Legislature(2001 - 2002)
03/04/2002 03:40 PM Senate RES
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* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
SB 308-COASTAL ZONE MGMT PROGRAM/COUNCIL
CHAIRMAN TORGERSON announced SB 308 to be up for consideration.
SENATOR THERRIAULT, sponsor of SB 308, said he started out with
legislation that repealed the whole coastal zone management
program and eventually boiled it down to four or five different
issues. SB 308 contains two of those issues, plus a third one
that wasn't contemplated at that time.
Section 1 deals with a ban on the adoption by reference
of our state statutes and regulations by coastal
districts. This is actually the way the coastal zone
system is working now and we are just trying to define
that in statute.
Section 2 is the new section that was not discussed a
number of years ago. It talks about phasing for the
permitting of Alaska North Slope gas pipeline. What
that deals with is the project is so large in scope
that it's very difficult for anybody actually proposing
the gas pipeline to submit all of the paperwork to
permit the entire line. They don't know exactly which
streams they're crossing, whether they're going to go
under or over. It would allow state agencies to perform
that work in phases.
Section 3 is conforming language that conforms statutes
with changes made in section 4…. It deals with
modifications to the petition process. The petition
process is the last additional sort of bite of the
apple that the person who is opposing a permit has
after you've gone through the agency process. You have
the ability to have numerous reviews of the agencies as
they are making a determination to issue a permit.
After that's been finalized, a consistency
determination has been made, there was yet this final
petition process, which I believe the individuals with
the administration will come forward and indicate has
been used as a delaying mechanism. All the petitions
that have been granted have been either after the time
line has nearly run out, they're either removed or
they're found to be without substance and dismissed.
So, I believe there is an agreement even by the state
administration that section 4 is needed to streamline
the process and get to finality.
SENATOR WILKEN moved to adopt the committee substitute to SB 308,
version C, dated 3/4/02. There were no objections and it was so
ordered.
The hearing on SB 308 continued.
MR. KEN DONAJKOWSKI, Manager of Permitting, Phillips Alaska, Inc.
said:
Phillips Alaska, Inc., is in support of eliminating
individual petitions under the Alaska Coastal
Management Program process. This petition process
significantly delayed a total of 5 consistency
determinations on Phillips projects in the months of
December and January just passed. This petition process
enables an individual to easily hamper responsible oil
and gas development and the Committee substitute for SB
308 appropriately removes this needless component from
the ACMP process.
SENATOR ELTON asked if any of the five petitions significantly
change the terms under which Phillips had to operate.
MR. DONAJKOWSKI replied that apart from delays, there were no
changes whatsoever to those projects.
MR. PATRICK GALVIN, Director, Division of Governmental
Coordination, said they are responsible for the implementation of
the Alaska Coastal Management Program. He explained:
The Alaska Coastal Management Program is the state's
response to the federal Coastal Zone Management Act,
which gives the state the opportunity to develop a plan
that the federal government would comply with and
provide money for. We have to make sure the plan meets
certain federal standards and in light of that when the
Alaska program was put into place, it was designed to
be decentralized. It was providing most of the power to
the local governments instead of retaining it within
the state. In order to insure the federal government
that the state retained some control over that, the
petition process was put into place to allow the
Coastal Policy Council, which is the state's body
overseeing the program with some authority that local
plans were being implemented. During that time, there
was no review of the individual projects. When that
came about in the mid-80s it wasn't anticipated that
the petition process used for the protection of the
state's interest and making sure the local plans were
being implemented would be used on individual project
reviews. It was. So, in 1994, the legislature took
legislative action to create a separate petition
process for project reviews that said it wasn't going
to be basically a complete review of the decision, but
would be merely a check on whether the process was
fair. It was just a matter of if a person submitted a
comment on a consistency review and they felt their
comments were not fairly considered, they could ask the
Coastal Policy Council to review that and if so, remand
it back to the agency to do it again. Since that time,
we've dealt with a handful of petitions to clarify how
the process worked and since those regulations were put
into place basically in the spring of 1999, we've had
up until this week 18 petitions that have been
submitted by individuals saying that their comments
were not fairly considered. Of those 18, 10 were
rejected outright by staff saying that they didn't meet
the requirements to even file the petition. Of the
remaining eight, three of them were withdrawn before a
hearing and five of them were dismissed by the Coastal
Policy Council. So of the 18 that have been filed since
the beginning of FY 2000, none of them have been
remanded for consideration by the state agency. While
we've come to recognize that the process does not
provide an adequate experience for anybody, it's
frustration pretty much across the board. Those who
file petitions come in hoping to have the entire
decision looked at and they're frustrated that all they
get is a review of the process and it's a pretty low
standard for the state to be able to overcome and say
we considered your comment. So at this point, while
desiring an opportunity and perhaps coming up with a
different vehicle for providing individuals with an
opportunity to participate in an appeal, we don't have
time for that and we don't oppose eliminating the B1
petitions.
With regard to the phasing issue, a real quick
background on that one, the phasing law that's in place
now was also adopted in 1994. It was in response to a
court decision that found that a state oil and gas
lease needed to be redone because it didn't look at the
impacts associated with potential development and the
court said that there was no authority in the law to
restrict the consistency determination to the lease
sale stage or phase of the project. The legislation was
drafted in order to allow for the phasing of oil and
gas development - so that we could have the lease sale
phase separate from the exploration phase, separate
from the development phase and each one could be
reviewed separately. Because the legislation was
written for that purpose, it doesn't really fit any
other type of project. When we were looking at the
issue of a North Slope Natural Gas Pipeline project and
the scale of this type of project, all we recognize is
that it was going to demand such a large amount of
information that one, the company or the proponent of
the project would likely not have the resources to
develop all that information up front, because frankly
under the Coastal Management Program, until you can get
your consistency determination, you can't get any
permit for the project.
Two, even if the companies were able to muscle the
resources and to generate the amount of information
that would be necessary to review the entire project,
the state agencies would not be in a position to be
able to review it and comprehend the magnitude of the
information and give an adequate evaluation of all the
issues they normally would look at in the time frames
that would be provided.
Three, even if the state agency somehow came up with
the resources, the public wouldn't have the ability to
be involved in the process because of the magnitude of
the information. Given that, we recognize that it would
be beneficial to be able to phase this type of review
and, as I mentioned before, the phasing statute right
now is designed primarily for the lease sale situation.
So, it doesn't fit very well with a project of this
type. Rather than looking at trying to generate
language for a type of project that might fit the gas
line and fit other appropriate projects, we recognized
that the approach that's taken in this bill is probably
the best approach - to say that a natural gas pipe line
that goes from the North Slope to market needs to be
treated special or differently. It's unique; it's an
unprecedented nature. Therefore, it should be phased in
a way that would be appropriate for that type of
project. What we want to make clear is that it is the
unprecedented size of this project that makes it
appropriate to look at phasing. It's not just that it's
a large project. We are concerned that just the
language alone right now gives the implication that a
large project deserves to be faced. We would recommend
that the legislature look at including some legislative
findings as to the unprecedented nature and size of a
natural gas project in order to justify this exception
to the phasing law so that it isn't seen as a precedent
for just any large project being appropriately phased.
Also, it should be noted that the Coastal Management
Program is a very important program to local
governments in particular and to members of the public
and we are concerned that the title of this bill is
quite broad and we would recommend that the title be
refined to recognize the changes that are actually
being made to the program such that it doesn't allow
for any unexpected additional changes to the program
that the administration or local governments may be
much more opposed to. Thank you.
5:10 p.m.
CHAIRMAN TORGERSON said he wasn't sure there needs to be
legislative findings on how big this project is.
SENATOR ELTON agreed and said the specificity of this language
would preclude anything else. It would in fact, take a change in
legislation if there was interest in phasing another project.
MR. JOHN SHIVELY, Alaska N.W. Natural Gas Transportation Company,
supported SB 308 and thanked the sponsor, Senator Therriault, for
including the phasing language in section 2, which is of most
concern to them. He thought Mr. Galvin explained the problem
well.
This is a very complicated project. Ordinarily, before
you could get a consistency determination, you have to
have every single permit in front of government
approved. We don't believe that makes sense and so we
support this language and we appreciate the opportunity
to testify and would be happy to answer questions.
SENATOR TAYLOR moved to pass CSSB 308(RES) from committee with
individual recommendations.
SENATOR THERRIAULT interrupted to explain that the changes in the
CS deal with the fiscal impact and there should be a zero fiscal
note.
MR. GALVIN explained that the original version had some
provisions that would have required additional staff time. This
one eliminates those, resulting in a zero fiscal note.
CHAIRMAN TORGERSON asked him to prepare one.
TAPE 02-08, SIDE A
There were no further objections and CSSB 308(RES) passed from
committee.
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