SRES - 2/21/95 SB 49 RESTRUCTURE BOARD OF FISHERIES SENATOR LEMAN announced SB 49 to be up for consideration. KEN ERICKSON, Legislative Aide for Senator Pearce, briefed the Committee on the provisions of the bill. He said historically the Legislature and the Governor have struggled over confirmations of Board members. Different geographic districts and economic interests have always felt they were slighted and not proportionately represented. This legislation would go a long way to decrease these problems as well as save money. SENATOR HOFFMAN asked under the definition of "no vested economic interest in the fishery" does that include a subsistence fisherman? MR. ERICKSON replied that hadn't been addressed, yet. There is a similar question regarding sports fishermen. MICHAEL MARTIN said he was testifying to try to refocus the Legislature and the Governor in a direction that needs to be taken to resolve the issues facing the state. He said he is a third generation Alaska who has participated in the fisheries for the past 27 years and participated in the regulatory process as a Board of Fisheries member and Chairman and Joint Boards Chairman. It is clear that sports fishing, tourism, and commercial fishing are crucial to the present and future of Alaska's economic diversification, he stated. Subsistence is also important to this state. MR. MARTIN said this issue needs good planning by the management of our renewable resources. There are two main issues that have not been solved to the public's satisfaction - the False Pass interception of chums and the Cook Inlet sports fish/commercial fish allocations. These two issues have polarized the appointments to the Board. The polarization has also affected how the public perceives the Board process. The process is in jeopardy if these two issues are not resolved. People who are opposed to the Board process have deep concerns over the way the Board has allocated in the past, being dominated by commercial fishermen. When the Board was dominated by commercial fishermen, 90% of the allocation issues were between commercial fishermen. Commercial and sports fishermen have some common philosophical traits - you are either a terminal commercial fisherman, a terminal sportsman, or a mixed stock commercial fisherman or a mixed stock sports fisherman, or a mixture of both. The Board, dealing with commercial vs. commercial fisheries allocation, would use historical catches as a base for allocation. But taking historical catches of commercial harvest and compare it to historical sport fish harvest, sport fisheries would normally not have significant allocation. Without long term planning, he cautioned, the state would tear itself apart trying to deal with sports fisheries growth in a reactionary forum. He also believed that additional tools are needed when addressing allocation between sports and commercial fisheries. There is still a lack of information especially in the False Pass area. However, Board members have the responsibility to totally understand the issues at hand before voting on what will affect fellow Alaskans. He proposed that the Governor appoint qualified people from diverse regions who will accept the position without an agenda. Along with that, the legislature would confirm appointees with the same considerations. The Board should go back to a two year cycle and there should be a change in the ethics law as it applies to the Board of Fisheries and the Board of Game. The most important change would be that the Governor puts together a working group of past chairmen and vice chairmen. The group would be asked to come up with creative alternative solutions for current difficult issues that face the state. Number 283 SENATOR LEMAN said that with two recent appointees, at least 30 members of the Legislature had opposed confirmation mainly because of a vote that had just been taken on a difficult issue. Another proposal is that the person not be seated until after confirmation. MR. MARTIN replied that if you're a Board member who hasn't been confirmed and you are in a cycle in which a False Pass or Cook Inlet issue will come forth, you are guaranteed to have a difficult time with your confirmation. Those two issues are the main problems, he reiterated. He still felt it was the responsibility of the Board members "to vote the way they felt" on those issues with the information that is provided to them. Not having them vote before confirmation would rectify that problem. SENATOR LEMAN announced he was putting SB 49 into a subcommittee with himself as chairman with Senator Pearce and Senator Hoffman. Number 249 DON JOHNSON, Soldotna fisherman, supported the bill in general, but he thought changing the number of Board members from seven to three was unrealistic and having the chairman picked by the Governor was a bad idea. The people working on the Board should be able to determine who they work with best. However, he thought it possible to have lay people without fishing interests as Board members and thought it was a good idea because then they would be totally unbiased. He feels very uncomfortable with people who have a prejudice against him up front. SENATOR LEMAN asked him if he was a guide on the Kenai River? MR. JOHNSON answered that he was.