SECTION 1. The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:
(a) There are more than 30 million vehicles registered in the
State of California. Maintenance by the Department of Motor Vehicles
of accurate registration records for those vehicles is of vital
importance to registered owners, legal owners that hold liens on
vehicles, law enforcement agencies that police vehicles, tax
collection agencies that collect taxes and fees assessed on vehicles,
and pollution control agencies that regulate emissions produced by
vehicles.
(b) As authorized by the Legislature in 2001, the department
administers the Business Partner Automation Program, pursuant to
Section 1685 of the Vehicle Code, to improve the quality of
registration products and services by licensing qualified private
industry partners to provide secure electronic portals to licensed
dealers and registration services so that they may perform required
registration tasks electronically.
(c) Electronic vehicle registration under the Business Partner
Automation Program results in multiple benefits. The department
benefits through increased accuracy of records that are recorded and
transmitted electronically and also benefits through processing
efficiencies that reduce wait times in field offices for
nonelectronic transactions. Electronic registration also aids law
enforcement, other government agencies, and consumers by accelerating
the issuance of permanent license plates from a period of weeks or
months to days.
(d) It is the intent of the Legislature in enacting this act to
further increase the registration benefits and efficiencies of the
department’s Business Partner Automation Program by requiring all
eligible vehicles sold or leased by a new motor vehicle dealer to be
registered electronically. It is also the intent of the Legislature
that the department continues to improve and expand the quality and
efficiency of the Business Partner Automation Program to permit
existing department personnel to increase customer service in other
areas without a workforce reduction.
SEC. 2. The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:
(a) The electronic National Motor Vehicle Title Information System
(NMVTIS) is a national federally mandated vehicle history database
maintained by the United States Department of Justice to ensure that
states, law enforcement agencies, and consumers have access to
vehicle titling, branding, and other information that enable them to
verify the accuracy and legality of motor vehicle titles before
transfer or registration of the vehicle occurs.
(b) According to a cost-benefit analysis commissioned by the
United States Department of Justice, full implementation of NMVTIS
will save the American public between $4.3 billion and $11.7 billion
by helping to curb automobile-related salvage fraud, theft, and
related crimes.
(c) All automobile insurers, self-insured entities, salvage pools,
automobile auctions, and recyclers, are required to report vehicles
that are deemed a total loss to NMVTIS and update the data at least
every 30 days.
(d) According to NMVTIS, 87 percent of departments of motor
vehicle titling data from the entire United States, including all of
the California Department of Motor Vehicles titling data, is
currently represented in NMVTIS and the database is expanding daily.
(e) Federal law provides that NMVTIS must be supported through
user fees from government and private users and may not be dependent
on federal funding. The NMVTIS operator is authorized to assess and
collect user fees not to exceed the cost of operating the system, not
permitting any profits to be made by the operator. Federal funding
and investments by the NMVTIS operator account for over $40 million
in support of operations since 1997. Fees to state government users
are not projected to be adequate to provide sufficient revenue to
defray all anticipated operating costs. It is crucial to the success
of NMVTIS that new applications be developed to generate sufficient
nonstate government user fees so that NMVTIS may continue its
operations.
(f) It is the intent of the Legislature in enacting Section 17 of
this act to ensure that every motor vehicle dealer licensed in this
state obtain a NMVTIS vehicle history report for every used vehicle
that will be offered for retail sale and that any used vehicle that
has been titled or reported as salvage or junk as indicated by the
NMVTIS vehicle history report be identified as such. By becoming the
first and largest state in the country to require the use of NMVTIS
vehicle history reports by dealers in retail used vehicle
transactions, this act will not only benefit the California consumer,
it will also strengthen and financially support NMVTIS.