Legislature(1993 - 1994)
05/08/1994 01:00 PM House CRA
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* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
CHAIRMAN OLBERG described three amendments to CSSB 217 found in the committee members packets. (A copy of these amendments may be found in the Legislative Reference Library.) He then brought forth the amendment from Representative Gail Phillips and said, "It basically says that...if the university does not use the land, put it into active management, within ten years the commissioner of the Department of Natural Resources has the authority to retrieve the land." REPRESENTATIVE BUNDE moved to adopt the amendment proposed by Representative Phillips. REPRESENTATIVE DAVIES objected. Number 062 WENDY REDMAN, VICE PRESIDENT FOR UNIVERSITY RELATIONS, UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA, testified saying, "Frankly, as I've discussed with Representative Phillips, we didn't think the amendment was necessary but we did work with her in drafting it and she was amenable to making some amendments to it. So the way the amendment is written is acceptable. I would say, however, that I think that our concerns with it have been that it takes a long time sometimes to get land into active management. It took us seven years so far to get our White River timber on line and we're not quite on line yet. So the second concern which Representative Phillips doesn't really know how to address...is if we end up in litigation, which we have, particularly on timber, that litigation can extend our ability to get it into active management indefinitely. She didn't really see any way to figure out how we can get this into this amendment. We're just hopeful that that won't occur on the new land and, hopefully, the ten years will in fact be enough time for us to try to overcome that." Number 086 REPRESENTATIVE JOHN DAVIES moved to amend the amendment. He said, "For any parcel of land that does get encumbered with litigation, that for the period of litigation, the ten year period is held." CHAIRMAN OLBERG said, "The clock stops. I recollect quite recently Representative Brice having an amendment to that effect on mineral entry. That strikes me as a pretty good idea." REPRESENTATIVE CYNTHIA TOOHEY asked, "What is going to be the sum and total of acreage in this?" MS. REDMAN replied, "500,000 acres." REPRESENTATIVE TOOHEY continued, "I personally think this is an unreasonable amount of land you have to dispose of in ten years." Number 104 CHAIRMAN OLBERG pointed out, "The ten years starts after the university receives the land." REPRESENTATIVE TOOHEY said, "I realize that. And if they're going to receive the land, Mr. Chairman, in one lump sum..." CHAIRMAN OLBERG interjected, "They will not." MS. REDMAN said, "I would expect it would take many years for us to complete the conveyance. It will come over a period of time and in small pieces over that period of time." REPRESENTATIVE TOOHEY said, "If you should get 100,000 acres at one time and it's beneficial to the land to hold it for future development, what happens there?" MS. REDMAN said, "That's one of the concerns that we did address with Representative Phillips. There certainly are some selections where, because our lens is so long in terms of setting an endowment for the university, there may be some lands that we select that we choose not to develop until far into the future." CHAIRMAN OLBERG said, "Those kinds of cases will be addressed in the future. This is the start to a process which will be modified over the next twenty years probably." REPRESENTATIVE TOOHEY said, "I don't want to do something today with a little amendment that we're going to have to undo in five years or ten years or twenty years from now." CHAIRMAN OLBERG said, "That's one way to look at it. I also look at it as a problem we can fix next year." Number 133 REPRESENTATIVE BILL WILLIAMS asked, "Can we put in there somewhere that once the university has come up with a plan, a land use plan, for the properties, so we at least know what they're going to be doing with it?" CHAIRMAN OLBERG said, "The onus is on the university to put the land into active management within ten years of receipt, before they lose it." Number 162 REPRESENTATIVE TOOHEY said, "I would really feel more comfortable with something that says here on 'the right to reenter the land conveyed and recover title to it if on the tenth anniversary unless otherwise noted in a long range plan of the execution of the conveyance the commissioner of DNR and so forth. I would like to see something in there that says 'unless the long range plan denotes otherwise' which means you've obviously looked at it by a long range planner." CHAIRMAN OLBERG asked, "Don't you think the University would have a plan before they selected the land?" REPRESENTATIVE TOOHEY said, "If you are comfortable with that. To me it's kind of pointless to have that ten years hanging over your head." CHAIRMAN OLBERG said, "I didn't hear any objection to the amendment as far as the clock stopping during litigation." Number 182 REPRESENTATIVE DAVIES said, "In offering this amendment I want it to be clear that I don't support the main amendment, in any case but I'm just offering this if it, for some reason, does get adopted I think it will be improved by this amendment. Here's what I would suggest: For any parcel of land the development which is held up due to litigation or other appeal process, the ten year period is extended by the duration of the litigation and/or appeal process." There was no objection to Representative Davies' amendment to Representative Phillips amendment. Number 212 CHAIRMAN OLBERG brought forth Representative Gail Phillip's amendment as amended and said, "Which fundamentally says the university has ten years to place selected years into active management after they have conveyance. I think that's a reasonable span of time, although probably unnecessary, but it makes somebody somewhere feel better and that's important to me." MS. REDMAN interjected, "If I may just say, I think that it says that the commissioner shall have the right to reenter the land, so I believe that if the university had a parcel of land for which we had a very long term plan that we would argue that case and it would be fine." CHAIRMAN OLBERG asked Representative Davies maintained his objection to the amended Representative Gail Phillip's amendment. REPRESENTATIVE DAVIES said `yes,' he maintains his objection. Number 230 A role vote was taken. Representatives Olberg, Williams, Bunde and Toohey voted to adopt the amended amendment of Representative Phillips. Representatives Davies and Willis voted against it. So the motion passed. CHAIRMAN OLBERG brought forth a second amendment found in the members packets he referred to as the Chenowith amendment dated 4/27/94. MS. REDMAN said, "We are certainly amenable to trying to make the kinds of amendments internal that the miners representive, Mr. Ward, spoke to you about at the last meeting. This amendment is technically the way we have to do it. That is it would be our mineral leasing, mineral entry and location policies would be substantially similar to those included in AS 38. AS 38 does not lend itself to having the university drop into it the way we had originally had planned. This will work. Our intention is to work with them. They're concerned about some access rights, royalties, rents, those kinds of things. Our intention would be to try to keep it as close to the current AS 38 as we can." REPRESENTATIVE DAVIES moved the Chenoweth amendment dated 4/27/94. There were no objections. So the amendment was adopted. CHAIRMAN OLBERG brought forth an amendment produced by Representative Bunde relating to page 10, line 12 of CSSB 217. Number 268 REPRESENTATIVE CON BUNDE moved this amendment and said, "It discusses deleting the word 'possible' and inserting the work 'practicable'. Many things are possible. They are not all practicable. The analogy I heard is; it is possible to build a bridge from Juneau to Skagway. The practicality may be in question." There were no objections. So the amendment was adopted. Number 285 REPRESENTATIVE TOOHEY moved to pass CSSB 217 as amended out of committee with individual recommendations. Hearing no objection, the bill was moved from committee.
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