SB 26-LAND DISPOSALS/EXCHANGES; WATER RIGHTS    5:34:19 PM  CHAIR GIESSEL announced the consideration of SB 26 and opened public testimony. ANDY ROGERS, Deputy Director, Alaska State Chamber of Commerce, stated that for the last several years regulations and permitting processes have risen to being the top three state priorities for the Chamber and the membership generally supports SB 26. He applauded DNR efforts to evaluate processes and make incremental improvements to make Alaska more successful. 5:36:46 PM LISA WEISSLER, representing herself, Juneau, AK, said she has 20 years of natural resource experience as an attorney. She reviewed the bill section by section and had suggestions to amend each. She started with the general permits section and said this section gives the commissioner the authority to authorize activities through a general permit if the commissioner finds that the activity is unlikely to result in significant and irreparable harm to state land or resources. The laws generally will help establish a consistency and predictability in agency's decisions which is important to the public, the agencies and the applicants. But here, according to DNR, decisions about what constitutes a significant and irreparable harm is going to be made on a case by case basis, which creates the potential for inconsistency and uncertainty in decisions made by both this commissioner and future commissioners. If general permits are going to be allowed, a better approach might be to establish them as a separate provision in law that identifies what activities qualify and the process for establishing the permits. The DNR currently has a regulation that specifically identifies activities that don't require any permit, so she didn't think it unreasonable to ask to have the same level of clarity here. Moving on to appeal rights that are all through the bill, currently a person who is aggrieved by a DNR decision generally has the right to appeal to the agency. The legislation changes that so that a person must be substantially and adversely affected, and that will be determined on a case by case basis, which creates a potential for inconsistency and possibly inequitable decisions in how the statute is applied. On Monday, Mr. Menefee said there is a problem because some people say they don't like the decision and that's all they get. But most people aren't well versed in state permitting law; they don't know it like the agencies do, so they don't know how to make their appeal more effective and they do what they can. Now DNR is asking them to describe how they are substantially affected without any definition about what that means; DNR doesn't seem to know what that means either. He also said there are about 43 appeals a year out of the hundreds of permitting decisions they make. Out of those 43 about 25 percent of the people don't have anything more to say than that they don't like it; maybe 10 a year. So, it doesn't look like this is really a big enough problem to make such a big change. MS. WEISSLER said the reservation of water section is a solution seeking a problem and DNR really just needs the staffing to process reservations. In terms of tendered water use permits, the proposed language gives the commissioner the authority to issue an infinite number of temporary water use authorizations and Mr. Menefee said it's a better way to do it, because the state retains control of the water. But the problems are with the temporary water use statutes, because while you can make adjustments whenever a new permit is being issued, that is discretionary on the part of the commissioner, but the public never gets a chance to weigh in on issues the department might not know about. A better way to do this is something in between, she said, if DNR wants to authorize a temporary water use that has passed five or ten years but not a water right appropriation, then develop a permit that includes public notice and criteria. 5:41:43 PM JAMES SULLIVAN, Legislative Organizer, South East Alaska Conservation Council (SEACC), testified in opposition to SB 26. He said the proposed revocation of all personal use reservations is problematic. SEACC wants to ensure that the environment is protected and that anadromous streams have highest priority when permits are issued. He proposed that when any entity applies for a water right on an anadromus body of water, that DNR issue a water reservation on behalf of the fish; it can refer to the Anadromus Waters Catalogue, which is already there; once they do that they can put in an appropriate reservation. This would align DNR with the State Constitution, Article 8, Section 3, on the common use issue and protect its public trust responsibility; it would ensure protection for our salmon and enhance sustainable economic development across the state as salmon is our greatest renewable resource. It is in the state's best interest to put a mechanism in statute to protect the fish resource as other entities apply for water rights. He also noted that DNR had spoken at length about permitting problems, yet the 2012 Frasier Institute Report ranks Alaska fourth in the mineral entities around the world when combining the composite policy and mineral potential; over 90 different regions in the world fall below us. He expressed hope that the committee would address that great discrepancy when the CEO's who fill out Frasier's form rank Alaska so high and the DNR commissioner provides such a low response. 5:45:01 PM HAL SHEPHERD, Center for Water Advocacy, Norton Bay Intertribal Watershed Council, and the Native Village of Elim, Seward, AK, testified in opposition to SB 26. He expressed concerns regarding past hearings in which statements by the Division of Mining, Land and Water as to who this bill would affect, particular in reference to the limitations on who can now apply for in-stream flows. The testimony he had heard so far noticeably omitted Native Alaskan tribal governments of which a few had applied for in-stream flows on waters in Alaska specifically to protect subsistence uses. But there has been no discussion about the fact that this bill would limit those applicants, including several tribes who have already submitted applications, from applying for in-stream flows. This seems to be a continuation of the administration's efforts to privatize water rights in Alaska, but also severely limiting the standing for individuals who can appeal applications that have been issued for mining permits, oil and gas drilling or hydro power plants, which again noticeably leaves out the substantial majority of individuals, tribes or NGOs who may be impacted by the issuance of such water rights. MR. SHEPHERD urged the committee not to strip the rights of individuals' constitutional rights, specifically Article 8, saying the state can issue water rights subject to a general use for fish for all of Alaska's citizens. RICK ROGERS, Executive Director, Resource Development Council (RDC), Anchorage, AK, testified in support of SB 26. He said RDC is a statewide business association representing the forestry, oil and gas, mining, tourism and fishing industries with the overall of mission to grow Alaska through responsible resource development. One of their top legislative priorities is to encourage the state to promote and defend the integrity of Alaska's permitting process and to advocate for predictable timely and efficient state and federal permitting processes based on sound science and economic feasibility. He said the legislature to its credit provided DNR with additional resources in past years to address what had become an untenable backlog of permits and authorizations. Such backlogs negatively affect our resource industries, but they also affect many individual Alaskans who are seeking the required state authorizations. It's important to recognize that Alaska land entitlement is over 100 million acres plus jurisdiction over submerged lands and the permits that DNR adjudicates go far beyond the mineral industry and he was puzzled why the discussion is so focused on that one industry. He was also curious about how permits are adjudicated for mining projects versus everyday Alaskans trying to cross tidelands to get to a dock. MR. Rogers said ramping up staff to adjudicate the backlog was a great idea, but it's addressing a symptom rather than systematic improvements. Now, we have a very complex set of statutes that have been developed over five decades of statehood and they need some improvements. Commissioner Sullivan had done a good job of identifying specific means of improving the efficiency of this complex system and the administration should be applauded for proposing numerous changes to DNR enabling statutes in order to make their processes more timely and efficient. CHAIR GIESSEL closed public testimony and held SB 26 in committee.