SB 189-MOTOR VEHICLE SALES AND DEALERS    CHAIRMAN RANDY PHILLIPS called the Senate Labor & Commerce Committee meeting to order at 10:15 a.m. and announced that SB 189 and its companion bill, HB 182, would be up for consideration. REPRESENTATIVE ANDREW HALCRO, Chairman of the House Labor and Commerce Subcommittee on HB 182, explained that basically there are two sides to the bill, the Alaska Auto Dealers Association, which is the mover of the bill, and the Alliance of Manufacturers, which represents the other party affected by the bill. Both sides had been very good at working out most of their disagreements. The bill has been changed from the original version by deleting the costly DMV oversight and some other bureaucratic layers. The original fiscal note was $500 million and that had been substantially reduced with the changes. The Subcommittee is going to be looking at incorporating consumer protections to the bill and they hope to have that draft in time for next session. He added that Ed Sniffen, Department of Law, had helped them get through some of the issues, but there are five outstanding left. They are: termination of a dealership and who takes over if the owner or managing partner should pass away; subsidiaries and how the bill affects not only the manufacturers, but some of their subsidiaries (Ford Motor Credit); warranty where the dealer feels that warranty should be reimbursed for a different level of service than manufacturers do; possible DMV loopholes; and consumer protection incidents from actual occurrences. He said he was going to have a teleconference on November 8. SENATOR LEMAN asked if he was confident that they would get those issues resolved by November 8. REPRESENTATIVE HALCRO said he was optimistic, but there were some substantial concerns. SENATOR PHILLIPS said he heard there were concerns about RVs and motorcycles. REPRESENTATIVE HALCRO responded that the bill just relates to automobile dealers. However, because of an incident in Homer with an RV, they were considering adding RVS. "We want to make sure that the state and consumers are protected and we think this bill, if we move it forward, is an appropriate vehicle for it." CHAIRMAN PHILLIPS asked if he thought this bill was a major priority in the House. REPRESENTATIVE HALCRO replied that he couldn't count on that because he hadn't spoken to the sponsor. Some reports done by independent consumer groups feel this kind of legislation is anti-consumer, because they will end up paying for any cost for monitoring. CHAIRMAN PHILLIPS asked if anyone wanted to testify on this bill and no one came forward. He announced that he would hold the bill for further consideration. SB 189-MOTOR VEHICLE SALES AND DEALERS  CHAIRMAN PHILLIPS announced SB 189 to be back before the committee. He asked if there was anyone who wanted to testify on it and there was no response. He set the bill aside.