. Trucking companies regularly ignored those limits, and carried loads of 150,000 pounds or more.
The law also gives the PSC new enforcement tools and increases the penalties for running overweight trucks.
“Most West Virginians were against the implementation of this,” Browning told coal operators. “But I think what we did was constructively lower the
weights on the highways and make the highways safer.”
Transportation Secretary Fred VanKirk told the coal group that his agency’s final list of coal-haul roads covers 2,003 miles of state roads.
VanKirk said 122 bridges on those routes would need to be posted by highways officials because they will not support the loads allowed on the roads.
Heavier loads are already allowed on those roads, VanKirk said, but the bridges have not been posted. Signs will begin to go up within the next month, VanKirk said.
Initially, Transportation Department officials projected that about two-thirds of the more than 600 bridges on the coal-haul road system would not be able to handle the heavier loads. After further study, the agency found that fewer bridges were not up to the job, VanKirk said.
To contact staff writer Ken Ward Jr., use e-mail or call 348-1702
This news story originally provided by The
Daily Mail
1/16/04
Coalition pushing for repeal of prescription drug law
Karin Fischer
Daily Mail Washington bureau
A coalition of consumer, health and labor groups have mobilized to push for the repeal or reworking of the new Medicare prescription drug law.
"We feel that this law is a real betrayal of West Virginia seniors," said Gary Zuckett of the W.Va. Citizen Action group, a member of the Coalition for a Real Medicare Rx Plan.
Congress last year passed a plan to add for the first time a pharmaceutical benefit to Medicare, the health plan for 40 million older and disabled Americans. About 340,000 West Virginians are Medicare beneficiaries.
Critics of the new law say it has overly large gaps in coverage, leaving seniors with growing drug costs without real help. They also criticize provisions that forbid Medicare to negotiate with drug companies for lower prices and that set up private market competition with the government program.
The coalition Thursday screened television ads for reporters created by national partner MoveOn. One ad already running in the Charleston media market features a character meant to represent President Bush "pulling the rug out from under Medicare."
A new ad to be shown in some areas to coincide with next Tuesday's State of the Union address also criticizes Bush's stance on prescription drug legislation. While West Virginia is one of four states to be targeted by the first ad buy, it's unclear whether the new spot will be shown here, Zuckett said.
Zuckett said the commercials are one part of a broader education campaign about the pharmaceutical benefit.
Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, who pushed for the measure in Congress, says she has been working to correct misimpressions some state seniors have about the law.
Capito, R-W.Va., has held six town hall meetings over the last two weeks.
"There's a lot of misinformation out there, and some of them are reading from sheets filled with the misinformation," Capito said of participants in the town hall meetings.
With $400 billion over 10 years to spend on a benefit, she says the measure aims to help the two most vulnerable groups: low-income seniors and those with catastrophic drug costs. Less-wealthy recipients receive substantial discounts on their pharmaceutical bills, while the government picks up the tab for people with high drug costs.
As prescription drug costs continue to explode, it's an important addition to the Medicare program, she said.
Writer Karin Fischer can be reached at 348-4806.
This news story originally provided by The Herald Dispatch
1/18/04
W.Va. campaign finance reform needs comprehensive approach
JANET FOUT and JULIE ARCHER - guest columnists
Small improvements have led to progress in the effort to clean up election financing in West Virginia; however, much more is needed.
Decades could be spent passing incremental reforms seeking to patch a fundamentally flawed system. It’s time for a comprehensive approach to campaign finance reform that will fundamentally improve and preserve our democratic electoral process.
The West Virginia Clean Elections Act is a voluntary system modeled after laws in Maine and Arizona where 63 percent and 37 percent of the state legislators, respectively, are now free from special interest ties.
"Voter-owned" elections in the two states had broad bipartisan support, saw more women and people of color get elected and increased voter participation. Arizona elected the nation’s first governor who owes her successful campaign to the people, not special interests.
To qualify for public financing, candidates must pass a threshold test by collecting a substantial number of small contributions from registered voters in his/her district. Qualified candidates must agree to accept no private contributions and refrain from spending their own money and in exchange, they receive a modest amount of public money to run their campaigns.
Over the past several months Subcommittee B of the Legislature’s Joint Judiciary Committee has been studying the West Virginia Clean Elections Act (now renamed the "Public Campaign Financing Act").
In December, the bill cleared a major hurdle. Both Sub-Committee B and the full Joint Judiciary committee voted the bill out without recommendation.
The bill’s passage, even without recommendation, allows the discussion and debate to continue.
Central to the debate had been whether it is fiscally responsible to use taxpayer dollars to fund candidates’ campaigns.
Unfortunately, under our current funding system, it is increasingly difficult for the average West Virginian to effectively participate in our democracy, either to be elected to public office or to be heard above the special interests that finance campaigns.
Comprehensive campaign finance reform is needed to reduce the influence of special interests in the political process and to enable more qualified candidates to seek elected office.
Undoubtedly, a major hurdle for passing a clean elections law will be finding a stable funding mechanism.
The legislative interim committee studying the Clean Elections Act received a report from a Charleston-based law firm on potential sources of funding for public financing. This analysis identified sources outside of general revenue accounts.
The Reform Institute, a Washington, DC based educational organization working on campaign finance and election reform issues, commissioned the study.
It’s hoped that lawmakers will take a closer look at this analysis as they consider the Clean Elections Act during their regular session.
Janet Fout is coordinator for Citizens for Clean Election, a coalition of 28 organizations supporting clean elections legislation in West Virginia, and co-director of the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition. Julie Archer is research director for West Virginia Citizen Action and the Mountain State Education and Research Foundation.
What's your opinion? Send a letter to the editor
This news story originally provided by The
Daily Mail
1/19/04
Push on to cover the pill
Diverse group seeks insurance coverage of birth control
Josh Hafenbrack
Daily Mail Capitol reporter
An unlikely group of legislators are pulling together to push insurance companies to include birth control pills and similar items in prescription drug plans.
The so-called Prescription Fairness Act is the top priority of women's groups, who say they are going to push a proactive agenda this session.
Planned Parenthood, the abortion-rights group West Virginia Free and West Virginia Citizen Action Group are behind the bill that would require private insurance companies to cover contraceptive prescriptions and services the same way other prescriptions are covered.
It's also garnered the support of a persuasive and diverse group of lawmakers, including Senate Majority Leader Truman Chafin, Senate Minority Leader Vic Sprouse and House Judiciary Chairman Jon Amores.
For groups such as Planned Parenthood, it's an issue of fairness in health coverage. They say women of childbearing age pay nearly 70 percent more in out-of-pocket expenses for health care, largely because many women pay for their own contraceptives.
"We see it as a basic health disparity and unfairness," Planned Parenthood spokeswoman Amy Weintraub said.
The Prescription Fairness Act was introduced during last year's session, but women's groups say it didn't have any of the organizational support it does now.
In recent years, abortion-rights supporters, such as Planned Parenthood, have focused their legislative attention on thwarting the highly controversial informed-consent bill for abortions. The efforts ended unsuccessfully, as the 24-hour waiting period for abortions became law last year.
This session, the key to the contraceptive bill's success could be avoiding the divisive trappings of an abortion debate.
Abortion-rights opponents, for example, could cast the issue as a tacit endorsement of pre-martial sex by the state, instead of pushing the abstinence programs they favor.
"Legislators ought to be trying to promote more in the order of abstinence than birth control," said Kevin McCoy, director of the West Virginia Family Foundation. "The problem is pre-marital sex and promiscuity from our youth. We ought to be promoting policies that discourage kids from having sex outside of marriage."
McCoy added that if the state promoted "good moral values and virtues and to remain abstinent to marriage," the state "wouldn't have this issue -- wondering whether insurance carriers should have to provide birth control pills."
Women's groups are seeking to cast the contraceptive bill through narrow parameters: strictly as a health issue.
Planned Parenthood says 21 states require insurance companies to cover contraceptives like any other prescription.
"We do not see this as related to choice," Weintraub said. "If women have control over their reproductive lives, how many children they have and the spacing, we'll see healthier pregnancies, healthier children, healthier families."
Some key lawmakers have sponsored the contraceptive bill, which could be introduced as early as this week.
Sprouse, R-Kanawha, is an unlikely ally of abortion-rights supporters.
"I'm a pro-life guy," Sprouse said. "To me, it's not a pro-life or pro-choice issue at all. I'm not one to mandate insurance coverage, ever. But there's just a general unfairness when some insurance companies are covering certain prescriptions for men and not for women."
Sprouse said he'll seek to add a provision to the bill that would exempt any organizations, such as Catholic groups, that have a religious objection to birth control pills.
"One of my top priorities, being Catholic, is to ensure that religious organizations aren't forced to cover contraceptives that they don't support," he said.
Amores, D-Kanawha, said pregnancies are "perhaps the most critical health issue women are going to face in their lifetime."
"That's something everyone can agree on, without debate, regardless of whether you're conservative or liberal," he said.
But Amores said another factor might come into consideration: the cost to insurance companies.
"That will shape the debate, the cost of that coverage," he said.
Women's groups say the contraceptive bill actually would reduce the cost to insurance companies, because it would reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies and abortions.
Margaret Chapman of West Virginia Free also notes many women take contraceptive medication not just for reproductive purposes, but also for health reasons.
"Really, this will enable women and families to better plan their families," Chapman said. "It'll provide critical coverage for prescriptions that should be covered anyway."
Writer Josh Hafenbrack can be reached at 348-5185.
This news story originally provided by The
Charleston Gazette
1/19/04
Jennifer Meinig
Birth control prescription coverage fair, makes sense
Contraception is basic health care used by 85 percent of West Virginia women at some point in their lifetimes. Women of childbearing age pay 68 percent more for health care than men in the same age group because of the out-of-pocket costs associated with birth control. Contraceptives have a proven track record of enhancing the health of women, including the prevention of certain cancers, endometriosis and anemia. Additionally, they prevent unintended pregnancies and reduce the need for abortion.
The tide is turning in the battle for women to have their contraceptives covered by their health insurance provider. After years of paying for them out of their own pockets, women around the country have successfully petitioned their companies to include the pill among the prescription drugs covered by their health plans. Recently, CVS Corp. and DaimlerChrysler AG agreed to change their policies.
All types of plans are less likely to cover oral contraceptives than other types of prescription drugs (99 percent). However, as a result of legislative campaigns and growing understanding of insurance fairness among lawmakers, the percent of covered workers for oral contraceptives has grown substantially, at 88 percent this year, up from 71 percent in 2000.
The shift represents one of the more successful grass-roots efforts to change health insurance. In some cases, including CVS and Chrysler, the new policies have followed employee lawsuits claiming that it is sex discrimination not to cover the pill. Other women are waging the battle internally with help from how-to Web sites set up by Planned Parenthood (www.covermypills.com) and the National Women’s Law Center (http://nwlc.org/pill4us). The sites contain everything from talking points to use with a boss, to petitions to circulate around the office.
Companies aren’t required by federal law to provide coverage. The EEOC and a federal district court in Seattle both ruled that insurance plans that fail to pay for contraception but cover a variety of other preventative drugs and devices are discriminating against women. Since 1998, 21 states have passed prescription fairness legislation, but West Virginia is not one of them.
The question of who should foot the bill for contraceptive coverage has been around for some time. In 1993, only one-third of large-group employer plans covered contraception, according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute of New York. There was little movement until 1998, when Viagra hit the U.S. market. Many health plans started covering the male-impotence drug, causing an outcry among women’s groups alleging a double standard.
Covering contraceptives will save money both for insurers who, as of now, may have to pay for either maternity care or abortion, and the families whose physical and financial well-being is possibly interrupted by an unintended pregnancy and lack of access to equitable coverage for contraceptives. The fact that contraception is cost-effective is not surprising in light of the high cost of giving birth. The average charge for an uncomplicated vaginal birth in 1996 was $7,090, and $11,450 for an uncomplicated cesarean delivery. This does not include infant/child health care. Comparatively, the average annual cost of oral contraceptives is $300 to $500. The Washington Business Group on Health took cost-savings into account and found that NOT providing contraceptive coverage would cost employers 15 percent to 17 percent more than providing the contraceptive coverage itself.
Both federal and state governments have taken note of these convincing arguments. In 1998, The United States Congress passed the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan (FEHB) guaranteeing coverage of prescription contraceptive drugs and devices for federal employees. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) reported in January 2001 that “there was no cost increase due to contraceptive coverage” in the FEHB plan. Additionally, West Virginia’s Public Employees Insurance Agency (PEIA) covers contraceptives for those it insures.
Even though covering contraceptives is the cost-efficient and smart thing to do, some companies have held firm in their decisions not to expand their coverage of the pill. A Wal-Mart Stores Inc. customer-service employee filed a sex-discrimination suit against the firm, which offers coverage only in its HMO plans. Employees of Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal, also filed a complaint with the EEOC.
During the upcoming session, the West Virginia State Legislature will be considering the Prescription Fairness/Contraceptive Equity Act. This legislation seeks to establish equitable coverage for contraceptive prescriptions and related medical services by requiring that insurance companies providing coverage for prescription drugs and devices include equal coverage for prescription contraceptive drugs and devices. This is West Virginia’s opportunity to join the other 21 states that already have such laws supporting women’s health on the books.
West Virginians are urged to voice their support of the Prescription Fairness/Contraceptive Equity Act to their elected officials and put an end to inequitable and discriminatory practices in prescription coverage. It is about fairness and basic health, and it is time for this to become law.
Meinig is Planned Parenthood’s lobbyist in West Virginia.
This news story originally provided by The
Daily Mail
1/20/04
House begins blitz
Members act on tort reform, fraud in frenzied session
Josh Hafenbrack
Daily Mail Capitol reporter
Tuesday January 20, 2004; 12:14 PM
In a flurry of activity, the House of Delegates today took action on bills aimed at lowering the cost of prescription drugs and cracking down on insurance fraud partly through tort reform.
On the fifth day of the session, the House unveiled a fistful of legislation as part of an early blitz that's becoming a trademark of the 100-member chamber.
The House also began deliberations on all-terrain vehicle safety regulations and was poised to send a bill lowering the blood-alcohol content limit on drunken driving from 0.10 to 0.08 to Gov. Bob Wise's desk for final approval. The same measure breezed through the Senate last week.
House Speaker Bob Kiss said delegates are "buckling down and getting to work" on some of the most pressing matters facing the Legislature this year.
"We want to tackle these issues at the outset," Kiss, D-Raleigh, said.
The House's avalanche of bills included an unexpected twist: the prescription drug bill.
With Wise as the chief cheerleader, the House bill is an attempt to force drug companies to offer West Virginia the same prices on drugs that they pay the federal government.
"We want fairness," Wise said in a statement today.
Billed as a potentially huge money-saver for state insurance programs, the bill seeks to tap into the federal government's ability to negotiate lower drug prices for prisons, veterans' homes and other low-income programs.
The federal government pays 18 percent less for prescription drugs than the state Public Employees Insurance Agency and 35 percent lower than Medicaid, according to House leadership.
A West Virginia Pharmaceutical Commission would be created, and drug companies would be required to pay the federal government drug rate to a handful of state programs: PEIA, Medicaid, Workers' Compensation and the Children's Health Insurance Program.
It's unclear how much money the changes would save.
On insurance, the House Judiciary Committee took up one of the key pieces of Wise's legislative agenda: creating a fraud investigation unit within the Insurance Commission.
The House, however, also added a tort reform provision to the bill. The House bill would limit the court's ability to impose so-called joint and several liability to only certain defendants, a move coveted by the business community.
The insurance bill also eases the restrictions placed on insurance companies that want to dump customers, called non-renewals. The state's strict guidelines on when insurance companies can abandon customers is seen as a primary reason for West Virginia's high insurance costs.
This news story originally provided by The
Daily Mail
1/22/04
House sets limits for tort reform debate
By Tom Searls
STAFF WRITER
Senate Republicans introduced civil tort reform legislation Wednesday, but House of Delegates leaders indicated they will only consider tort reform as part of an insurance fraud bill set for House passage today.
“As far as [the House] working subsequent tort reform, or insurance reform, this was the bill we intended to work,” said Speaker Bob Kiss, D-Raleigh.
The legislation on the floor (HB4004) would change the way jury damage awards are apportioned in all non-contract lawsuits.
Current law allows multiple defendants in the same lawsuit to be jointly liable for a damage award. The proposed legislation would limit the share a defendant pays to the percentage of blame assigned by the jury, if that percentage is 10 percent or less.
Kiss expects possible other tort reform amendments to be proposed to the bill during floor debate today or Friday. Only one amendment had been filed by Wednesday afternoon, and it does not deal with tort reform.
While the committee tort reform change upset some in the insurance industry, their real objection to the legislation was an amendment eliminating credit-scoring. Insurers base policy rates on a person’s credit history.
Ending credit-scoring would put the state “out of step with the rest of the country” and could make getting policies more difficult, said Insurance Commissioner Jane Cline. The commission is participating in a study concerning credit-scoring and what it does.
The Judiciary Committee made other substantial changes to the legislation Wednesday including increasing the powers of the state Insurance Commission’s consumer advocate to include automobile and homeowners insurance and making drivers report accidents that cause damage of $1,000 or more, higher than the $250 threshold recommended by an interim legislative committee.
Kiss said several groups have expressed displeasure with individual changes.
Cline said the administration would like to have all amendments removed from the proposal, including the joint and several liability provision, leaving only insurance fraud.
The legislation creates a fraud unit in the Insurance Commission, something the speaker said “appears to be pretty unanimous” in support for it in the lower chamber.
Senate Republicans announced they will file legislation limiting punitive damage awards, capping non-economic damage awards, eliminating joint and several liability and forcing attorneys to disclose all fees, provide estimates of expenses in writing and allowing potential clients to decide to pay them by hourly fees or contingency fees.
“While there is absolutely no guarantee this bill will bring down [insurance] rates tomorrow, we’ve got to address the tort reform problem,” said Sen. Vic Sprouse, R-Kanawha.
Sprouse, Senate minority leader, called the House tort reform legislation “a baby step.”
“We need to take a leap,” he said.
“I think the House leadership would prefer to dispose of these issues this week,” Kiss said, adding the House will deal with any Senate-passed legislation.
GOP senators also promised separate legislation ending third-party bad faith lawsuits and making the election of circuit judges non-partisan.
Later, the state Trial Lawyers Association and the Citizens Action group presented almost 5,000 letters opposing tort reform to lawmakers. They contend high insurance rates stem from lower investment income for insurance firms and the competitive insurance market in the late 1990s.
“The reforms the insurance industry wants will destroy consumer protection laws that require these corporations to deal fairly with West Virginians and will essentially take away their constitutional right to a jury trial,” said Charleston lawyer Marvin Masters, Trial Lawyers president.
He said the insurance industry had profits of $21 billion in the first three-quarters of this year.
“So-called tort reform is the insurance industry codeword for taking away citizens’ rights,” said Gary Zuckett with CAG.
In other House floor action Wednesday:
- Today’s House agenda was set as a potentially lively session, with four major pieces of legislation at passage stage with amendments allowed.
Those include proposals to lower the blood-alcohol concentration to be considered legally intoxicated from 0.10 to 0.08 (HB4032), an all-terrain vehicle safety bill (HB4022), two education bills (HB4043) (HB4072) and legislation proposed by Kiss to force drug companies to sell products to West Virginia at the federal government rate (HB4084).
The speaker hopes all pass today.
“We need to move some of these core things out early,” he said.
- Kiss said chances of raising the cigarette tax as Gov. Bob Wise proposed is still “too early to tell.”
- The House honored 6-year-old South Charleston twins Patrick and David O’Leary for turning in the $17 they recently found. When the rightful owner couldn’t be located, the twins got to keep the money. They gave $6 to a sports center, $6 to their church and kept $5 for “Happy Meals.”
To contact staff writer Tom Searls, use e-mail or call 348-5192.
This news story originally provided by The Charleston Gazette
1/23/04
Insurance measure survives committee
By Tom Searls
STAFF WRITER
Trial lawyers got tort reform removed, the insurance industry got to keep credit-scoring and the administration got an insurance fraud unit Thursday in the House of Delegates’ compromise version of insurance fraud legislation.
The bill (HB4004) had left all three groups displeased after changes were made earlier in the week in the House Judiciary Committee. On Thursday, House members sent the legislation back to the committee after negotiations between lawmakers, lawyers, insurance lobbyists and the Wise administration.
“We took a stab at tort reform, the support wasn’t there,” said Judiciary Chairman Jon Amores, D-Kanawha.
As it did before the House Judiciary Committee changed it, the bill creates a fraud unit in the Insurance Commission and establishes criminal penalties for insurance fraud.
“It does seem to be the one thing that can go through the House and pass the Senate,” Amores said.
The bill is scheduled for floor debate and possible passage today.
After discovering House leadership placed a provision changing joint and several liability in the bill, opponents of tort reform added provisions the insurance industry did not want. Changing the rule of joint and several liability would have changed the way jury damage awards are apportioned among multiple defendants in civil lawsuits.
Committee members opposed to the tort reform had rejected an industry provision to help insurers drop customers, expanded the power of the Insurance Commission’s consumer advocate and prohibited insurers from using credit histories, called credit-scoring, to help determine an individual’s insurance rates.
The Wise administration only wanted the insurance fraud unit created. That was about all that was left in the legislation that again passed out of the Judiciary Committee Thursday.
Amores said committee and House members were not convinced of the tort reform effort, which he said the industry wanted. House leaders made an agreement not to use insurance bills in another tort reform effort.
“I think there’s a general agreement we’re not going to use insurance issues to look at tort reform this session,” he said.
Nick Casey, a state Trial Lawyers Association lobbyist, said the bill was inappropriate legislation in which to place such measures. “We like to have the legislation clean,” he said.
“I don’t know if it was much of a bargain anyway,” Amores said of the deal, because members do not seem interested in passing such reforms.
Amores also agreed to have an interim committee study credit-scoring, noting the amendment against it passed strongly.
He believes that in most cases it gives customers lower insurance rates, but looks forward to an interim study. “I’d rather do it in the environment where we could actually look at it with some deliberation,” the chairman said.
Insurers say firms look at how customers use their credit in deciding whether they are potential high risks, not if they have a poor credit rating.
Donald Bender, lobbyist for State Auto Insurance Cos., said credit-scoring has been used to help decide rates for 39 percent of his firm’s auto insurance policies. Eighty-one percent of those received discounts between 15 and 30 percent, while 9 percent got a surcharge.
In related matters Thursday:
- A nearly identical version of the insurance fraud bill (SB 145) cleared its first hurdle in the Senate, advancing from the Banking and Insurance Committee.
- Insurance Commissioner Jane Cline told the committee it will cost $700,000 to fund and staff the new insurance fraud unit, but said the costs can be absorbed through the commission’s revolving fund without new fees or taxes.
- Representatives of three trial lawyers’ associations, along with the West Virginia Citizen Action Group, called for creation of an independent consumer advocate to oversee the state Insurance Commission. The commission currently has a consumer advocate, but the position is appointed by, and answers to, the insurance commissioner.
The trial lawyers’ proposal also calls for insurers to provide full disclosure of all costs and expenses when filing for rate increases.
“Let’s make them tell the entire story behind their request for a rate increase,” Senate Majority Leader Truman Chafin, D-Mingo, said during the afternoon announcement.
Staff writer Phil Kabler contributed to this story. To contact staff writer Tom Searls, use e-mail or call 348-5192.
This news story originally provided by The Charleston Gazette
1/23/04
Lawyers have reform plan
Proposal does not limit amount of punitive damages
Kris Wise
Daily Mail Capitol reporter
After hearing the third different insurance reform proposal to emerge in the Legislature this week -- this time from a group of trial lawyers and Senate Democrats, many who also are trial lawyers -- Senate Minority Leader Vic Sprouse was impressed.
"I'm impressed by all the snazzy Italian suits they're all wearing," said the Kanawha County Republican, who'll work to get some of his own proposals for tort reform through the Legislature this session.
The group of attorneys, along with members of the state's Citizen Action Group, stood on the steps outside the Senate chambers Wednesday to argue against any sort of tort reforms they say would limit consumers' rights to sue and plaintiffs' potential to win money when they've been mistreated.
The proposal they instead offered to lawmakers, one that's backed by major players in the Senate like Majority Leader Truman Chafin and Judiciary Chairman Jeffrey Kessler, focuses on re-development of the state's consumer advocacy division.
The division, which operates under the Insurance Commission, needs more oversight from the governor and the Legislature, the state Trial Lawyers Association says. Advocates' budgets can't be funded through fees from insurance companies, Chafin said, or consumers' concerns about unfair rates never will be heard.
The only insurance reform bill that's making much headway at all right now -- one that creates an insurance fraud unit to investigate false claims -- is expected to pass through the House of Delegates today.
But with the Senate seemingly split along party lines about the need for tort reform, the bill could face another long road and quite a few overhauls if it passes the House, Senate leaders say.
Chafin argued against imposing any sort of tort reforms like Senate Republicans are pushing. They advocate capping punitive damage awards, fielding some of those awards to state victims' rights groups and volunteer fire departments, making judges' elections non-partisan and limiting the potential for third-party bad faith litigation.
"If you pass Republican tort reform, they tell you straight up they aren't for certain going to reduce insurance rates," Chafin said. "If we're going to go with reforms, we should ask insurance companies for mandatory rollbacks and rate decreases. When (insurance companies) come before the Insurance Commissioner asking for a rate increase, let's make them tell the whole story behind those increases."
Chafin, the Trial Lawyers' Association and other tort reform challengers blame premium hikes on insurance companies' losses in the stock market and other factors in the economy, not on frivolous lawsuits reform supporters say drive up costs.
Sen. Larry Rowe, D-Kanawha, also an attorney, notes that rates won't change unless state-provided advocates investigate all the factors that drive up premiums.
He cited the high number of automobile insurance claims he says are directly related to run-ins with deer on the state's roads, and said the average family pays $44 on their premiums to offset those costs.
Sprouse sees potential for compromise between Senate and House reform proposals, but said the trial lawyers' plan benefits them and not many consumers.
"These guys are making a lot of money and they don't want to lose that," Sprouse said. "I think most people probably think the amount of money they're getting from frivolous suits is wrong, and if these are all the tort reforms we see this year, then at least the trial lawyers will be happy."
Writer Kris Wise can be reached at 348-5149.
This news story originally provided by The
Sunday Gazette-Mail
1/25/04
Competing bills would outlaw or expand payday lending
By Scott Finn
Staff writer
Frank Kemplin looked to the ground with embarrassment and shook his head in disbelief when he told the story — how in just three months, his $300 loan ballooned into a $527 debt.
“You feel stupid you got caught in something like this,” said the retired maintenance worker for Kanawha County Schools. “I blame myself for not reading the fine print.”
The Charleston man borrowed the money from a payday lender — a company that makes small, short-term loans.
Taking out a payday loan is quick and easy. All you need is a pay stub and a checking account.
But the interest rates would make a loan shark blush: 400 percent a year or more.
Kemplin didn’t realize how quickly his debt could mushroom.
Schreatha Yancee of Dunbar had a completely different experience with a payday lender. She testified before a legislative interim committee in October in favor of a proposal to expand payday lending in the state.
Yancee, a postal worker and single mother of two, doesn’t have close family members in the area to ask for money. She cut up her credit cards to avoid temptation.
Two winters ago, her furnace died and she needed money fast. She took out a payday loan, bought a new furnace, and paid back the loan at the end of the month, with minimal interest.
“I think they are a good thing,” she said. “They helped me out when I needed them.”
Right now, payday lending exists in a sort of legal limbo in West Virginia.
The state’s usury laws prevent banks from lending out money at the high interest rates of payday lenders. But the law doesn’t apply to banks chartered in other states. A bank in South Dakota, First American, has opened 11 payday-lending stores in West Virginia, including in St. Albans and South Charleston.
This year, the West Virginia Legislature has three options for payday lending: outlaw the practice, expand and regulate it, or do nothing and allow the status quo to continue.
Phil Reale, a lobbyist for the Community Financial Services Association, said his group is drafting new legislation to be introduced as soon as this week.
Contrary to popular belief, the typical payday-lending customer is not desperately poor, he said. The typical West Virginia borrower is a woman between 25 and 40 who makes between $20,000 and $28,000 a year.
Payday lending is cheaper than going to a pawnshop, Reale said. If it is not offered in West Virginia, customers will pour over the borders to borrow money, or borrow money from illegal loansharks.
“This sort of lending will happen, one way or another,” he said. “A new law would provide protections for the consumer.”
The state chapter of AARP, formerly known as the American Association of Retired Persons, and consumer groups want to outlaw the industry altogether. AARP representatives say it preys on people with bad credit who can’t afford to take the loans.
They want a bill that makes it illegal for payday lenders to hold onto a personal check. Without the threat of cashing the check, payday lenders say they’d go out of business, even the out-of-state banks that are already here, said David McMahon, a consumer lawyer.
“The check they take at the time the loan is made is the real evil of payday lending,” he said. “No other lenders do that, and people don’t realize the trap they’re in until it’s too late.
“Because you know you’ll pay them first, payday lenders will lend to consumers whose other debts already take all their income. They don’t even ask what their other debts are.”
Panic sets in
Kemplin’s problems started in May 2002, when he slipped and hurt himself on some steps. He ran up several hundred dollars in medical bills.
His friends told him not to worry about the bills, but he didn’t like them hanging over his head.
He decided to check out a place he had seen in St. Albans, First American Cash Advance. He discovered all he needed was a bank statement to prove he had a steady income, and he could receive a loan.
He signed loan papers with a large box at the top telling him how much money was being borrowed — $300 — and “the amount you will have paid after you have made all payments as scheduled” — $381.
He wrote a check to the company for $381, dated for one month in advance. They held the check, and would cash it unless Kemplin came back and renewed the loan.
The loan officer said he could renew the loan twice. He assumed, incorrectly, that meant he could make payments on the $381 over three months.
Halfway down the page, in tiny print, the contract says it would cost Kemplin more money if he didn’t pay off the whole amount in one month.
A month later, Kemplin returned to First American to make a $100 payment and renew his loan.
That’s fine, the loan officer said, except this time, he had to write a $357 check to renew the loan. Despite the payment, he was almost as far in the hole as ever.
“That’s when the panic set in,” he said.
Kemplin called the state Attorney General’s office to complain. Then he decided to skip his utility payments for a month and pay it off.
“I thought, ‘I got myself into this, I’ll get myself out,’” he said.
By the time he paid off the loan, three months after he received it, he had paid $227 in interest and fees.
Later, he heard a discussion of payday lending on a talk-radio show. He was referred to McMahon, who encouraged him to speak out about the issue. He recently told his story at a United Way-sponsored forum, and plans to talk to legislators.
“I’d like to see ’em pushed out of West Virginia,” Kemplin said. “It was a trap — unless you’re an attorney.”
“I felt it was harassment”
Ginger Moore hated to make the phone calls, several every day, to people’s homes, workplaces and banks.
But she was manager of the First American Cash Advance store in St. Albans. If someone owed money, that’s what she was told to do.
When they first came in, most of the customers needed the money that day. She would sit down with them and explain how it worked.
With a pencil and paper, she wrote down how much it would cost if the customer paid off the loan after one month, two months and three months (this is above what her company and federal law require).
She was trained to encourage her customers to make extensions. She was taught how to encourage customers to borrow the maximum amount, $500, even if they didn’t need it.
She received incentive pay for making more loans. She never checked anyone’s credit record.
Most of her customers soon would be back, asking for extensions. When their time ran out, she started the phone calls.
“We called customers at home, at work, every day,” she said. “We would even call their references.”
She would visit customers at work, and leave letters when they weren’t around.
“Customers would call and say, ‘Please, don’t visit me at work.’ But I’d have to go back,” she said.
Since the company held their checks, she would call their banks twice a day to see if they had money in the account. If so, she immediately would run to the bank and cash the check. If other checks were out, they would bounce.
“I felt it was harassment,” she said.
First American also told her not to enter into a repayment plan with delinquent customers. They would come into her office, often crying on her desk, and ask to pay off the debt a little at a time. She told them no.
The last straw came when a supervisor took points off an audit of her office because she wasn’t trying hard enough to collect.
She asked them if the tactics were in violation of West Virginia’s consumer-protection laws, but never received an answer.
“If you didn’t do what you were supposed to do, whether it was breaking the law or not, points would be taken off.” She said she quit on the spot.
Moore said she isn’t opposed to payday lending — if the state passes strong laws that protect customers, and if those laws are enforced.
Reale said his group is trying to do just that. A bill proposed last year would have put several new protections into law, including:
- A loan could only be renewed once;
- the finance charge could not exceed 18 percent of the loan;
- the customer could only borrow a maximum of $500 at a time.
This year’s bill could include other protections, he said. It could require payday lenders to check someone’s credit rating before making a loan, or allow them to make payments on outstanding debts with a lower interest rate, if they seek credit counseling.
Other payday lenders are waiting for the state to pass laws before they would consider entering the state. They want to know what the rules are, and to have a “level playing field,” Reale said.
West Virginia is one of 15 states without payday-lending laws or regulations. The industry is beginning to focus its attention in the state. Last year, several high-level executives in the industry testified in state legislative hearings.
Last election, payday lenders began making donations to several powerful legislators — more than $8,000, according to an analysis by the People’s Election Reform Coalition.
They have targeted their donations to committee chairmen who have the ability to push a bill they like or stymie a bill they hate — like top donation-getter Sen. Joe Minard, D-Harrison, chairman of the Senate Banking and Insurance Committee.
To contact staff writer Scott Finn, use e-mail or call 357-4323.
This news story originally provided by WV Metro News
1/26/04
Changes Possible in Truck Legislation
Marion County Delegate Mike Caputo is upset with proposed changes to the overweight coal truck bill approved by state lawmakers and signed by the governor last year. Caputo says the Rule-Making Review Committee is recommending the change.
The new law, which Caputo fought, allows coal truck drivers, with special permits, to haul up to 120,000 pounds in 15 southern counties.
The law also requires shipping and receiving records to be reported to the state. That provision covered trucking in all 55 counties.
Delegate Caputo says the Rule-Making Review Committee is recommending a change in the shipping and receiving provision. He says the committee wants the information report in the 15 southern counties, not the other 40 counties. Caputo says the one thing he like about last year's bill was that companies would have to show what they'd been hauling -- whether it was in Marion County or McDowell County. Trucks driving through every county had to be accounted for.
Caputo plans to challenge the committee's decision. The recommendation will first have to go through the House Judiciary Committee and then make it through a floor vote in the House of Delegates.
This news story originally provided by AP and The
Charleston Gazette
1/27/04
Senate panel wants to move on water use issue
By LAWRENCE MESSINA
Associated Press Writer
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) -- The Senate Committee on Natural Resources appears keen on advancing a bill that would establish West Virginia's first water use law.
"Why are we not proceeding immediately with claiming the water?'' Sen. Frank Deem, R-Wood, asked during a Monday meeting. "It would be a win-win situation for West Virginia.''
The committee is considering an amended version of Gov. Bob Wise's bill (SB163) that would lay claim to the waters that flow through, along and below West Virginia. It also would set up a survey to measure the amount of water used each year and allow for a possible statewide management plan.
Wise's bill is drawn from the work of a joint legislative committee that studied the issue during last year's monthly interim meetings but was unable to advance its own bill.
The committee found that Rhode Island is the only other state east of the Mississippi without a water use law. Recurring droughts and sprawl have sparked fights between other states over water, and West Virginia lacks a law to regulate large-scale, out-of-state withdrawals.
Rita Pauley, a legislative lawyer, told Monday's committee that a Washington, D.C., official she contacted as part of the interim study said West Virginia's neighbors are eyeing its supply.
"We were a prime target because we had good, clean, reliable water in abundance,'' Pauley said.
Wise's bill would declare as public policy that the state "protect and conserve the water resources for the citizens of the state and to provide for the public welfare.'' The committee has removed the reference to "citizens'' in that passage and from one that would set "preserving this resource within its sovereign powers for the common good'' as a state goal.
The Department of Environmental Protection would conduct the water inventory by surveying most users who withdraw at least 750,000 gallons in a typical month. The bill would exempt households and farms from the survey, relying instead on estimates available from state agencies.
Wise's bill would survey users for three years. The committee is considering a one-year survey that would look at data from the past five years.
The survey would be completed by the end of 2006. Sen. Karen Facemyer, R-Jackson, suggested a sooner deadline, given the state's apparent vulnerability.
The interim committee had proposed creating a 10-member commission, aided by a 15-member advisory panel, to review the survey results and recommend whether the state needs a management plan. Wise's bill would instead call for a joint legislative oversight committee.
The West Virginia Chamber of Commerce had raised concerns about the interim committee's proposals. On Monday, chamber President Steve Roberts said his group supports the governor's bill and is "generally in favor'' of the Senate committee's proposed changes.
Sen. Mike Ross, D-Randolph, questioned the need for a bill at Monday's meeting. He said it could instigate a legal fight by laying claim to the state's waters.
"We could take a good water bill and make it a lawyer's bill,'' Ross said.
The committee is expected to take up the bill at its meeting next week.
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