SCR 2-ACQUIRE TONGASS NATIONAL FOREST LAND  1:17:39 PM CHAIR KELLER announced that the next order of business would be CS FOR SENATE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION NO. 2(JUD), Urging the governor to acquire land in the Tongass National Forest from the United States government by purchase or negotiation or by seeking amendment to the Alaska Statehood Act. 1:19:25 PM SENATOR BERT STEDMAN, Alaska State Legislature, said the resolution deals with the Tongass National Forest and indicated that the Tongass National Forest was created in 1907. At the end of WWII, Japan needed a timber supply and looked to Southeast Alaska for that, and that helped create pulp mills in Sitka and Ketchikan. Both had sawmills as well, he said. Based on the economics at that time, the desire was to create year- round jobs in Southeast Alaska on federal forest lands. He said that the political climate has changed since, and the 50-year logging contracts were shortened to account for that. Today, the pulp mills are being closed and removed and both sawmills are gone, he explained. He noted a medium-sized sawmill on Prince of Wales Island, and said the timber industry is unlike it was 30 years ago. If Anchorage lost its airport, it would be of similar impact to the economy, he stated. 1:21:33 PM SENATOR STEDMAN said what he is trying to do now is to stabilize the economy in Southeast Alaska; the population "has been paralyzed for quite some time while the growth is in Anchorage and Mat-Su." A few years ago it was forecasted that the region would lose up to 20 to 30 percent of its population, and that has not happened because of the hard work of many. "But we could do better," he said. In trying to ensure timber for the remaining saw mill and the other operators and to have more local and state control, Alaska needs to select some lands out of the Tongass National Forest, he opined. If Alaska cannot get the land through the Statehood Act, SCR 2 encourages the governor to discuss purchasing the land, out right, from the federal government. He said, "Do whatever we can to get more land into the State of Alaska's hands...and other private individual's hands," including Alaska Native corporations. The less federal land there is in Alaska, the better off the state is, because Alaska is a resource extraction state and is different from the East Coast, he explained. He said it is difficult to keep year-round jobs when the economic strings are pulled out of Washington D.C. instead of locally. He added that it is important to support the governor in his endeavors to push back against the federal government and to try to get some private land and state land out of the Tongass. 1:24:02 PM CHAIR KELLER said he is on a citizen's advisory commission that had a summit last summer on federal overreach. The testimony was that the U.S. Forest Service has gone from a philosophy of "working forests" to preservation. DICK COOSE, Ketchikan, said he is retired from the Forest Service but is speaking for himself. He worked as a land manager on the Tongass National Forest for 14 years, he noted. He said he supports SCR 2, because the federal government no longer has the desire or the capability to manage federal lands for the health of the lands and the benefit of the local people. He said he sees little hope that the federal government will change its attitude, but the state has a proven record of good forest management, and the Statehood Act's limit of 400,000 acres was OK when there were two pulp mills, but today that limitation is not necessary. The mills were driven out by "the feds," he opined, and the state would be the best manager. Alaska needs to take ownership of the entire national forest or it should select 5 million acres, he added. 1:26:18 PM DAVID BEEBE, representing the City of Kupreanof, said SCR 2 is at odds with Article VIII, Section 4, of the Alaska Constitution, which mandates managing fish, forests, and wildlife under sustained yield principles. He said sustained yield requires that ecosystems function without significant impairment, and the state has long known that impairing forests in Southeast Alaska precludes the sustainable yield of Sitka black-tailed deer. He told the committee that a major symposium in Juneau in 1978 documented the concern for future deer populations from clearcut logging, and in 1993 the Alaska Board of Game passed a resolution unanimously recommending the protection of high-volume old growth forests because the Alaska Constitution mandates wildlife resources to be managed on a sustained-yield basis for all of the people of Alaska. Emergency closures and significant restrictions on deer hunting presently exist in a 20-mile radius around the City of Kupreanof, he stated, and it is not a new problem. 1:27:54 PM MR. BEEBE said Mitkof Island first suffered severe restrictions to its deer populations in the early 1970s, and the deer numbers are not recovering 40 years later. He explained that the structure and function of the habitat, according to the best available science, will not be restored for two centuries or more. If SCR 2 passes and its ultimate ends are achieved, Alaska can expect a much larger rural subsistence predicament to occur across more of Southeast Alaska. He noted that Gordon Harrison, the author of the Alaska Constitution Citizen's Guide, said that Alaska's delegate to Congress, Bob Bartlett, wanted to defend against "freewheeling disposals of public resources and colonial style exploitation," and that is precisely the central premise of SCR 2. The constitution establishes the obligation of the government, including the legislature, to assure sustained yield management, and he urged the committee to uphold the oath the members took to defend the constitution by voting no on SCR 2. 1:29:28 PM JAMES SULLIVAN, Southeast Alaska Conservation Council (SEACC), said that SEACC also opposes SCR 2. The resolution proposes a return to a "timber-first" forest policy on the Tongass National Forest, and it attacks the Forest Service's attempt to create an integrated forest plan that takes into account the numerous aspects and uses of the forest, he stated. The resolution ignores the needs and desires of the local communities in order to cater to a single industry. Federal law requires multi-use and sustained yield of all renewable forest resources, he stated, but state forests are managed primarily for timber, which is in direct conflict with the Alaska Constitution. 1:30:47 PM MR. SULLIVAN said that Southeast Alaska has adapted to a new Tongass. He noted that the sponsor of SCR 2 spoke of decisions made after WWII, but that is a step back in time and in the wrong direction, he opined. Communities have transitioned to a new economy and are improving wages and the quality of life. He said the Southeast Conference Annual Report states: It is a good time to live and work in Southeast Alaska. The economy of Southeast Alaska is in an expansion phase and has been since 2008. Between 2010 and 2012, the economic growth of the region has intensified. Nearly every single economic indicator for the region is up and continues to rise. MR. SULLIVAN said the report also states that the region has more workers than ever, along with the highest total payroll, even when adjusted for inflation. He added that Southeast Alaska has gone through a difficult transition with the loss of the two pulp mills, but the region is diversifying and turning into a more vibrant economy. He asked that the committee let the Tongass National Forest transition the way it is. 1:32:49 PM MR. SULLIVAN said the sponsor of SCR 2 has previously stated that the resolution is designed to open up a discussion about the Tongass, but any discussion about land use should acknowledge it as a "salmon forest" and incorporate tourism, fishing, subsistence use, and energy along with timber. All are important to Southeast Alaskans, he said, and all are being ignored in the resolution. He said he does not want to kill the timber industry, but he wants an industry that will not destroy all the other industries. He also encouraged the governor and legislators to establish mechanisms for developing government- to-government processes with the tribes in Southeast Alaska regarding resource use. REPRESENTATIVE LYNN asked how many jobs have been lost due to the "basic shut down of the forestry industry" and how much revenue has been lost due to restrictions on logging. 1:34:24 PM MR. SULLIVAN said there were over 500 jobs lost [when the pulp mills shut down] in the early 1990s. Currently, Southeast Alaska has the most job growth ever, he added. Timber is a much smaller part of that industry in the region, he said, and even though the large pulp mills are gone and there is a diminished number of logs being exported, there are well over a dozen small working mills within the communities. "We would encourage this legislature to find ways of enhancing and finding ways to help those small mills that live in the community and are creating jobs in the community and putting food on the plates of their families." For the most part, the small mills have access to enough timber, but, he suggested, the legislature could help them diversify. 1:35:30 PM REPRESENTATIVE LYNN asked how much revenue has been lost to Alaska from what some would call a shutdown of logging. MR. SULLIVAN said there is no shutdown; over 150 million board feet of timber was taken out of Southeast Alaska last year. CHAIR KELLER noted that the Department of Fish and Game has primary management of wildlife. He asked if the state will be incapable [of management]. He then said that DNR (Alaska Department of Natural Resources) is fully capable of handling management under the state. MR. SULLIVAN said the danger is not who is managing Alaska's wildlife. The danger is what decision are made for Alaska's habitat, he clarified. He said wildlife managers will be forced to make decisions that they do not want to make, and the Endangered Species Act may come into play that could actually affect the small communities. 1:37:04 PM REPRESENTATIVE GRUENBERG said he has not intimately lived with this issue, but there seems to be a mixing of two topics, and the mixing is having an effect on the tenor of this discussion. The first issue is whether Alaska is entitled to get the remainder of its promised acreage and whether it should come from the Tongass National Forest, and a different issue, he said, is what the state would use the land for. It may not be the time to discuss that until the state takes ownership. 1:38:39 PM CHAIR KELLER said he is absolutely right, and he would rather not make that a dialogue between "you and the testifier," because there is a lot of talk about the revised TLMP [Tongass Land Management Plan]. REPRESENTATIVE GRUENBERG asked if this is the time to discuss if Alaska should be entitled to proceed with its selections. CHAIR KELLER surmised that the question posed by the bill is to support the governor's attempt to negotiate for land settlement that includes the Tongass National Forest in order to increase logging in Southeast Alaska. 1:39:59 PM MR. SULLIVAN said regardless of who is actually managing the land, it would be SEACC's hope that the acres are managed for the multiple uses of the forest. SENATOR STEDMAN said the intent of a land selection in the Tongass would be to increase the timber supply, but there is a lot of recreational needs. He said there are state forests in the Tongass, and the intent is not to get land from the federal government and clearcut it all, but to get it into the control of the state so it can control its own destiny. The state has been a very good steward of game: "Where I live in Sitka, I can shoot six deer; my wife can shoot six; my daughter can shoot six." He said his only limit is on how much he can eat. 1:41:36 PM CHAIR KELLER asked about the Alexander Archipelago wolf, which is having a status review. It would be speculation on the impact on whether it is federal or state land, he said. SENATOR STEDMAN said there is the wolf, the spotted owl, and a multitude of issues with land and aquatic animals that a person could point to as an excuse to maintain federal control. There are no wolves on Baranof Island, he stated, but there are brown bears, so he is not as familiar with [the wolf]. "If it wasn't for the wolf, it would be just another creature," he explained, and the basic argument is over development. CHAIR KELLER closed public discussion. 1:42:57 PM REPRESENTATIVE LYNN moved to report CSSCR 2(JUD) out of committee with individual recommendations and the accompanying fiscal notes. CHAIR KELLER objected. REPRESENTATIVE GRUENBERG said he would like to see what can be done, with good management, to help the economy here. We are all Alaskans, he said, and it is time that the legislature did something to help this part of the state-and other parts. CHAIR KELLER removed his objection. Seeing no others, CSSCR 2(JUD) moved out of the House Judiciary Standing Committee.