With Louisiana 22 days into the 2009 hurricane season and its regular legislative session ticking down with only four days remaining, it’s only natural that the two should collide, which is what happened Sunday evening at the State Capitol. While the Senate granted final passage to legislation that explores teaching hurricane awareness in public schools, the House approved two bills targeting the state’s coastal insurer and storm volunteers. Here’s a breakdown of the action:
—House Concurrent Resolution 53 by Rep. Nita Rusich Hutter, R-Chalmette, requests that the state’s top school board develop and implement an “age-appropriate unit on hurricane awareness” for students in all local public school systems. Hutter wants BESE to include issues related to evacuations, family displacements, death, loss of homes and missing pets. She also calls for a curriculum that would emphasize what kinds of problems and hazards can be expected during and after a major hurricane strikes an area. “This is one way to minimize the effects of these hazards and to alleviate potential trauma,” Hutter wrote in her resolution, which was supported unanimously by the Senate.
—The House, meanwhile, approved Senate Bill 130 by Sen. Troy Hebert, D-Jeanerette, which would change the way homeowner policies are written near the coast by the state’s insurer of last resort. SB 130 forces the Louisiana Citizens Property Insurance Corporation to take a more even-handed approach to assessing premiums. State law presently allows Citizens to sell protection for properties at a rate that is on average 10% higher than the premiums charged by the private companies still writing policies in low-lying parishes. Some local-level officials view the 10% hike as an unfair penalty, but industry representatives argue that it actually encourages private companies to continue issuing protections in Louisiana. But Hebert says some parishes only have one or two private companies willing to write business, and it’s usually at an extremely high rate, which makes Citizens’ 10% surcharge even more unfair. That’s why his legislation would only allow the surcharge to be added to premiums written by companies that are already handling at least 2% of homes in a parish.
—Another measure that has caught the attention of the medical profession is Senate Bill 107 by Sen. Sherri Smith Cheek, R-Keithville, also known as the Uniform Emergency Volunteer Health Practitioners Act. The legislation would allow volunteer physicians, pharmacists, nurses and other emergency medical personnel not licensed in Louisiana to offer assistance during an emergency. More than a dozen other states have already beat Louisiana to the punch in enacting such laws over the past two years, though, including those with high elevations such as Colorado, Kentucky and Tennessee. A set of amendments was attached to Louisiana’s version Sunday night, chiefly to further define exactly who qualifies as a volunteer.
