Coming up in Committee: Nineteen Sets of Bills Being Heard by the Rhode Island General Assembly, March 11 – March 13

1. On Tuesday, March 11 the House Judiciary Committee will hear a series of bills related to the issue of abortion:

  • H7222: Prohibits state and local governments from interfering with “a woman’s personal decision” about becoming pregnant, having an abortion “prior to fetal viability”, or an abortion in the third trimester of a pregnancy “to protect the life or health of the woman”.
  • H7223: Repeals the requirement of spousal notification of an abortion, currently in RI law.
  • H7303: Requires that an obstetric ultrasound be performed on a pregnant woman before she can give informed consent for an abortion.
  • H7330: Non-binding resolution stating that the House of Representatives “recognizes that the existence of a fetal heartbeat is evidence of the existence of human life”.
  • H7383: Bans abortions for sex-selection, with a provision that “nothing in this chapter shall be construed to proscribe the performance of an abortion because the unborn child has a genetic disorder which is sex-linked”.
  • H7403: Prohibits health insurance purchased from the Rhode Island health benefits exchange with state or Federal funds from covering “induced abortions, except where the life of the mother would be endangered if the fetus were carried to term or where the pregnancy resulted from rape or incest”.
  • H7472: Adds an exception to the Medicaid/RIte Start ban on abortion coverage, allowing coverage in cases of “pregnancies resulting from rape or incest”.
  • H7779: Repeals the prohibition on “health insurance contracts, plans, or policies” offering coverage for abortions except by “optional rider” with a separate premium.
  • H7854: More specifically defines prohibited partial-birth abortion procedures.
  • H7890: Provides funding of abortions through “public assistance” programs administered and/or financed by the RI department of human services.

2. Non-expiring contracts for municipal employees. H7464 says local contracts with police officers and firefighters would not expire “until such time as a successor agreement has been reached between the parties or an interest arbitration award has been rendered”; H7465 says municipal contracts with teachers and other municipal employees would not expire “until such time as a successor agreement has been reached between the parties”. (H Labor; Tue, Mar 11)

3. H7467: Allows retired police officers and firefighters to go to arbitration, to seek enforcement of the contract that was in place at the time they retired. (H Labor; Tue, Mar 11)

4. H7345: Allows cities and towns to issue bonds for an amounts up to 5% of their budgets to obtain loans from the “municipal road and bridge revolving fund administered by the Rhode Island clean water finance agency” without obtaining the approval of their electors, amended to allow this in calendar year 2014 only. (S2399 is the unamended version, which presumably will be amended during the committee hearing).  (S Finance; Tue, Mar 11)

5. On Tuesday, March 11 the Senate Finance Committee will hear the HealthSource RI budget, i.e. the budget for Rhode Island’s state-funded Obamacare exchange (see p. 65 here). Also, on Wednesday, March 12 the House Finance Committee will hold its hearing on the departmental budget of the Executive Office of Health and Human Services, which is the single largest major category in the state budget (about $2 billion, including state and Federal funds).

6. H7067 is an attempt by legislators to prevent expansion of the Blackstone Prep Mayoral Academy, by not allowing schools to be built on the sites of former mines, even if the building site meets every other building code and engineering regulation in the state of Rhode Island, and with no provisions for variances, clean-up or appeals. H7674 extends the authority of the state building commissioner to structures that are “presently and/or previously utilized for any type of mining operations”, for the same dubious reason. (H Health, Education and Welfare; Wed, Mar 12)

7. S2682: Pin-pricking Rhode Island with the needle: Requires manicurists, barbers, hairdressers and cosmetologists working for already-licensed establishments to individually pay an additional $100 fee to provide services outside of their salons. (S Anti-Commerce; Thu, Mar 13)

8. H7461: Depending on your perspective, either authorizes or limits the use of automated license plate reader systems, listing as the only allowed uses situations involving “outstanding parking or traffic violations”, “outstanding warrants”, “missing persons” and/or “electronic toll collection”. (H Judiciary; Wed, Mar 12) Interesting attitude on the part of our elected officials, that people crossing toll-bridges can be thrown into the same category as people who have violated the law!

9. S2290: Requires at least 15% of the work done on public works contracts of a million dollars or more to be done by apprentices. (S Labor; Wed, Mar 12)

10. H7682/H7308 makes an ignition interlock requirement a possible sentence for DUI first-offenses, and mandatory for various second and third offenses. It also applies the first-offense “may”/subsequent offense “shall” language to ignition interlock sentences that result from refusing to submit to a chemical DUI test. H7102 makes an ignition interlock requirement mandatory for a first DUI offense or for refusing to submit to a chemical DUI test. (H Judiciary; Wed, Mar 12)

11. H7695: Raises the minimum wage to $9.25, starting in 2015. (H Labor; Tue, Mar 11)

12. H7632: Limits local inclusionary zoning ordinances to the status of being “a voluntary option for the applicant as part of the proposed development”, and gives municipalities the option of allowing builders to pay “a fee-in-lieu of the construction or provision of affordable housing” instead. (H Municipal Government; Thu, Mar 13)

13A. H7635: Gives state building officials thirty days to respond to applications for permits and amendments. (H Small Business; Thu, Mar 13)

13B. H7520: As part of “the formal rulemaking process”, requires “any proposed regulation that may have an adverse impact on small businesses” by any of the departments in state government to be submitted to the governor’s office and the office of regulatory reform. (H Small Business; Thu, Mar 13)

14. H7443: Removes the prohibition in RI law against for-profit institutions granting “academic, collegiate, professional, or other degrees recognizing learning, scholarship, or achievement”. (H Health, Education and Welfare; Wed, Mar 12)

15. S2350: Exempts a hospital “having more than fifty percent (50%) of its patients residing outside of the state” from the process currently required when “develop[ing] or offer[ing] new health care equipment or new institutional health services in Rhode Island”. (S Health and Human Services; Tue, Mar 11)

16. S2669: “There shall be established within the department of attorney general a public corruption and white collar crime unit”; introduced at the request of the Attorney General. (S Judiciary; Tue, Mar 11)

17. H7633: Allows municipal labor contracts for police officers, firefighters, teachers and other municipal employees to have a term of five years (instead of three) “in the event that a municipality has a locally administered pension plan in “critical status”, and changes are required in order to implement a funding improvement plan”. (RI law already allows five-year contracts in communities where a budget commission or receiver has been installed). (H Municipal Government; Thu, Mar 13)

18A. S2531: Prohibits group health insurers from not contracting with pharmacies who meet their terms, e.g. barring practices like not contracting with pharmacies who do not want to participate in all of an insurer’s networks. (S Health and Human Services; Tue, Mar 11)

18B. S2516: Prohibits optometrist contracts with insurers, hospitals or HMOs from requiring “that an optometrist provide services or materials to its subscribers at a fee set by the insurer or vision plan unless the insurer or vision plan compensates the optometrist for the provision of such services or materials to the patient”. (S Health and Human Services; Thu, Mar 13)

19. H7681 prohibits the use of hand-held cell phones while driving commercial motor vehicles. H7683 extends the ban on cell phone-use by minors (and school bus drivers) into a ban on using “personal wireless devices”. H7498 adds a penalty of placing a cell-phone jammer into the vehicle of a person convicted of texting while driving. (H Judiciary; Wed, Mar 12)

Ranking Indeterminate: H7538: Moves the responsibility for reviewing health-insurance rate changes from the Department of Business Regulation to the Office of the Health Insurance Commissioner, and requires that hearings be held on all individual-plan filings (while non-individual plan filings “may” be subject to a hearing). (H Corporations; Tue, Mar 11)

S2690: A 27-page bill intended to “facilitate and promote installation of grid-connected generation of renewable energy; support and encourage development of distributed renewable energy generation systems; reduce environmental impacts; reduce carbon emissions that contribute to climate change by encouraging the siting of renewable energy projects in the load zone of the electric distribution company; diversify the energy generation sources within the load zone of the electric distribution company; stimulate economic development; improve distribution system resilience and reliability within the load zone of the electric distribution company; and reduce distribution system costs”. (S Environment and Agriculture; Wed, Mar 12)

H7626: Requires the classification of a property as commercial, industrial or residential to be the one “determined by the municipal tax assessor’s office”. (H Municipal Government; Thu, Mar 13)

Inobvious Priorities: S2224 >> Detailed regulations on milk-labeling; S2357 >> Licensing of music therapists; S2732 >> Excludes “the property of any agency or public body” from the Rhode Island Museum Property Act; H7254 >> Requires that calorie-counts be posted on restaurant menus.

Local Impact: Johnston, Providence 2, Woonsocket, i.e. Landmark Hospital, at least initially.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in The Ocean State Current, including text, graphics, images, and information are solely those of the authors. They do not purport to reflect the views and opinions of The Current, the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity, or its members or staff. The Current cannot be held responsible for information posted or provided by third-party sources. Readers are encouraged to fact check any information on this web site with other sources.

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