Thursday, Sept. 9, 2004 | 9:44 a.m.
CARSON CITY -- Nevada lawmakers plan to look at another request to require that owners of all-terrain vehicles register them.
The Legislative Committee on Public Lands last week submitted a request that a bill be prepared for the 2005 Legislature to accomplish that goal. Nevada currently does not require ATVs to be registered with the state Department of Motor Vehicles.
Lawmakers say there may be anywhere from 30,000 to 100,000 all-terrain vehicles in the state.
The committee's request was one of 230 that poured in last week to the legislative attorneys who will draft them. The subjects ranged from tax rebates to daylight-saving time to eye-in-the-sky electronic traffic cops.
Lorne Malkiewich, director of the Legislative Counsel Bureau, said Tuesday that Sept. 1 was the deadline for state agencies and local governments to submit their requests. Legislators had to have their first bills in by the deadline.
Senators were limited to 10 requests, and Assembly members had five requests to submit by Sept. 1. Malkiewich said the senators are allotted 10 more requests and Assembly members five more to be submitted by December, and the lawmakers have a handful of requests they can submit during the opening days of the Legislature.
Malkiewich said the deadlines give the legislative attorneys time to draft the bills to have them ready for the opening of the session in February next year.
The total number of bill requests at the end of the week was 630. By the end of the regular session of the 2003 Legislature, there were more than 1,330 bills.
Nevada is the only state in the West that doesn't require registration of ATVs, said Sen. Dean Rhoads, R-Tuscarora, whose committee asked for the registration.
When the bill was introduced in 2003, it "raised a ruckus," said Rhoads, who added that the groups have "gotten their acts together" and part of the registration fee would go to create trails.
Rhoads said residents go to Idaho, Utah and California to purchase an off-road vehicle and avoid Nevada's sales and use tax. He said the rider can save up to $1,000. By forcing registration, the state would be able to identify those who purchase out of state and can collect the use tax.
Gary Clinard, president of the Dunes & Trail ATV Club in Las Vegas, said nobody knows how many off-road vehicle owners there are in Nevada. He estimates there may be 60,000.
Clinard spoke in 2003 against the bill in the Legislature because registration didn't have any benefits for the riders. This time, he has developed a proposal that calls for a registration fee of $25 every two years with part of that money earmarked for developing trails and providing other benefits for the riders.
His plan would be to set up a committee composed of off-road users to decide where the money goes. In California, he said, there is a similar plan but the committee is composed of environmentalists that want to close areas to ATVs.
This legislation, he said, would help the Nevada dealers, rather than watch the customers go out of state. One dealer in St. George, Utah, sold 2,800 ATVs in the past three years to Nevada residents, Clinard said. He said Nevadans can sign a paper in Utah that the vehicles they are purchasing are for "export" and that allows them to escape the Utah tax in addition to avoiding use tax in Nevada.
Part of the proposed bill, Clinard said, would call for the development of traffic laws regarding ATVs. Right now, he said, the laws are not specific regarding the use of ATVs on the street. He said some Nevada Highway Patrol troopers make a person get off the vehicle and push it across a road.
His legislation would allow local governments to set up rules governing where ATVs could be ridden, such as to gas stations or motels.
At present, a Nevada ATV rider who goes to California pays a $20 fee to ride legally in that state. It's $30 for those who go to Utah. Nevada doesn't charge anything. Under the proposed legislation, Clinard said there would be a reciprocal agreement so the Nevadan could ride free in those neighboring states.
Included in the other requests submitted last week is one from Assemblyman Don Gustavson, R-Sun Valley, who wants a tax rebate for residents from the surplus revenue in the state's general fund. Tax collections last fiscal year were about $140 million higher than expected.
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