Page 8
Recyclers News Press
Members present: Brent Nugent, Sue Schauls, Eric
Piper, Scott Franks, David Hesmer, Mike Swift, Jodi
Kunde, Tracy Hurst, Mike Davidson and Jeff Smid.
Guests: Les Cravens, Judy Wilson and Jim Piazza
The purpose of this conference call was to gain
some understanding of the NMVTIS enforcement
legislation and decide what the Iowa Automotive
Recyclers Association will do in the upcoming legis-
lative year. Sue asked the guests to introduce
themselves and to facilitate some discussion.
Guest speaker Les Cravens from Auto Data Direct
was an enforcement/compliance officer in Florida
before joining ADD. Les presented information on
other states that have state-level NMVTIS laws. The
issue at hand is whether the Iowa Auto Recyclers
would benefit from having a state NMVTIS law so
that it can be enforced at the state level as well as
at the federal level. This would be an update to IAC
Chapter 321H.
The US Department of Justice is having problems
with the overall enforcement due to lack of funds
and lack of staff. At this time, Georgia is the first
state to write a law for enforcement of NMVTIS at
the state level. Les is working with several other
states to facilitate writing a rule in those states. He
has drafted a bill with this enforcement language for
Iowa as well; Mike will email that again to everyone
to review. As Les said, though, each state will have
its own issues to deal with as far as what this lan-
guage should be so recommended using his draft
as a starting point. Jim Piazza Jr., IAR lobbyist,
commented on Les’ draft and said it was very good
and should be a good place to start. The board
would need to rewrite it using what the board thinks
is most important at this time to push it through.
Les suggested getting input on this draft from other
organizations’ that are battling the same problem of
unlicensed buyers as the recyclers. They may be
able to help push this legislation through when that
time arrives.
Judy Wilson, Executive Director of the Iowa Inde-
pendent Automotive Dealers Association, was also
in on this discussion. She expressed her concern
about the DOJ dedicating funds and staffing to the
enforcement. Les said they had a plan to have
some funding for this purpose but it hasn’t come
about at this time. Once there is some enforce-
ment, there will be a lot more compliance across the
board. A few big fines will go a long way to more
compliance. The bill draft in Georgia included fine
incentives so those funds would come back to the
state level as one way to help pay for the enforce-
ment costs at the state level.
After Les and Judy were off the call, Jim talked
about the upcoming legislative year. The need ex-
ists for IAR to state the legislative priorities and
work toward drafting language to address those
stated priorities. Sue asked Jim to address the
Property Tax relief idea and the continuing educa-
tion for recyclers. There was some discussion on
property tax reform for recyclers, tax relief for recy-
clers, a bonding requirement when obtaining a recy-
cler's license and continuing education required for
recyclers similar to used car dealer licensing. Jim
feels that preparing a tax reform or continuing edu-
cation draft time-consuming. There was some
thought from the board members that there might
not be enough support for the NMVTIS draft.
As Sue stated, a change in NMVTIS enforcement
would require more regulation for the recyclers and
most are already registering their vehicles. She
thought we should do something to address the
problem of the unlicensed and unregulated activity
rather than more regulation for those who do report
already to NMVTIS.
Iowa Automotive Recyclers
Board of Directors Meeting
Teleconference, Wednesday, December 20, 2012