Senate meets deadline on passing bills

Jennifer Coleman

Tuesday, April 20, 1999 | 9:12 a.m.

CARSON CITY - In a marathon session Monday, the Nevada Senate met another legislative deadline, passing bills on electric restructuring, telecommunications, insurance fraud and construction defects.

Nevadans' electricity rates would be capped until 2003 under SB438, which would deregulate Nevada's power market. The bill was passed on a 18-2 vote.

Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas, and Sen. Joe Neal, D-North Las Vegas opposed the bill.

The Senate also voted 19-1 for SB440, which would put a cap on residential telephone rates, encourage competition and new technologies and provide new rules for the telecommunications industry.

Titus was the lone vote against SB440. She said both deregulation bills were a step in the wrong direction, and would dismantle "hard-fought and long-held consumer protections."

The state's major telecommunications providers, the Public Utility Commission and the state's consumer advocate for utilities helped develop the bill.

The Senate also approved a bill to protect consumers from deceptive homebuilders. SB32 would give authority to the contractors board to use deceptive trade practices laws against shoddy builders.

The board could also require a higher "disciplinary" bond for contractors with several substantiated complaints against them.

Senators approved SB225, a bill to fight insurance fraud. Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa and the insurance industry teamed up in support of the bill intended to stamp out fraud that bilks insurance companies and Nevada consumers out of thousands of dollars a year.

The bill would give the attorney general's office authority to prosecute insurance fraud cases. Insurance companies would pay a yearly fee to fund the special unit.

Insurance officials say the average family could save more than $130 a year on auto insurance by reducing the amount insurance companies pay out in fraudulent claims.

Also approved was SB477, which lets Washoe County charge an additional 3 percent room tax to pay for promoting tourism. The measure was approved after a last-minute amendment was added to ensure that the city of Sparks would get some of the money.

But a bill that would have allowed the state to sue Blue Cross Blue Shield of Colorado died without a vote in the Senate. Supporters of SB12 said Nevada could be entitled up to $30 million as a result of the insurance provider's shift from nonprofit to for-profit status.

Another bill that failed to pass the Senate by the deadline would have mandated health insurers cover mental illness as they would any other disease.

SB356, by Sen. Randolph Townsend, R-Reno, lost on a 9-9 vote. A dozen votes were needed to send the bill to the Assembly.

Advocates for the mentally ill had told lawmakers that many people with schizophrenia, depression or other brain disorders usually have no insurance coverage, or so little coverage it runs out before their treatment is completed.

Officials from the Division of Mental Hygiene and Mental Retardation provided services to 11,592 people last year - and half of them didn't have insurance.