Assemblyman Oscarson submits nine bills to 2017 Nevada Legislature

Assemblyman James Oscarson submitted nine wide-ranging bill draft requests to the Nevada Assembly 2017, which started Monday.

The Republican representative for District 36 named water, gun rights and education as some of the top issues facing lawmakers.

“I think water certainly is going to be an issue, we need to make sure we hold onto our Second Amendment rights,” the Pahrump resident said. “We have some significant voter registration issues we need to pay attention to and how the registration process goes.”

He also said that the Education Savings Account is at the top of his list.

One of Oscarson’s bills proposes to revise provisions governing the forfeiture and abandonment of water rights across the state.

“It’s a bill that addresses the ‘use-it-or-lose-it’ doctrine that’s currently in statute,” Oscarson said. “My feeling is that when you are in an overappropriated or overallocated basin, or there’s times of drought, people should not be required to prove their water rights.”

As it currently stands, domestic well owners don’t have to prove their water rights, and Oscarson said the law wouldn’t affect them.

“But who it does affect is those who have more than 2 acre-feet of domestic water rights,” he said. “It affects them because what happens many times is people will just irrigate to irrigate and water to water, or pump water just to make sure that they are proving their rights. I think that’s inappropriate, I don’t think we need to be wasting water when in fact, we are trying to conserve and save.”

“It’s the only (water bill) that I have so far, there’s some others coming up that I’m going to sign onto, but I want to make it clear, my goal in this session is to protect the water rights of domestic well owners,” Oscarson said.

Nye County in August submitted its lone bill draft request to the Nevada Legislature seeking to repeal the Nye County Water District. Oscarson said he was not familiar with the bill.

“I have not seen the language of that bill. Sen. (Pete) Goicoechea brought that for the county itself. I’m anxious to see that bill and see what the language is, but I have not seen the language yet.”

Another bill submitted by Oscarson means to put stricter restrictions on campaign practices.

“What it is going to do, it’s going to tighten up the regulations where you can’t use the state’s seal in campaign literature and those kinds of things,” he said. “It just brings it more in line with the federal guidelines.”

Another bill provides for a periodic review of Medicaid reimbursement rates.

“What that’s doing is just requiring the Division of Healthcare Finance and Policy every four years to review rates of Medicaid, what rates would be reimbursed, and adjust them accordingly,” Oscarson said.

Oscarson said he pulled the bill that revises provisions relating to financial support for the Breakfast After the Bell Program that requires all schools with 70 percent or higher eligibility implement an option for students to receive breakfast after the start of the school day. The measure was introduced by Gov. Brian Sandoval in 2015.

However, it said it is his goal to make sure all of the other bills go through.

“I didn’t know that there was going to be money in the governor’s budget for those specific needs,” Oscarson said about the Breakfast After the Bell Program. “That bill draft request won’t go any further but the rest of them certainly will come out and hopefully will be able to get hearings and be heard and be vetted out, and my intention is to have every one of them signed into law.”

Contact reporter Daria Sokolova at dsokolova@pvtimes.com. On Twitter: @dariasokolova77