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Key lawmaker says state can’t afford lower drunken driving limits

Thursday, April 1, 1999 | 2:07 a.m.

Ways and Means Chairman Morse Arberry, D-North Las Vegas, says the state can't afford to change the law so that motorists would be presumed driving drunk if their blood-alcohol content is 0.08 percent. A similar bill died in his committee in 1997.

Nevada now has a 0.10 limit for classifying someone as driving drunk.

A bill to lower the limit was reviewed Wednesday in the Assembly Judiciary Committee. Even if AB559 is approved there, it would be referred under legislative rules to Arberry's Ways and Means Committee. The panel must review any bill that carries additional costs.

"I'm sorry that the reality is we cannot afford it," Arberry said. "I have lost family members to drugs, gangs and to DUIs. I sympathize.

"As chairman of Ways and Means, I'm supposed to be a watchdog," he said. "People don't want to pay more taxes."

Arberry added that when California lowered its legal limit to 0.08, the state had to build another prison.

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