12 New Laws Went Into Effect Jan. 1, 2020 In Rhode Island

With the start of the new year, a dozen new laws covering real estate to education went into effect in Rhode Island. Here's a look at what's now the law in the Ocean State.

Real Estate Sales Disclosures

Mandates that residential real estate sellers disclose any modifications made to electrical, heating, plumbing, and ventilation systems. Also requires sellers to disclose the type, repair, alteration, and modifications of any mold, plus any moisture penetration of damages. This applies to sellers of one to four units.

State Building Office

Establishes state building office within the Department of Business Regulation’s Division of Building, Design and Fire professionals. The office consists of the Board of Building commissioner, the Board of Registration for Professional Engineers, the Board of Registration for Professional Land Surveyors, the Board of Examination and Registration of Architects, the Board of Examiners of Landscape Architects and the Contractor’s Registration and Licensing Board.

Insurance Policies

Raises the amount from $1,500 to $3,000 at which an insurance company can decline to renew a private passenger automobile policy or can assess a premium surcharge for a property damage claim payment.

Rhode Island Uniform Commercial Driver’s License Act

Requires commercial license applicants to successfully complete the skills test in the following order: pre-trip inspection, basic vehicle control skills and on-road skills. Applicants who fail one of the skills test cannot continue to the next segment of the test. Scores for the passed segments of the skills test, however, remain valid until expiration of the commercial learner's permit.

Rhode Island Business Transparency and Sustainability Standards

Establishes a voluntary, flexible program allowing businesses to earn a sustainability designation. Under the act, a Rhode Island company may adopt a set of sustainability standards and a set of measures for assessing its effort to adhere to them. The Secretary of State will issue a certificate of adoption of transparency and sustainability standards to those companies that do so, and post standards and annual reports online.

Appropriate Language for Statutes, Regulations and State Job Descriptions

Authorizes the personnel administrator to revise state job descriptions to incorporate the appropriate language. For instance, the term “mentally retarded” will be replaced with “intellectual and developmental disability.” The term “addict” will be replaced with “person with a substance use disorder.” The law also authorizes the Office of Regulatory Reform to update the same language in state regulation and requires the Director of the Office of Law Revision to issue a report by February 1 recommending changes to state statutes to comply with the objective.

Streamlined Regulations for Companies Using Blockchain Financial Applications

Clarifies and streamlines the state’s financial regulatory structure for users of blockchain technology by consolidating two licenses that are currently required for tech companies that assist consumers with financial blockchain transactions. Blockchain is a database technology that can be used to store information in a secure and public or encrypted manner, creating a decentralized database of blocks of data that are shared by all users. Each block is attached to a chain of the blocks that came before it, creating an easily traceable and hard-to-alter history of the data. Although the design’s most high-profile use is to track the virtual currency Bitcoin, it has many applications. Walmart has begun using it to track the supply chain of its produce, and Rhode Island-based CVS and Fidelity have been using it to ensure patient information security and to facilitate the financial transactions of the future. The new law concerns only the functions of blockchain that involve currency or virtual currency, since those are already licensed activities in Rhode Island.

Currently, users of blockchain financial applications are required to have two licenses.
The law consolidates Rhode Island’s current electronic money transmitter license and its sales of checks license, and adds the authority for virtual currency to the new currency transmission license. The new license will allow licensees to conduct all the activities allowed under the two prior licenses, plus virtual currency activities.

Education Accountability Act

Provides for greater school-based management at the school level; expands the duties of principals and school improvement teams; and establishes a new chapter on education accountability that provides for evaluations, assessments, and education review reports on the performance of both school districts and individual schools.

Primary Date Change

A primary election for the nomination of candidates for each political party shall be held in each voting district on the eighth Tuesday preceding biennial elections.

Mercury Lamp Recycling

(passed in 2016)
Requires manufacturers of mercury-containing lamps, other than those lamps used for medical, disinfection, treatment or industrial purposes, to individually or collectively establish and implement a statewide collection program for the recycling of mercury-containing lamps. The programs must include: convenient collection locations throughout the state where lamps from covered entities can be dropped off without cost; handling and recycling equipment and practices in compliance with universal waste rules; and effective education and outreach, including point-of-purchase signs and other retail establishment tools. The collection programs must be approved by the Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation in coordination with the Department of Environmental Management. Manufacturers failing to establish a program may not sell or distribute any mercury-containing lamp in the state. Retailers are also banned from selling lamps from non-compliant manufacturers.

Health Insurance Exchange

To support the exchange, insurers offering qualified health plans and qualified dental plans must remit an assessment to the exchange each month equal to 3.5 percent of the monthly premium charged by the insurer for each policy under the plan where enrollment was through the exchange.

Flame Retardant Chemicals

Bars the manufacture, sale, or distribution by manufacturers, wholesalers or retailers, of residential upholstered bedding or furniture containing one thousand parts per million or greater of any non-polymeric organohalogen flame retardant chemical. This includes any chemical containing bromine or chlorine bonded to carbon that is added to fabric. In addition, deems any of these products as an "unsafe children’s product." Internal electric and electronic components of residential upholstered furniture or bedding or residential furniture or bedding sold for use in commercial or public spaces are not subject to the restrictions in these sections.