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A sampling of bills introduced Friday, Feb. 12

MORGANTOWN – Here is a sampling of bills and resolutions introduced Friday, Feb. 12. Local lead sponsors and co-sponsors, if any, are noted.

  • SB 246, a resurrection of campus carry. It would “eliminate the authority of the Higher Education Policy Commission, the Council for Community and Technical College Education and the institutional boards of governors to restrict or regulate the carrying of concealed pistols or revolvers in certain circumstances or areas of an institution of higher education.” It would allow licensed employees staff and students to carry concealed weapons on campus.
  • SB 251, the Living Infants Fairness and Equality Act, “recognizing unborn children as natural persons entitled to all safeguards granted to all living persons in West Virginia under the Bill of Rights under the Constitution of the United States and the West Virginia Constitution.”
  • SB 253 and HB 2308, to create the Business PROMISE+ Scholarship. Sens. Bob Beach, D-Monongalia, Mike Caputo, D-Marion, co-sponsors.
  • SB 258, to tax presription opioids and use the money for the addiction and neonatal addiction care fund, the opioid drug task force fund, the drug courts fund and the opioid education fund. Beach, Caputo, co-sponsors.
  • HB 2019, from the governor, to reorganize and redesignate the Development Office as the Department of Economic Development and the Tourism Office as the Department of Tourism, headed by cabinet-level secretaries.
  • HB 2021, from the governor, the COVID-19 Immunity Act, to provide certain civil immunity from liability claims regarding COVID-19, for injuries or damages for an injury resulting from exposure of an individual to COVID-19.
  • HB 2023, from the governor, another effort to create an Intermediate Court of Appeals.
  • HB 2342, to establish and implement a program to required bonding sufficient to reclaim abandoned wind generation facilities and solar generation facilities.
  • HB 2346, updating the medical cannabis program to allow for use of edible products and to protect from arrest patients from out of state found with medical cannabis.
  • HB 2356, another medical cannabis bill, to allow medical cannabis to be dispensed as dry flower or plant flower and in edible forms, to remove the restriction that medical cannabis not be dispensed in dry leaf or plant form, and to remove the prohibition on smoking medical cannabis.

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