{"id":24777,"date":"2019-02-05T14:52:49","date_gmt":"2019-02-05T20:52:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=24777"},"modified":"2019-02-05T14:54:02","modified_gmt":"2019-02-05T20:54:02","slug":"specialty-license-plates-considered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=24777","title":{"rendered":"Specialty license plates considered"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Transportation and Telecommunications Committee heard testimony Feb. 5 on several bills proposing changes to regular and specialty license plates.<\/p>\n

\"Sen.
Sen. Dan Hughes<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Under LB128, introduced by Venango Sen. Dan Hughes, wildlife conservation license plates would be available in alphanumeric or personalized versions with designs supportive of Nebraska wildlife, including sandhill cranes, bighorn sheep and cutthroat trout.<\/p>\n

Hughes said that since the creation of mountain lion license plates in 2016, the state Game and Parks Commission has received over $225,000 to fund youth educational programs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is another way for the public, through voluntary choice, to help and provide those expanded educational efforts,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The fee for the alphanumeric plates would be $5, credited to the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission Educational Fund. Personalized plates would cost $40, with $10 credited to the state Department of Motor Vehicles Cash Fund and $30 credited to the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission Educational Fund.<\/p>\n

Timothy McCoy, deputy director of the state Game and Parks Commission, spoke in support of the bill. He said the commission leverages the funds received from specialty license plates to administer extensive youth education programs throughout the state.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe continue to expand this programming and it\u2019s amazing to see the general public\u2019s interest in it,\u201d McCoy said. \u201cIt\u2019s important [for students] to learn about the wildlife in their backyard so that they value these resources.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jim Johnson, representing the Nebraska Wildlife Federation, also supported the bill. The general concept of the bill is good, Johnson said, but he suggested that the fees instead go to the commission\u2019s Wildlife Conservation Fund.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt offers a chance for Nebraska to dedicate funding to the program that\u2019s most concerned with preserving Nebraska\u2019s ecological diversity,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n

No one testified in opposition to LB128.<\/p>\n

Other measures considered by the committee include:
\n\u2022 LB38, introduced by Omaha Sen. Robert Hilkemann, which would provide for one license plate and in-transit decal per vehicle;
\n\u2022 LB138, introduced by Bellevue Sen. Carol Blood, which would provide for additional military honor plates and support our troops plates;
\n\u2022 LB215, introduced by Elkhorn Sen. Lou Ann Linehan, which would provide for prostate cancer awareness plates;
\n\u2022 LB356, introduced by Norfolk Sen. Jim Scheer, which would change fee distribution for certain specialty license plates;
\n\u2022 LB546, introduced by Lincoln Sen. Anna Wishart, which would create spay and neuter awareness license plates and a low-income spay and neuter grant program; and
\n\u2022 LB691, introduced by Omaha Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh, which would provide for ornate box turtle conservation license plates.<\/p>\n

Brainard Sen. Bruce Bostelman introduced three proposals, including:
\n\u2022 LB696, which would change provisions relating to military honor plates;
\n\u2022 LB697, which would eliminate a fee for issuance of military related license plates; and
\n\u2022 LB699, which would change provisions relating to transporter plates.<\/p>\n

The committee took no immediate action on the bills.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Transportation and Telecommunications Committee heard testimony Feb. 5 on several bills proposing changes to regular and specialty license plates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24776,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[22],"tags":[147],"class_list":["post-24777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-transportation-and-telecommunications","tag-sen-dan-hughes"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/LB128Hughes2-5-19a.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24777"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24777\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24780,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24777\/revisions\/24780"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}