Legislature(1997 - 1998)
05/05/1997 03:45 PM Senate RES
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* first hearing in first committee of referral
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+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
HB 151 BIG GAME GUIDES/REGISTR. AREAS/TRANSPORT
CHAIRMAN HALFORD called the Senate Resources Committee meeting to
order at 3:45 p.m. and announced HB 151 to be up for consideration.
REPRESENTATIVE SCOTT OGAN , sponsor, said HB 151 makes it illegal
for registered guides, Class-A assistant guides, and assistant
guides to hunt while a client of theirs is in the field, makes it
illegal for transporters to knowingly accompany or remain in the
field with a big game hunter who is a client, and makes it a
misdemeanor to break the laws created above.
REPRESENTATIVE OGAN said that it also closes a loophole that had
allowed felons to upgrade for a new class of license under a
grandfather clause. It also creates the ability for guides to
register for one more guide use area if the federal lands requested
would otherwise not be used and are adjacent to the existing guide
use area. On the House floor it was also amended, he said, to give
oral examinations for people who don't read and if someone has been
a class-A assistant guide for 25 years (the highest level of
assistant guide), they can automatically qualify without taking the
test.
CHAIRMAN HALFORD commented that the CS cleans up provisions that
passed the House. He said the history on the bill is that it was
originally designed for someone who wouldn't be able to pass the
test, but obviously had been at it forever. The original version
gave the person an area registration with only 10 years, but lots
of people have been in an area for 10 years. So that was taken out
and that question will still have to be dealt with.
SENATOR GREEN moved to adopt the SCS for CSHB 151. There were no
objections and it was so ordered.
REPRESENTATIVE OGAN reviewed the sections in the bill.
SENATOR LINCOLN said she was concerned in section 4 that
individuals in rural bush communities who are just getting started,
but really didn't get a license, would be able to qualify and asked
what was proof of 25 years of experience. REPRESENTATIVE OGAN said
that proof should be verifiable with the department whether they
have had 25 years experience as a class-A assistant or assistant
guide outfitter. Guides used to be called guide outfitters which
is why the term is included.
CHAIRMAN HALFORD noted that class-A assistant guides have been in
effect since 1970 or before. SENATOR LINCOLN was concerned that
certain guides would be precluded because of not officially
registering sometime in the mid 1980s. She asked if this precluded
any rural bush assistants or class-A guides. REPRESENTATIVE OGAN
replied if they have been a class-A assistant guide, regardless of
where they live for 25 years, they would automatically qualify for
a license.
CHAIRMAN HALFORD said that the class-A assistant guide's license is
already loaded in favor of long-term residents and is the license
most often used by local residents in small communities . This adds
in a minor exemption because it's hard to qualify.
SENATOR TAYLOR asked if by putting in 25 years of experience they
would be excluding someone who had to leave the State and asked if
they could add within 50 years. He also asked if it would exclude
women. SENATOR LINCOLN said she hoped it didn't otherwise someone
would be in court.
REPRESENTATIVE OGAN said they are making it illegal for a guide to
hunt while a client and lesser guides are in the field. CHAIRMAN
HALFORD said the question was should it say "while the registered
guide is accompanying a client." One side of the problem is that
a registered guide may be at a lodge or camp that's 50 miles away
from where an assistant guide is with a sheep hunter, and the
registered guide may live there year round, and a moose walks by
his meat house. He theoretically can't take that moose in season
because of this requirement and he didn't think Representative Ogan
was trying to stop this. He thought they were putting a standard
on a registered guide who may be nowhere near a client and have not
seen them for a couple of days. This is a standard that they,
therefore, can't take any big game animals. The question on that
amendment was "accompanies by" or just having it by contract.
REPRESENTATIVE OGAN said he had wrestled with that concern and the
reason they want to do this is because, for example, a guide has a
client in the field who gets a 50 inch moose and they run across a
bigger moose and the client says he'll pay another $1,000 to use
the guide's tag.
CHAIRMAN HALFORD said they might consider adding "while they have
a client booked for the same species."
Number 243
CAPTAIN JOEL HARD, Commercial Crimes Bureau, said that basically
this language takes away the temptation for the transfer of tags or
the taking of another animal and covering it illegally with either
the guide or the registered guides lawful hunting tags.
He said that in general he supports the bill. He explained that
during the last legislative session it was left out of statute
because it was thought to have been addressed in regulation and it
wasn't.
REPRESENTATIVE OGAN reviewed the rest of the bill.
SENATOR TAYLOR commented on section 19 that the traditional way of
hunting down here is that someone has a nice big boat, 35 - 50 ft.
and puts some hunters on board the boat and they drive their boat
out to Admiralty Island and anchor, and take the hunters to shore
in a skiff and let them off. That would be in compliance with this
restriction. REPRESENTATIVE OGAN agreed. SENATOR TAYLOR continue
saying that in the evening they come back to the beach and someone
comes in and picks them up and takes them back out to the boat
where they are fed and housed. He asked if that would still be in
compliance with this. He was concerned with "duties of embarking
or disembarking" and if that meant just one trip out and one trip
back like with a float plane. REPRESENTATIVE OGAN responded that
it is covered in statute that they would still be able to practice
that scenario; but they wouldn't be able to accompany the hunters
in the field beyond that beach head. The hunters have to be on
their own including skinning and packing. They can't sit in the
boat and glass.
CHAIRMAN HALFORD asked how employees would be affected; can they
have someone who cooks at the cabin they always let people off at
and pointed out that it's also not illegal to hire yourself out as
a packer to carry things. This is an area that has been a
continuous push back and forth between transporters and outfitters
and guides for the total time that he has watched.
SENATOR TAYLOR said he wanted to allow transporters to have people
live on board a boat. REPRESENTATIVE OGAN replied that AS8.54.650
covers a person who is entitled to be a transporter who can provide
transportation services and accommodations to big game hunters in
the field at a permanent lodge, house, cabin owned by the
transporter or on a boat with permanent living quarters on salt
water.
CHAIRMAN HALFORD said that the committee has correspondence from
someone who is complaining about this language not being expansive
enough. This only works if the area they are talking about is on
federal land and permitting isn't available to anyone else. This
amendment is designed to aid very few people in generally pretty
small areas. He is not an advocate of people being this limited
and found it hard to defend the details of how they work or work
hardships.
REPRESENTATIVE OGAN pointed out that a lot of guides contract with
other guides who can register in three areas and so they can
actually get more than three. He personally has problems with
expanding it to three or four areas at this time due to that fact.
Number 418
MS. CATHERINE REARDON, Director, Division of Occupational
Licensing, said the first section says they will offer the exam in
oral form if the applicant has a reading disability. They support
this provision and they offer this under ADA.
The second section was requested by the department and regarded
licensing of felons. There is a loophole which allows felons who
are assistant guides under the old law and now want to become
registered guides, because they fit in the exemption, to upgrade
their licenses even though they had a felony within the last five
or ten years. There were two applicants like that and she thought
that the legislature intended to let them keep their assistant
guide license, but not allow them to upgrade to guide until their
five or ten years were up.
Another issue, MS. REARDON said, is the 25 years of experience on
page 2, line 20, referring to one of Senator Lincoln's concerns.
It's her understanding that the person had to have held a class-A
assistant guide license for the 25 years and have been using it.
She thought they would probably ask the person to write an
affidavit to that affect. So someone who was out there guiding
without the license would not be eligible. She said they have hand
written records going back to 1973 and if there is someone out
there who had a license starting in 1973, she didn't know who it
was. She said she is not aware of anyone holding a license for 25
years just looking at their paper records.
On the "otherwise remain unused" clause she said it would be better
just to say everyone can qualify for four areas because she didn't
understand why certain people under very certain circumstances
could qualify for the fourth area. The defense to holding it to
three areas when the bill was going through last time was that
there's an advantage to spreading the guides out which benefits the
resource and if that's the case, it should be three. If four
doesn't disrupt that motivation, just make if four for everyone,
she suggested.
Another communication she has been getting from certain guides is
that they would like even more areas.
SENATOR TAYLOR asked how many areas there were in Southeast.
CHAIRMAN HALFORD said there were four game management units and
each unit might have as many as 40 guide areas. REPRESENTATIVE
OGAN said he thought there might be about 10 or 15.
Number 554
SENATOR TAYLOR said he was concerned this was like micromanagement.
SENATOR TAYLOR proposed an amendment on page 5, line 4, after the
word "while" to insert "accompanying a client of the registered
guided" and delete the word "is" on line 9. So it would read, "You
cannot knowingly personally take big game while accompanying a
client of the registered guide in the field."
REPRESENTATIVE OGAN commented that he thought this was a policy
call.
TAPE 97-31, SIDE B
SENATOR LINCOLN asked what would be the circumstance the guide
would want to take animals, other than a moose walking through
camp. CHAIRMAN HALFORD responded that a guide may have a lodge
that's in the flat country at the edge of the mountains and he may
have sheep hunters hunting who are successful, but if he lives
there, and some of the seasons are pretty short this year, he could
get to the point where he couldn't hunt at all basically, because
he has a couple of assistant guides out with sheep hunters through
the whole moose season. This is not the norm, he added.
The cases he personally is opposed to are where a guide actually
takes animals when he is out with a guided hunter. The most
obvious abuse is cross tagging and the other is he just didn't
think a guide should be taking animals while he's guiding.
SENATOR TAYLOR said that cross tagging only involves one incident
during one season because the guide has only one tag and he may
have eight hunters coming through. If a guy was going to take an
animal anyhow, what difference does it make. The same amount of
animals are taken.
REPRESENTATIVE OGAN said it would be o.k. to incorporate language
about the same species.
SENATOR LINCOLN asked how to define "accompany." SENATOR TAYLOR
said he thought it meant guiding within the same camp. His
definition would be more expansive.
Number 494
CHAIRMAN HALFORD said he would be more comfortable if Senator
Taylor would make his amendment conceptual and add language that
says "while accompanying or under contract for the species taken."
SENATOR GREEN said she thought it would read better on line 4 if it
said, "while under contract for the species taken or while
accompanying a client of the registered guide in the field."
CAPTAIN HARD commented that old language under the Board of Game
uses "in the service of," but he didn't know if it applied at this
point. He agreed with the concept of defining the word
"accompanying" more definitively in regulation.
CHAIRMAN HALFORD said the question is a conceptual amendment to ad
accompanying or under contract for the species. SENATOR TAYLOR
moved the amendment. SENATOR LINCOLN objected. SENATORS HALFORD,
TAYLOR, and GREEN were in favor and the amendment carried.
SENATOR LINCOLN said she objected because it is conceptual and she
understands that it will leave the committee before it can be
reviewed. CHAIRMAN HALFORD said his intention is if they move the
bill, it will not leave their possession until everyone gets to
look at it.
SENATOR GREEN said she wanted to go back to section 1 and the oral
examination. She suggested that "reading disability" is not what
they want. She thought it should be a specific language disability
or a specific learning disability.
CHAIRMAN HALFORD said they didn't want to have to offer the test in
other languages.
SENATOR GREEN moved to change page l, line 11 to delete "reading"
and insert "experiences a specific language."
SENATOR LINCOLN asked why they didn't wait to pass the bill until
they know exactly if that's the correct language to put in there.
CHAIRMAN HALFORD announced an at ease from 4:50 - 4:55 p.m. He
asked if there were any objections to Senator Green's amendment.
There were no objections and it was adopted.
SENATOR TAYLOR moved to pass SCSCSHB 151(RES) as amended out of
committee upon approval of the chairman on the review of the
conceptual amendment. There were no objections and it was so
ordered.
CHAIRMAN HALFORD adjourned the meeting at 5:00 p.m.
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