Legislature(2013 - 2014)BUTROVICH 205
02/08/2014 09:00 AM Senate RESOURCES
| Audio | Topic |
|---|---|
| Start | |
| SB146 | |
| SB109 | |
| SJR15 | |
| SJR16 | |
| Adjourn |
* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
| *+ | SB 146 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| *+ | SB 109 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| *+ | SJR 15 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| *+ | SJR 16 | TELECONFERENCED | |
SB 109-ADVISORY COMMISSION ON FEDERAL MGT AREAS
9:51:40 AM
CHAIR GIESSEL announced SB 109 to be up for consideration.
SENATOR JOHN COGHILL, Alaska State Legislature, sponsor of SB
109, said this measure is an extension of the sunset date for
the Citizen's Advisory Commission on Federal Areas (CACFA). He
said the federal government owns 60 percent of Alaska's lands
going from productive land to wilderness and preserves; Alaska
shares the remaining 40 percent with Alaska Native Corporations.
He explained that the focus of federal lands generally goes from
conservation to preservation and the land in Alaska goes from
the need for production to the need for conservation, which
travel in different directions. So, there must be a way for
Alaskans to speak up on how they want to work with the federal
government in both areas. The Statehood Compact, the Alaska
Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA), and the Alaska National
Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) provide the rules to
play by.
SENATOR COGHILL said there is always a need for ongoing
education and Alaska has to speak up for itself. Another issue
is that the personnel turnover in the federal management areas
that are generally conservation units to wilderness areas is
very high and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is often
operated from Seattle and is often overruled in D.C., which is
why Alaska often resorts to the courts. Citizens who have to
navigate through the complex set of rules and regulations and
their modifications need to be alert and this citizen's advisory
commission is one way to bring these issues into the light and
provide an avenue to our delegation in Congress. When ANILCA was
first instituted it had a high level commission made up of both
federal and state officials who could make policy calls, but
that went away. This is one way to get input from people at the
community who just navigate on a river.
He said the federal government can take people to court and they
have unlimited access to legal instruments that quite often the
citizen who is just trying to guide on a river doesn't have. He
said the Senate Majority felt so strongly that they hired
someone to help them work with the Citizen's Advisory Commission
and Congress on things like the Izembek Road.
CHAIR GIESSEL thanked him for his work adding that he is a great
asset on CACFA.
9:59:45 AM
CHAD HUTCHISON, staff to Senator Coghill, sponsor of SB 109,
said CACFA does very important work holding hearings regarding
land management, resource development, and access issues, and it
makes recommendations for public policy to the State of Alaska;
he said members should have received its annual report.
CACFA's intent is to protect the state's interests relating to
resource development and land management. It provides the Alaska
Land Update that allows them to focus on particular resource
development issues related to the Pebble Mine, Izembek, the
proposed Beringia National Park, and the Wrangell St. Elias
National Park. It is an entity that allows them to articulate
issues to the general public and allows them to make comments as
necessary. Most folks have little understanding as to what the
federal government is continually doing around the State of
Alaska and that is why CACFA is so important.
10:02:44 AM
CHAIR GIESSEL said she appreciated the annual report as she
would be bringing up topics in committee about some of them.
10:03:18 AM
STAN LEAPHART, Executive Director, Citizen's Advisory Commission
on Federal Areas (CACFA), supported SB 109. He said the
commission has a lot of work to do in the next few years and
that Senator Bettye Fahrenkamp from Fairbanks was the initial
sponsor of the commission in 1981, shortly after passage of
ANILCA. Now 30 years later we are still fighting to make sure
it's implemented in the way Congress intended and that the
federal agencies live up to the promises and compromises that
are in that bill.
He said review of some major management plans was coming into
focus and that the BLM is undertaking two: the Central Yukon
Plan and the Bering Sea Western Interior Plan. The Tongass
National Forest is considering revising its management plan with
issues ranging from the roadless rule to transitioning from old
growth harvested timber to second growth harvested timber and a
lot of other wildlife and fisheries management issues. The
Chugach National Forest is also revising its management plan and
has issues related to access and public use.
MR. LEAPHART said he had been asked to be a member of a
subcommittee put together by the BLM to look at their new placer
mining policy. It's of considerable concern to the mining
industry, in particular the small miners. The policy will
probably impose some pretty significant and regulatory burdens
on them. The subcommittee is a good approach, because it will
involve people from the industry, state and federal agency
people, other regulatory people, the Alaska Miners Association
and people from the Forty-mile mining district.
He said they have had similar experience working with the BLM's
subcommittee through the Resource Advisory Council on a trapping
cabin policy, which turned out quite well and that included
people from the trapping community.
10:07:15 AM
MR. LEAPHART said the annual report didn't clarify that the
recommendations in the main report are not all the
recommendations they heard at the August 2013 Summit. Those are
listed in the summary that is attached to the annual report and
weren't all necessarily endorsed by the commission.
He said the next step is for a group of commissioners to meet
next week in Anchorage to refine the list of recommendations and
develop strategies on how to implement them. Those will be
forwarded to the legislature, the governor's office and the
delegation.
CHAIR GIESSEL said the Anchorage summit was amazing; it was
highly attended and had great input. She said the commission is
made up largely of public citizens who remain mostly invisible
and asked him to identify them.
MR. LEAPHART said they are a 12-member commission with two
legislative members: Senator Coghill and Representative Keller,
who is currently the chairman; Rod Arno (also the executive
director of the Alaska Outdoor Council), Teresa Hanson from
Fairbanks (her family operates a small placer mine), Kathleen
Liska from Anchorage (she has great interest in federal land
issues), Susan Smith (an in-holder in Wrangell St. Elias
National Park living a subsistence lifestyle with her husband),
Mike Meekin from Palmer (an air taxi operator), Ron Somerville
from Juneau (retired ADF&G biologist and an early warrior in the
ANILCA battles), Mark Fish from Big Lake (maker of Black Powder
Rifles), Charley Lean from Nome (has worked in many places in
Alaska), Warren Olsen from Anchorage (active in fish and game
issues for his whole career), and Frank Woods from Dillingham
(commercial fisherman and sits on several boards related to
subsistence and trail use). He said it is a very active group
and they almost always have a full slate of members in
attendance at their meetings.
CHAIR GIESSEL thanked them for their volunteer labor on behalf
of the state; she then opened public testimony.
10:13:34 AM
RON SOMERVILLE, CACFA member, Juneau, Alaska, said he was a
commercial fisherman with his father in Craig and got a Master's
degree in wildlife management from the University of Montana and
came back to work for Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G)
for 24 years. A lot of his career was spent on these types of
issues, as well as tagging bears. He had lived 74 years in
Alaska and watched as the entitlements Alaska was supposed to
get at statehood have been compromised in Washington.
Because of his travels around the state for ADF&G Mr. Somerville
said he was interested in what was happening to the small
communities that get inundated with bureaucratic paperwork.
Plans are constantly being redone and things are snuck into them
that violate a lot of agreements that were made in ANILCA and
the Statehood Act. Things happening in the Interior could affect
Southeastern and groups can hardly keep up with forest planning
efforts in Glacier Bay National Park and some of the other
conflicts that occur. This has a significant detrimental impact
on land issues in Alaska and CACFA fills that role.
MR. SOMERVILLE said for example that for 40 years the
Territorial Sportsmen built cabins on Admiralty Island, provided
boats and chopped wood, and maintained the cabins, not only for
people to enjoy but because they were important for providing
shelter and safety to people in the wilderness.
He was in the committee room when ANILCA was passed and the
Forest Service promised that Admiralty Island would be a
wilderness area, but they wouldn't treat it like the Bob
Marshall Wilderness Area in Montana. Thirteen exceptions were
made to wilderness management in Alaska and yet the Forest
Service today is trying to make Admiralty Island exactly like
the Bob Marshall Wilderness Area. They no longer allow the
Territorial Sportsmen to use chains saws in order to cut wood
for the cabins or to use power equipment in the spring to
maintain and improve them.
He agreed to serve on the Commission because its work is so
important in helping people to fully understand what the
overreach of the federal government is like. "You would not
believe it!"
MR. SOMERVILLE related that Alaska has about 22,000 rivers and
about 1 million lakes that could qualify under any definition of
navigability, yet the navigability issue has been resolved on
less than 25 rivers. The state has to prove in court the river
was navigable at the time of statehood and the federal
government is forcing adjudication of every river in the state.
The unfortunate part is that at statehood Alaska received title
to 60 million acres of submerged and tidelands and at this rate,
we will lose that entitlement, because everybody who used them
for that purpose is dead. It will have a phenomenal negative
impact on this state.
He said that one of major reasons we got statehood was to manage
our fish and wildlife and now it's a mess. Something needs to be
done to improve the fish and wildlife management problems. If we
don't take care of them the federal government will preempt us.
CHAIR GIESSEL thanked him for his service.
10:22:11 AM
SENATOR MICCICHE thanked him for service and for remaining
active.
SENATOR BISHOP echoed those sentiments and added that he would
like to break bread with him before leaving Juneau.
MR. SOMERVILLE said it would be a pleasure.
10:23:01 AM
CHAIR GIESSEL finding no further questions or comments and
closed public testimony.
SENATOR DYSON moved to report SB 109, version A, from committee
to the next committee of referral with attached fiscal notes and
individual recommendations. There were no objections and it was
so ordered.