Amends TCA Title 55, Chapter 4.

ON APRIL 6, 2023, THE SENATE ADOPTED AMENDMENTS #1, #3, #4, AND #5 AND PASSED SENATE BILL 142, AS AMENDED. AMENDMENT #1 makes the following additions and changes to this bill and present law concerning license plates: (1) Extends for one year the time period for the following plates to meet the minimum order requirements: River Life; Respiratory Therapists; Honoring Law Enforcement; I RECYCLE; Niswonger Children's Hospital; and Bays Mountain; (2) Authorizes the following new specialty earmarked license plates: Lupus Foundation; Crusade Against Darkness; Wilder Reign; Sickle Cell Foundation; Stronger Than My Father; Special Olympics; Tennessee Councils of the Boy Scouts of America; Child Development Services of Murfreesboro; A Soldier's Child; Honor the Fallen; Robotics in Education; Elizabethton Cyclones; Wilson County The Place to Be; Historic Jonesborough; Nashville SC; Look Twice Save a Life; Kappa Delta Sorority; University of North Carolina; The Volunteer State; Fighting for the Bullys; Golfer; Promote Peace; 100 Black Men; Remote Area Medical; and First State Flag; (3) Revises some of the section headers in this bill to better describe the types of license plates authorized in each section; (4) Adds a requirement that the emblem indicating branch of service on U.S. military license plates be a permanent mark, not a decal; (5) Requires administrative reissuance of a collegiate plate for King University if the minimum order requirement of 100 plates is met prior to reissuance; (6) Removes requirement that a person prove membership in Ducks Unlimited when applying for that license plate; (7) Requires the department of revenue to design, in consultation with a representative of the University of Tennessee Southern, a University of Tennessee Southern collegiate plate to be administratively issued; and (8) Authorizes the following cultural license plates: Retired Firefighter; Coast Guard Medal; and Coast Guard Commendation Medal. AMENDMENT #3 authorizes issuance of America at Its Best new specialty earmarked license plates. AMENDMENT #4 makes the following changes to this bill: (1) Adds that an owner or lessee of a motor vehicle who is entitled to be issued a registration plate for a private passenger vehicle must receive a registration plate upon initial registration of the vehicle that is designed in a manner to have engraved or embossed on it the national motto language "In God We Trust", which must be located immediately above and parallel to the area for the display of the county. Registration plates for private passenger motor vehicles must be issued containing the national motto language upon the depletion of the existing inventory being utilized by the department of revenue. An owner or lessee may elect in the alternative for the issuance of a registration plate without the national motto language. Prior to issuing a registration plate for a private passenger vehicle, the county clerk must inquire of the owner or lessee which registration plate the owner or lessee would like to be issued. If no preference is indicated, then the owner or lessee must be issued a registration plate with the national motto language by default. An owner or lessee may request and be issued a replacement registration plate if the owner's or lessee's existing plate contains the national motto language and the owner or lessee is requesting a plate without the national motto language; does not contain the national motto language and the owner or lessee is requesting a plate that contains the national motto language; or has been lost, stolen, destroyed, mutilated, or so damaged as to be illegible; and (2) Adds that registration plates in the department's existing inventory on January 1, 2024, that contain the language "www.tnvacation.com" may continue to be issued on or after that date until the existing inventory is depleted. AMENDMENT #5 adds that the Historic Maury new specialty earmarked license plate has until July 1, 2024, to meet the applicable minimum issuance requirements. ON APRIL 13, 2023, THE HOUSE SUBSTITUTED SENATE BILL 142 FOR HOUSE BILL 137, ADOPTED AMENDMENT #5, AND PASSED SENATE BILL 142, AS AMENDED. AMENDMENT #5 incorporates the changes made by Senate Amendments #1, 3, 4 and 5, clarifies that a "Honoring the Fallen" (rather than "Honor the Fallen") new specialty license plate is authorized, and authorizes a Bristol Motor Speedway new specialty license plate.