Marine Resources Commission; Habitat Policy Oversight Committee established; powers and duties. Establishes the Habitat Policy Oversight Committee within the Marine Resources Commission to advise the Commission and the Habitat Management Division of the Commission on policies within their jurisdiction and to support the Commission's coastal resilience efforts. The bill establishes the powers and duties of the Committee, establishes how the members of the Committee are appointed, and provides that the Committee shall have 11 voting members and two ex-officio members. This bill incorporates HB 619.
Department of Housing and Community Development; Eviction Reduction Program; report. Establishes the Eviction Reduction Program within the Department of Housing and Community Development to expand the Department's work to (i) promote housing stability, (ii) identify factors that contribute to eviction filings, and (iii) provide interventions to prevent or divert evictions. The bill requires the Department to report annually to the General Assembly regarding the Program. The bill directs the Department to develop and include in its report criteria and guidelines necessary to administer the Program in consultation with stakeholders, including Eviction Diversion Program grantees as identified by the Department. This bill is identical to SB 628.
Department of Transportation; autonomous truck-mounted attenuators; pilot program authorized. Authorizes the Department of Transportation to establish a pilot program for the implementation and deployment of autonomous truck-mounted attenuators within mobile work zones, defined in the bill. The bill has an expiration date of December 31, 2031. This bill is identical to SB 320.
Health insurance; reporting requirements. Amends various reporting requirements related to health insurance, including by requiring the State Corporation Commission to maintain and publicly post an inventory of mandated benefits and providers, requiring health carriers to report annually on provider terminations and reinstatements, and consolidating reports related to balance billing and arbitration. The bill repeals reporting requirements related to the Comparable Health Care Service Incentive Program and Virginia Health Savings Account Plan.
State Corporation Commission; electric utilities; fuel and purchased power cost risk mitigation practices. Directs the State Corporation Commission, in certain cost recovery proceedings and other annual filings as determined by the Commission, to examine the efficacy and sufficiency of fuel and purchased power cost risk mitigation practices by Dominion Energy and Appalachian Power. Under the bill, the Commission is required to include legislative recommendations related to effectively regulating fuel and purchased power cost risk in an existing report. This bill is identical to SB 505.
Investor-owned electric utilities; fuel factor proceedings; requirements. Requires that in any fuel factor proceeding conducted with the State Corporation Commission under current law, each investor-owned electric utility shall provide specific information regarding coal-fueled or oil-fueled electric generating units and requires the Commission to make determinations about reasonableness and prudence for the purposes of cost recovery based on such specific information.
School board policies; parental notification; safe storage of prescription drugs and firearms in the household. Requires each school board to develop and implement a policy to require the annual notification of the parent of each student enrolled in the school division, to be sent by email and, if applicable, SMS text message, of (i) the importance of securely storing any prescription drug, as defined in relevant law, present in the household and (ii) the parent's legal responsibility to safely store any firearm present in the household. The bill also requires each parental notification to include information on (a) relevant state laws and regulations relating to safe firearm storage and child access to firearms and (b) firearm-related accidents, injuries, and deaths, including current statistics published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or an equivalent nationally recognized entity or organization on youth firearm fatality rates. Finally, the bill requires each school board to make such parental notification available in multiple languages on its website. This bill is identical to HB 201.
Penalties for failure to appear; contempt. Provides that a court shall consider certain mitigating factors to determine whether the failure of any person to appear before any court or judicial officer as required was willful. Under current law, no mitigating factors are specified for a court or judicial officer to consider in determining whether a person willfully failed to appear. This bill is identical to HB 933.
Restaurants; certain facilities or programs; exemptions. Exempts certain facilities that provide custodial care to 12 or fewer adults or children in a home from regulations applicable to restaurants. This bill is identical to HB 840.
Department of Veterans Services; Honor Guard Grant Program established. Requires the Department of Veterans Services to establish the Honor Guard Grant Program for the purpose of providing grants to veteran service organizations, defined in the bill, to offset expenses incurred by the organizations and members of the organizations' honor guards in providing honor guard burial details at the funerals of veterans in the Commonwealth, including expenses for training, transportation, food, equipment, and supplies.
Small renewable energy projects; agrivoltaics definition. Provides a definition of "agrivoltaics" for the purposes of small renewable energy projects. This bill incorporates HB 899 and is identical to SB 340.
Department of Education; policies relating to instructional material that contains sexually explicit content; applicability; construction. Amends current law requiring the Department of Education to develop model policies and each school board to adopt policies consistent with the Department's model policies for ensuring parental notification of any instructional material that includes sexually explicit content by (i) defining "instructional material" as any material, regardless of its format, assigned and provided to a student by a public school teacher directly for the completion of an assignment or curricular objective and clarifying that "instructional material" does not include any book or audiovisual material available in a public school library unless specifically required or assigned by a public school teacher directly for completion of an assignment or curricular objective and (ii) providing that nothing in the applicable law or any model policy or amendments thereto adopted by the Department or any policy or amendments thereto adopted by a school board pursuant to the applicable law shall be (a) construed to permit the censoring of books in any public elementary or secondary school or (b) utilized as a rationale or basis for the removal of books from any public elementary or secondary school. This bill is identical to SB 19.
