Commerce policy bill advances in House

An omnibus commerce policy bill that includes provisions for financial institutions and insurance, as well as dozens of other proposals, is headed to the House Floor.

The House Commerce Finance and Policy Committee quickly approved HF2403, as amended, Thursday.

Committee Co-chairs Rep. Tim O'Driscoll (R-Sartell) and Rep. Kaohly Vang Her (DFL-St. Paul) said bills were included they knew had support and applauded the committee for its work that will benefit Minnesotans.

The committee previously heard testimony on the included bills, some of which are also moving through the House as independent bills to give the House more flexibility as it heads into conference committees.

As the only testifier on the bill Wednesday, Sam Smith, government relations director at the Department of Commerce, expressed support because the bill contains many department priorities.

The omnibus commerce policy bill includes provisions that would:

• create the Uniform Special Deposits Act to provide banks and customers with a framework on handling special deposits;
• add provisions for the Minnesota Insurance Guarantee Association to request financial information from the insured to establish net worth under certain circumstances;
• require an insurer to provide the insured with a copy of an auto or homeowner’s policy when requested;
• allow a safe deposit lease to renew automatically and allow a consumer to terminate a lease at any time; and
• allow auto dealers to participate in auto shows.

The delete-all amendment was amended five times Thursday. Two amendments were technical changes to the bill.

One amendment was the same as HF1224 about postponing foreclosures, which the committee also approved and sent to the House Floor on Thursday.

Two amendments included compromise language between two parties after the committee previously heard the original bill. One of those amendments would require places of entertainment to provide access to potable water at ticketed events with at least 100 attendees.

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The following are selected bills that have been incorporated in part or in whole into the omnibus commerce policy bill:

• HF247 (Koznick)
• HF320 (Perryman)
• HF695 (Finke)
• HF747 (Niska)
• HF1014 (Reyer)
• HF1224 (Freiberg)
• HF1330 (Van Binsbergen)
• HF1546 (O’Driscoll)
• HF1865 (Allen)
• HF2014 (Dotseth)
• HF2233 (Niska)
• HF2335 (Elkins)
• HF2389 (Finke)
• HF2398 (Her)
• HF2401 (Huot)
• HF2403 (O’Driscoll)
• HF2543 (Reyer)
• HF2601 (Huot)
• HF2607 (Huot)