Bill would require titles for all new off-road vehicles

All new off-road vehicles would need a title, under a pending Nevada legislative proposal that has several trails groups at odds.

SB434 as currently written also would create a $12.50 fee for each title and an Off-Highway Vehicle Advisory Board appointed by the governor.

The Nevada Power Sports Dealers Association and the Pine Nut Mountain Trails Association proposed stripping SB434 down to just the title provision. They told the Senate Finance Committee on Monday that having a title would recover millions of dollars in lost sales taxes and help potential buyers of four-wheelers, motorcycles and snowmobiles get bank loans.

But opponents of the bill and the proposed amendment said the proposal would do nothing without any enforcement, and called the plan an unfunded mandate.

Paula Berkley of the Nevada Responsible Trails Alliance said law enforcement is not currently able to do anything about damage done to the backcountry by off-road vehicles, because there is no identification on the vehicle and no indication of who owns it.

"Certainly a title would be a nice thing to have. What is needed is not only a title, but a license and a tag, so that there is enforcement. That's what the program should be about," Berkley said. Those provisions are not in any version of the bill.

Senate Finance Chairman Bill Raggio, R-Reno, asked, "How is our doing nothing going to help that situation?"

Berkley said lawmakers will "end up with something that isn't functionally doing anything. This is asking for state funds to do a title program that won't be enforced."

Ernest Adler of the Reno Sparks Indian Colony and Carrie Sandstedt of the Nevada Responsible Trails Association also opposed the bill and its amendments on similar grounds.