Provides for wildlife special prestige license plates (RE SEE FISC NOTE GF EX)

HB 891 amends Louisiana's special prestige license plate statutes to restructure revenue distribution for wildlife-focused plates and creates a new conservation-themed plate. The bill modifies R.S. 47:463.46 and 463.53 governing the Louisiana Quail Forever and Ducks Unlimited special prestige license plates respectively, and enacts new R.S. 47:463.243 establishing the Conserve Louisiana special prestige license plate. For the Quail Forever plate, the bill replaces the existing twenty-six dollar biennial fee charged to motorists with an annual fifty dollar royalty fee collected by the Department of Public Safety and Corrections, along with a three dollar fifty cent handling fee per plate retained by the department for administrative costs. The collected fifty dollar annual royalty is forwarded directly to the Quail Forever organization rather than deposited in the state Conservation Fund, and plate purchasers are automatically classified as Quail Forever members receiving annual membership benefits. Similar changes apply to the Ducks Unlimited plate, replacing the fifty dollar fee structure with an annual fifty dollar royalty forwarded to the Louisiana Ducks Unlimited organization. The bill establishes the new Conserve Louisiana special prestige plate requiring a minimum of one thousand applicants, restricted to passenger cars, pickup trucks, recreational vehicles, and vans, with a fifty dollar annual fee and three dollar fifty cent handling fee, with revenues deposited to the state Conservation Fund after compliance with constitutional requirements.

The practical impact affects Louisiana motorists who currently hold or wish to obtain these wildlife-themed license plates, as they will pay annual fees instead of biennial or one-time charges, with those fees now supporting the respective wildlife organizations directly rather than flowing through state conservation accounts. Motorists purchasing Quail Forever and Ducks Unlimited plates automatically receive membership in those organizations. The Department of Public Safety and Corrections gains a new administrative role in collecting and disbursing royalty fees directly to private organizations and retaining handling fees for administrative costs. The Louisiana Quail Forever and Louisiana Ducks Unlimited organizations receive dedicated revenue streams now estimated at fifty dollars per plate purchaser annually rather than relying on state fund distributions. The Department of Wildlife and Fisheries gains collaboration responsibilities in designing the new Conserve Louisiana plate and oversight of Conservation Fund deposits from that new plate's revenue. The creation of the Conserve Louisiana plate depends upon achieving one thousand applicants, making market demand a threshold requirement for implementation.

The bill operates within the framework of Louisiana's special prestige license plate system established in R.S. 47:463 and the state's Conservation Fund structure governed by R.S. 56:10. It interacts with constitutional requirements regarding motor vehicle registration fees under Article VII, Section 5 of the Louisiana Constitution and the Bond Security and Redemption Fund obligations under Article VII, Section 9(B). The bill eliminates previous statutory designations of waterfowl and quail accounts within the Conservation Fund that had received revenues from the respective prestige plates, fundamentally redirecting those revenue streams from state-controlled conservation purposes to private wildlife organization control. The new approach represents a policy shift from state treasury management and appropriations oversight to direct private organization funding through the motor vehicle licensing system, with the state maintaining only handling fee retention authority and the department's general licensing administrative functions.