2009 OHV Legislative Update

[Grumpy]

2009 WASHINGTON STATE OHV LEGISLATION SUMMARY

No off highway vehicle related legislation was passed, good or bad, except HB1244, the operating budget bill. Here is a brief summary of how things turned out:

Senate Bill SB5069 would have increased public and private landowner liability protection. The original version of this bill provided some good protection for private land owners that allow ORV use that was removed in the substitute version. It lost our support and did not pass.

Senate Bill SB5128 was concerning damage caused by offroad vehicles. This bill would have sent someone to jail for damaging any vegetable with an offroad vehicle. In addition to that, your ORV could have been seized and forfeited based on probable cause of vegetative damage. We asked why wouldn’t doing the same harm with an automobile, horse hoof or shoe be just as heinous a crime and be punished equally severely? It was strongly opposed by WOHVA and failed to even get out of committee.

Senate Bill SB5129 would have required you to attach a 4 x 7 inch license plate on your offroad vehicle. The claimed intent is to make it easier to identify criminal ORV operators. This wasn’t a reasonable or safe idea for offroad motorcycles and wouldn’t deter crime because criminals don’t usually register their ORV’s anyway. It was opposed by WOHVA and failed to get voted out of committee.

Senate Bill SB5586 would have required ORV training. While we support ORV training, we don’t believe that the way this bill mandates it was the way to go. It was opposed by WOHVA and failed to get voted out of committee.

Senate Bill SB5761 would have implemented an annual DNR user pass. We opposed this bill unless ORV tab holders were exempt and tighter constraints are put on how the DNR could spent the money. During the hearing it was explained that the pass would be per street vehicle and not per ORV. This would be acceptable, but at the time was not clarified within language of the bill.

House Bill HB2101 would have changed the NOVA portion of the fuel tax allocation to be based on one percent of 37.5 cents a gallon instead of the existing 23 cent limit. This bill is something that WOHVA has been working on for the last few years and it was sponsored by Representatives Condotta, McCune, Kristiansen, Hope, Roach, Warnick and Pearson It was assigned to the House Transportation Committee. Unfortunately similar bills have come before this committee in the past and committee chairman Representative Judy Clibborn has always blocked them from consideration. She chose to block this one and it was not even allowed a committee hearing or vote.

House Bills HB1497, HB2151 and Senate Bill SB5994 would have eliminated the Nonhighway and Offroad Vehicle Activities advisory committee. Without the NOVA committee, OHV users would have had no say on how our funds were spent. WOHVA strongly opposed all these bills and they all failed.

House Bill HB1244 was the operating budget legislation and within that huge bill the legislature included language that gave all of your NOVA funds money to State Parks!

THIS IS AN OUTRIGHT STEALING OF YOUR MONEY! Go to www.wohva.org and see how you can help get your money back where it belongs.

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[TJDave]

It was all sounding not too bad, until I got to the last 4 paragraphs.