Newsroom & Archives

HB 209 Public Records Act; electronic records.  Updates the Public Records Act to include provisions relating to the management and archiving of electronic records. The bill creates new definitions for electronic records, lifecycle, metadata, conversion, and migration, and amends the powers and duties of the Library Board to be medium-neutral and to allow the Library to issue regulations and guidelines related to the lifecycle of records, generally. The bill requires the custodians of records to convert and migrate electronic data as necessary to maintain access to these records. Finally, the bill allows the Library to conduct audits of the record keeping practices of agencies subject to the act, and to file the audit reports with the Governor and the General Assembly. The bill also includes numerous technical amendments.  This bill is a recommendation of the HJR 6 study (2004).

Patron: Cox

HB 231 Day care facilities, assisted living facilities, child welfare agencies; emergency preparedness training. Adds section requiring all operators of assisted living facilities, adult day care centers, and child welfare agencies to complete an emergency preparedness training program as a condition of licensure. The program shall include the essential procedures, operations, and assignments required to prevent, manage, and respond to a critical event or emergency, including natural disasters involving fire, flood, tornadoes, or other severe weather; loss or disruption of power, water, communications, or shelter; medical emergencies; explosions; bomb threats; gun, knife, or other weapons threats; spills or exposures to hazardous substances; the presence of unauthorized persons or trespassers; the loss, disappearance, or kidnapping of a resident; hostage situations; violence on the facility property; incidents involving acts of terrorism; and other incidents posing a serious threat of harm to residents, personnel, or facilities.

Patron: Jones

Status: Tabled

HB 465 Emergency response; notification of location of certain facilities. Requires the Commissioners of Health, Mental Health, Mental Retardation and Substance Abuse Services, and Social Services to notify the Virginia Department of Emergency Management (VDEM) of the location and capacity of all nursing homes, hospice facilities, group homes, assisted living facilities, and adult day care facilities licensed in the Commonwealth. VDEM is then responsible for forwarding this information to designated local emergency planning contacts and the Virginia Geographic Information Network Office, in order to assist in the planning and implementation of emergency response.

Patron: Ingram

Status: Tabled

HB 596 Dam and flood assistance fund.  Reconstitutes the current Flood Prevention and Protection Assistance Fund into the new Dam Safety, Flood Prevention and Protection Assistance Fund. The new fund will be used to make loans and grants to local governments and loans to private entities to finance the cost of implementing projects to prevent, reduce, or mitigate damages caused by flooding, to upgrade dams or impounding structures, and to fund flood prevention studies.  The Virginia Resources Authority would administer and manage the fund, determining the interest rate and terms and conditions of any loan from the Fund in accordance with a memorandum of understanding with the Director of the Department of Conservation and Recreation.  The language establishing the Fund is modeled after language creating the Virginia Resources Authority, the Virginia Water Facilities Revolving Fund, and the Virginia Water Supply Revolving Fund. This bill is identical to SB 624.

Patron: Sherwood

HB 1004 Office of Commonwealth Preparedness. Makes permanent the Office of Commonwealth Preparedness and provides for the appointment of a director by the Governor to serve a four-year term. The bill sets out the duties of the Office and also creates the Secure Commonwealth Panel and sets out its membership and duties. The bill contains technical amendments.

Patrons: Sherwood

HB 1024 Emergency services and disasters; constitutional rights. Provides that nothing in Chapter 3.2 of Title 44 relating to emergency services and disaster laws should be interpreted as allowing the Governor or any other governmental authority to limit the right to keep and bear arms pursuant to the Constitutions of Virginia and of the United States.

Patron: Hurt

Status: Combined with another bill (HB1265)

HB 639 Local emergency directors and coordinators; emergency response training. Requires local emergency directors and coordinators to be certified in emergency management, pursuant to guidelines and standards promulgated by the Department of Emergency Management.

Patron: Phillips

Status: Tabled

HB 1170 Local emergency management; emergency coordinators. Requires each locality to maintain an agency of emergency management and to appoint a coordinator of emergency management. Currently, the authority to establish such an agency and appoint a coordinator is discretionary.

Patron: Rapp

HB 1180 Powers of Governor during emergency; public safety employee hardship. Allows the Governor, in his discretion, to provide up to $2,500 per month for up to three months to a public safety employee responding to a natural or manmade disaster who has suffered an extreme personal or family hardship in the affected area.  This bill incorporates House Bill 1402.

Patron: Carrico, Sr.

HB 1239 Secretary of Administration; disaster planning; identification of personnel.  Imposes the duty on the Secretary of Administration to require each agency head to establish a process to identify every employee and on-site contractor present in buildings or facilities owned or leased by the Commonwealth. Identification of individuals shall be determined by a combination of technologies such that presence verification can be determined immediately upon the event that any facility, or portion of a facility, becomes unavailable for use because of a natural disaster or terrorist attack. The head of each agency is required to report annually to the Secretary on the status of any programs or policies developed and implemented. The bill further provides that any agency head failing to comply shall forfeit 1% of the moneys appropriated for the operation of the agency as provided in the appropriation act. Such moneys shall be taken by the Comptroller and deposited into the Literary Fund.

Patron: Hugo

HB 1265 Emergency services and disasters; constitutional rights. Provides that nothing in Chapter 3.2 of Title 44 relating to emergency services and disaster laws should be interpreted as allowing the Governor or any other governmental authority to limit the right to keep and bear arms pursuant to the Constitutions of Virginia and of the United States. These rights include the lawful possession, sale, and transfer of firearms. These rights are not extended to places designated as emergency shelters. This bill incorporates House Bill 1024.

Patron: Janis

HB 1348 Virginia Search and Rescue Training and Response Program. Creates the Virginia Search and Rescue Training and Response Program within the Department of Emergency Management to coordinate search and rescue training and response in the Commonwealth.

Patron: Bell

Status: Continued to 2007

HB 1402 Powers of Governor during emergency; public safety employee hardship. Allows the Governor, in his discretion, to provide up to $2,500 per month for up to three months to a public safety employee responding to a natural or manmade disaster who has suffered an extreme personal or family hardship in the affected area.

Patron: Sickles

Status: Combined with another bill (HB1180)

HB 1585 Emergency.  Coverage of first responders in off-duty capacity.

Patron: Sickles

Status: Removed from docket

SB 77 Virginia Post-Disaster Anti-Price Gouging Act. Provides that the duration of a "time of disaster," which currently is the shorter of the period of a declared state of emergency or the 30 days following the natural disaster or other occurrence that resulted in the Governor's or President's declaration of the state of emergency, may be extended to include the 30 days that follow an extension or renewal of the state of emergency. It is unlawful for a supplier, during the time of disaster, to sell necessary goods and services at an unconscionable price within the area for which a state of emergency has been declared.

Patron: Watkins

SB 135 Civil procedure; persons exempt from liability. Exempts from liability first responders who, in good faith and without compensation, render emergency care or assistance, whether or not in the locality of his employment as a first responder, to any injured or ill person, at the scene of an accident, fire, or life threatening emergency, or en route therefrom to any hospital, medical clinic or doctor's office.

Patron: O'Brien

Status: Removed from docket

HJ 129 Study; Emergency preparedness plans for residents of special needs facilities; report. Requests the Department of Health to study the adequacy of emergency preparedness plans for the residents of special needs facilities that serve Virginia's senior citizens. The Department of Health shall report its findings by the first day of the 2007 session.

Patron: O'Bannon, III

HJ 211 Resolution; Office of Commonwealth Preparedness and the Virginia Department of Emergency Management. Encourages the Office of Commonwealth Preparedness and the Virginia Department of Emergency Management to further educate the citizens of the Commonwealth on effective disaster preparedness for natural and manmade disasters.

Patron: Waddell

HB 1094 Virginia Post-Disaster Anti-Price Gouging Act.  Authorizes the Governor, upon finding that during a disaster a supplier is selling necessary goods or services at such an unconscionable price that it presents an imminent and substantial danger to the public welfare by creating public panic, to issue 30-day emergency orders requiring the supplier to reduce the price to the prevailing price in the local market.

Patron: Amundson