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Raleigh, North Carolina
March 16, 2007
As we wrap up the 7th week of the NC legislative session, we are confronted with a total of 1,795 bills that have been introduced by our Senate and House members. Many more are sitting in the hamper ready to reveal themselves in the coming days as the Senate deadline for getting bills to drafting was Tuesday. The House "General" bill filing deadline is April 10. No "general" bill (appropriation and revenue bills have an extended time frame) may be introduced after this deadline. Therefore, during the coming weeks, we will continue to receive a long list of newly filed bills that we will present to you, asking for your input as to whether or not any of the bills are of interest to your company, and whether you want us to amend, pass or kill.
NEW ETHICS LAWS CONTINUE TO VEX THE STATE
The legislature approved a hefty load of ethics and campaign fundraising laws last year as investigations of former House Speaker Jim Black intensified. Following Black's guilty pleas to state and federal charges last month, many legislators and reform groups have called for more changes. However, it is already proving to be a changed environment as everyone works to comply with the new laws that passed last session.
More than 4,000 elected and appointed state officials scrambled to meet the Thursday deadline for turning in the new economic disclosure statements required under last year's ethics reforms. The new forms ask for detailed information on real estate holdings, ownership in individual stocks and other sources for income.
Previously, only about 1,800 people were required to provide details of their personal finances. Perry Newson, executive director of the state Ethics Commission, said the commission could barely keep up with the mail it was receiving. "We've been inundated with papers," Newson said. And people who don't answer the forms truthfully face tougher punishments under the new laws. Failing to disclose information is now a misdemeanor, while lying on the form is a low-grade felony.
Also, for fear of potential conflicts of interest or having to face new ethics disclosure requirements, a number of legislators' family members, including Speaker Hackney's wife, are choosing to drop off of nonprofits boards which receive state support. A number of community college trustees also announced earlier this year that they were resigning.
A special Senate committee that was announced Thursday will consider more changes in election and campaign finance laws. Among the considerations: regulating contributions to politicians' legal defense funds and stripping public pensions from any elected official who is convicted of election or corruption felonies. Sen. Tony Rand, D-Cumberland, and Sen. Dan Clodfelter, D-Mecklenburg, are the committee co-chairmen. Lawmakers took the first step Thursday to repeal a law affecting chiropractic co-payments that was put into a 2005 budget bill after former House Speaker Jim Black had received thousands of dollars in under-the-table cash payments from chiropractors.
This Week in Retail at the NCGA:
1.
Energy Efficiency
2.
Smoking Ban
3.
Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC)
4.
Violent Video Games
5.
Local Shopping Cart Ordinance Update
6. Pharmacy Bill Tracking
7. Retail Bills of Interest Filed this Week
1. ENERGY EFFICIENCY -- Senator Charlie Albertson has introduced Senate Bill 3, Promote Renewable Energy/Energy Efficiency. For the third session in a row (six years), environmentalists have been introducing the same bill into the North Carolina General Assembly which has been always defeated by the utilities. This year the bill would require the utilities to achieve a certain percentage of their power from renewable resources, or Renewable Portfolio Concept (RPC). Link to SB 3: http://www.ncleg.net/Sessions/2007/Bills/Senate/HTML/S3v1.html
Although the utilities have been able to defeat the legislation each session, they have been facing considerable pressure from legislative leaders (this year the environmentalists' favorite legislator was elected Speaker of the House) to work with the environmental community on compromise legislation. The impacted parties met with the legislative energy committee staffers (Steve Rose and George Givens) this morning in a continued effort to come up with a compromise bill.
The utilities would like to see the following two items added to SB 3:
They want to be able to change the way they finance new base load generation. The current process requires them to go to the utilities commission to request a certificate of "need," and then they go back, and the commission establishes a rate of recovery for them.
The utilities want to change the process to allow them to advance the recovery timeframe for cost, and to transfer the risk FROM the stockholder to the CUSTOMER.
Currently, the cost of fuel is NOT built into the utilities base rate, so each year they must make an annual filing. For each of the last two years they had a 14% increase for all customer classes, which as been negotiated down to 6% but stretched out over a longer period so that the utility suffered no net loss.
The utilities would like to amend this bill to (among other things) change the definition of fuel which will allow them to capture more revenue.
The current "working draft" of the bill (which would provide for a "public benefit") would be funded by a tax of 50¢ per $100.00 of energy cost. The manufacturers are trying to negotiate a "cap" but because of our individual store structure, this may not help us as much. Legislative energy committee staffer, George Givens, made the comment in the coalition meeting this morning, "When the utilities and the environmentalists each want something out of SB 3 - it will be easy for them to come to an agreement because they'll be spending someone else's money."
2. SMOKING BAN -- Representative Hugh Holliman (D-Davidson) brought HB 259 - Prohibit Smoking in Public Places before the House Judiciary 1 Committee yesterday but took no vote on the bill. Holliman -- whose sister died of lung cancer and who has fought the disease himself -- sponsored a bill two years ago that would have banned smoking in all restaurants. Holliman's bill would ban smoking in public places and all places of employment. It exempts private residences, retail or wholesale tobacco shops, tobacco manufacturing facilities including their offices, designated smoking rooms in hotels, private clubs, and research facilities conducting experiments on smoking. A watered-down version, requiring restaurants to set aside half their dining space for nonsmokers, was defeated in the full House. As written, the bill would prevent a business owner from providing any enclosed space where employees could smoke protected from the weather. However, employees would be able to go outside to smoke. More debate on the bill is scheduled for the J1 committee next week.
3. WORK OPPORTUNITY TAX CREDIT (WOTC) - Senator David Hoyle (D-Gaston) sent the WOTC bill to bill drafting on Tuesday which would make North Carolina employers eligible for a tax credit of up to $2,000 of wages paid to employees meeting certain criteria and who are employed at least nine months. After business incurred the increase in the minimum wage which passed last session, we have explained to legislators that many of the hires that could create this tax credit for an employer would be hired at or near the minimum wage. Representatives William Wainwright (D-Craven) still plans to file the bill in the House.
An employer could receive the credit for hiring workers who:
1) Receive Temporary Assistance to Needy Families
2) Are a veteran and a member of a family that has received benefits under the Food Stamp Program
3) Are between the ages of 18 and 24 years old when hired and a member of a family that has received benefits under the Food Stamp Program and
4) Received benefits from the Supplemental Security Income
5) Has a felony on their record.
4. VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES -- Your staff has meetings scheduled on Monday and Tuesday of next week to meet with key legislators on Senate Bill 87, introduced by Senator Julia Boseman (D-New Hanover ) would make it a crime for a retailer to sell a "violent" video game to a minor and would require a retailer to construct a separate area of their store to display "violent" video games. Despite its unconstitutionality, we are expecting a push from Senate leadership to get this bill through the Senate chamber just as we experienced last session - leaving us to gear up for a battle in the House.
Nine states have passed similar measures and all nine states have seen these laws struck down as unconstitutional by federal courts. One of those nine states, Illinois , recently paid merchants and video game manufacturers in excess of $500,000 in legal fees. While most Senators generally recognized the constitutional problems with the bill, they also recognize that a vote against the bill would be difficult to explain to constituents.
On top of the constitutional issues with the legislation, no one has yet to explain how a retail clerk is supposed to determine which games are "violent" and which games are not "violent" without playing the game in its entirety and then making a subjective decision. What one retail clerk may deem "violent" in a game another may not find it "violent" at all.
5. LOCAL SHOPPING CART ORDINANCES -- Our association was created primarily to lobby the NC General Assembly. We do not have enough staff to focus on local issues and to travel to every city and town in North Carolina to fight local ordinances. However, we have temporarily entered the local fray on the issue of shopping cart ordinances with the hope that if we are able to put out this fire in Durham and Raleigh that the issue will not spread throughout North Carolina.
RALEIGH: On Tuesday, NCRMA General Counsel Andy Ellen appeared before the Raleigh City Council's Public Safety Committee concerning the City's proposed ordinance that would have imposed a $100 fee to have a shopping cart returned to the retailer. Thankfully, a number of NCRMA retailers stepped up to the plate and sent letters and made calls to the three members on this Committee. In response to the outpouring of letters, the Committee decided to go with a voluntary program and NCRMA will begin what is hoped to be a small number of meetings to develop a voluntary program that will be a win-win for both the City of Raleigh and Raleigh 's retailers. This is a great example of how grassroots really does work.
DURHAM: On Thursday, your NCRMA staff traveled back to Durham yesterday to attend another meeting to try to resolve the proposed shopping cart ordinance. Nine people attended the meeting. Thank you to Harris Teeter, Lowes Foods, and CVS for their involvement in the meeting.
As it stands now, the agreement reached between retailers and the City of Durham calls for a City Code Enforcement Officer to report the location of abandoned carts to Mitch Archer from the Durham IMPACT team. Mitch will call the designated contact person for the appropriate retailer to have them pick up the cart. If the cart is not picked up in two days, the City of Durham will hold the cart for seven days. If the cart is not picked up within seven days or arrangements have not been made for retrieval, the City will deliver the cart back to the retailer at a charge of $25.
Your association staff drafted a proposed Memorandum of Understanding that outlined best practices for retailers and the City to resolve the issue of stolen shopping carts. These best practices are not mandatory, as some may be impractical or apply to some retailers, however we urge you to adopt those measures that suit your store(s) best.
Best practices for retailers include:
Posting signs in shopping cart corrals and parking lot exits warning customers that removal of shopping carts is theft
Routinely patrolling off-site to gather abandoned carts
Moving shopping cart corrals inside the store, if possible
Conducting a quarterly inventory of carts
Making "granny carts" available for sale
Sending employees to bus stops located close to store locations to retrieve abandoned shopping carts
Designating a contact person for the City Solid Waste Code Enforcement Officer to contact for cart retrieval
Best practices for the City of Durham include:
Posting signs (consistent verbiage in English and Spanish) on city buses informing citizens that it is illegal to remove shopping carts from store premises
Use police to inform citizens that removing shopping carts from store premises is illegal
Communicating via water bills, "messages-on-hold," and City website that it is illegal to remove a shopping cart from a store premises
City to issue press release to news media
Durham IMPACT team agrees to educate homeowners with multiple abandoned carts of the illegalities
City to send letter to apartment managers, warning of junk and debris violations
The City Solid Waste Code Enforcement Officer will serve as a contact for retailers having shopping cart problems
Make a City employee or police officer available to retailers to help retrieve abandoned shopping carts when requested by the retailer.
Please understand that when we learn of a local ordinance that a city or county has posted for debate and discussion, we will alert our members by e-mail so that they can send an employee to represent their store, but we cannot, unfortunately, help to kill off these issues, even though we know and appreciate that they could be disastrous to your business.
6. PHARMACY BILL TRACKING -- Below we have listed brief summaries of the pharmacy bills we are currently working on in the North Carolina General Assembly. So far, there has been no sign of DXM or pedigree legislation, but it is still early in the session. The Health and Human Services Appropriations Subcommittee continues to meet at least two to three times a week.
Senate Bill 4/House Bill 745 - Sheriffs Access to Rx - Senator John Snow (D-Cherokee); Representatives Phillip Frye (R-Mitchell), Mitch Gillespie (R-McDowell), Mark Hilton (R-Catawba) and Joe Kiser (R-Lincoln) - This legislation would authorize Sheriffs to inspect prescription profiles and stocks of controlled substances. Currently, that authority only rests with the FBI and SBI. The Cherokee County Sheriff expressed concerns that the closest SBI office is 135 miles away and often will not investigate a controlled substance fraud issue when called. Andy Ellen spoke to the concerns of the pharmacy community in committee that pharmacists are already experiencing a tremendous workload and cannot afford to leave a line of customers to search for prescription records if the Sheriff enters their store requesting such. Andy also explained that the controlled substance monitoring program will be in place on June 1 with a database that will make it much more efficient for the SBI or FBI to investigate cases online. SB 4 has passed out of the Senate and will be read in for a House committee referral next week. We have spoken with Representative Bobby England (D-Rutherford) who chairs the House Health committee who understood the concerns we had with the bill. http://www.ncleg.net/Sessions/2007/Bills/Senate/HTML/S4v2.html
Senate Bill 162 - Prevent Prescription Drug Fraud - Senator Doug Berger (D-Franklin) -This legislation requires prescriptions for controlled substances only to be written on a secure prescription pad. A constituent in Berger's district manufactures these pads. Your staff has worked with Senator Berger extensively, explaining that with e-prescribing and the controlled substance monitoring program start date of June 1st, this effort would be an expensive exercise in futility as we are trying to move away from paper scripts. Berger, to his credit, was open to the explanation and seemed ready to back off, however, after a discussion of another pharmacy bill in committee this week, he seems to have regained confidence that this legislation could work. We will continue our conversations with Senator Berger. http://www.ncleg.net/Sessions/2007/Bills/Senate/HTML/S162v0.html
House Bill 748/Senate Bill 712- Insurers/Cover Rx in Emergencies - Representatives Rick Glazier (D-Cumberland), Marvin Lucas (D-Cumberland) and Becky Carney (D-Mecklenburg); Senator Bill Purcell (D-Scotland) - This bill would require insurers to cover extra prescriptions during a state of emergency or disaster. http://www.ncleg.net/Sessions/2007/Bills/House/HTML/H748v1.html
House Bill 771/Senate Bill 710 - Immunization Changes - Representatives Bobby England (D-Rutherford) and Martha Alexander (D-Mecklenburg); Senator Bill Purcell (D-Scotland) - This bill provides for an assessment of health insurers for the purchase, storage, distribution and quality assurance of certain vaccines and authorizes an administration fee for providers that administer vaccines. http://www.ncleg.net/Sessions/2007/Bills/House/HTML/H771v1.html
7. RETAIL BILLS OF INTEREST ON THE MOVE THIS WEEK
HB 124 - DENR's Embargo Authority for Food or Drink - Referred to Senate Committee on Health Care
HB 265 - Establish High-Risk Pool - Re-referred to House Committee on Finance
HB 446 - LRC Study Contributory Negligence - Referred to the House Committee on Judiciary III and, if favorable, to the House Committee on Rules, Calendar, and Operations of the House
HB 448 - Abolish Health Care Discovery Prohibitions - Referred to the House Committee on Health and, if favorable, to the House Committee on Judiciary III.
HB 461 - Lottery Advertising Compliance Act - Referred to the House Committee on Finance
HB 462 - Modernize Corporate Income Tax Filing - Referred to the House Committee on Finance
HB 487 - Exemption for Baler Twine from Sales Tax - Referred to the House Committee on Agriculture and, if favorable, to the House Committee on Finance
SB 482 - Use of Emergency Doors/Commission of Larceny - Referred to Senate Committee on Judiciary II (Criminal)
SB 563 - One-Cent Local Option Sales Tax - Referred to Senate Committee on Finance
It is our pleasure to work on your behalf. Thank you for allowing us to continue to represent the retail perspective before the North Carolina General Assembly since 1902.
Until next week.
Fran Preston (franp@ncrma.org)
Andy Ellen (andye@ncrma.org)
Elizabeth Dalton (elizabethd@ncrma.org)
Lindsey Kueffner (lindseyk@ncrma.org)
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