Del. Keith Hodges

License to hunt, trap, or fish; exemption formember of federally recognized tribe. Exempts any member of afederally recognized Indian tribe who resides in Virginia from therequirement to obtain a license to hunt, trap, or fish. Current lawexempts from the requirement any Indian who resides on a reservationor a member of a Virginia-recognized tribe who resides in the Commonwealth.The bill contains technical amendments.

Group Violence Intervention Board; Divisionof Group Violence Intervention; Project Ceasefire Grant Fund; ProjectExile Grant Fund. Establishes the Group Violence InterventionBoard to coordinate and assist federal, state, and local group violenceintervention efforts. The bill also establishes within the Departmentof Criminal Justice Services (the Department) the Division of Group Violence Intervention (the Division), to be headed by an executivedirector appointed by the Director of the Department. The bill providesthat the Division is responsible for (i) coordinating the effortsof members of state and local law enforcement, community members,and social services providers to combat group violence; (ii) serving as a clearinghouse for research, best practices, and strategies thatmay be utilized in the implementation, execution, and evaluationof group violence interventions; and (iii) implementing and administeringvarious federal, state, and local grant funds that aid group violenceintervention efforts. Finally, the bill creates the Project CeasefireGrant Fund, which provides money to organizations that are involvedin group violence intervention efforts, and creates the Project ExileGrant Fund, which provides money to organizations that assist formergang members or individuals attempting to leave gangs.

Virginia National Guard; state active duty for emergency response; pay and allowances for members. Establishes rates of pay and allowances for members of the Virginia National Guard and Virginia Defense Force.

Mountain ridges; prohibition on construction;local ordinance. Prohibits the construction of any building morethan 50 feet tall at any elevation within 100 feet of the crest ofa vulnerable mountain ridge, as defined in the bill. The bill providesan exception for construction that complies with a county or cityordinance adopted to mitigate the effect of such structures on viewsof the ridge. The bill also authorizes any city or county to optout of the prohibition on construction by referendum if the petitionfor such referendum is made prior to January 1, 2022. The bill directs the Department of Conservation and Recreation to produce maps showing vulnerable mountain ridges in Virginia and authorizes the Departmentto develop a model ridge conservation ordinance.

Commending Andrew James, Jr.

Department of Environmental Quality; administration of Virginia Erosion and Sediment Control Programs. Directs the Department of Environmental Quality to operate a required Virginia Erosion and Sediment Control Program (VESCP) on behalf of any locality that notifies the Department of its intent to opt out of operating a VESCP.

Flood Resiliency Clearing House Program.Directs the Department of Conservation and Recreation to developa Flood Resiliency Clearing House Program for coordinating floodmitigation solutions. The bill requires the Clearing House to solicitflood mitigation solutions from the public; coordinate with otheragencies to review submitted solutions; approve appropriate solutions,favoring those that manage both water quality and flooding and emphasizenature-based solutions; and disseminate approved flood mitigationsolutions.

Resource Protection Areas; improvement plans.Directs the State Water Control Board, in promulgating regulationsthat establish criteria for use by local governments to determinethe ecological and geographic extent of Chesapeake Bay PreservationAreas, to provide that any owner of land in a Resource ProtectionArea may improve such area using native plants and mixtures of organicmaterial. The bill requires that such criteria provide that priorto implementation of such improvement, a landowner obtain a waterquality impact assessment and an improvement plan with a professionalstamp from a qualified landscape architect, engineer, or other relevantprofessional. The bill also directs the Board to approve any improvementproject that has a net positive benefit to water quality.

Health insurance; carrier contracts with pharmacy benefits managers. Prohibits a health insurance carrier from entering into, amending, renewing, or extending a contract with a pharmacy benefits manager unless such contract contains provisions prohibiting the pharmacy benefits manager or his representative from conducting spread pricing with regard to the carrier's health benefit plans. The bill defines "spread pricing" as the model of prescription drug pricing in which the pharmacy benefits manager charges a carrier a contracted price for prescription drugs and the contracted price for the prescription drugs differs from the amount the pharmacy benefits manager directly or indirectly pays the pharmacist or pharmacy for pharmacist services. This bill was incorporated into HB 1290.

Commending Charles Ingram.