SB 140-LEAVE FOR BONE MARROW DONATIONS    1:37:02 PM CHAIR ELLIS announced SB 140 to be up for consideration. He set it aside to wait for a quorum. SB 140-LEAVE FOR BONE MARROW DONATIONS    CHAIR ELLIS announced SB 140 to be up again for consideration. PAULA CADIENTE, staff to Senator Elton, sponsor, recapped that this bill would allow public and private employees to be given administrative leave for making bone marrow donations. Public employees would get a minimum of 40 hours a week and by regulation they would have a maximum amount and private employees would get between 40 hours and no more than 60 hours. 1:52:21 PM SENATOR STEVENS moved to adopt CSSB 140(L&C), version M. There were no objections and it was so ordered. 1:52:50 PM ANDREA QUINTO, Alaskan resident, explained that she had been working with the National Marrow Donor program for two years - mostly out of necessity in the beginning, but now for everybody else. She related how her nephew came down with leukemia, but he is now in remission and doing good. His donor is from New Mexico and the year her nephew came down with leukemia, only four others in this state needed a transplant - one of them was Susan Butcher. Not everyone who gets a bone marrow transplant would be from this state, she explained. You don't know where a donor will come from. She asked Senator Elton to draft this bill that would help people who get the call and the opportunity to change someone's life, especially in villages, who can't afford to leave their jobs to get time off. In Alaska, it usually takes two days of traveling time one way to the donor center in Washington State - if the weather cooperates, plus recovery time and 24 hours of observation to make sure you're okay - and two days of traveling time back again. MS. QUINTO said it is important to support this bill because it supports people who are trying save other people. She asked them to contemplate how them would feel if someone in their family might need a transplant next and that a donor was available, but couldn't leave work. She also stated that donor recipients are not allowed to offer money to get the donor to them. It's all voluntary. She said this legislation would only cover donors from Alaska. 1:56:47 PM CHAIR ELLIS thanked her for her testimony and said he sensed good support for this bill. He said all the fiscal notes were zero. SENATOR STEVENS moved to pass CSSB 140(L&C) from committee with individual recommendations and attached fiscal notes. There were no objections and it was so ordered.