HB 357 FISH & GAME:LICENSES & RESIDENCY  CHAIRMAN LEMAN called the Senate Resources Committee meeting to order at 3:55 p.m. and announced HB 357 to be up for consideration. LINDA DAHL, Staff to Representative Scott Ogan, said HB 357 simplifies the enforcement of residency requirements for hunting, trapping, and non-commercial fishing licenses. It will reduce the number of non-residents who use loopholes in current State residency laws to hunt trap and fish Alaska's resources. MS. DAHL said this bill addresses the concerns of ADF&G, Department of Law, and Department of Public Safety. The definition of residency was separated into two separate subsections for clarification purposes. Passage of HB 357 could increase revenue annually by thousands of dollars in relationship to current statistics of non-residents in terms of licenses, game tags, and hunting fees for guides. SENATOR LEMAN noted the problem they have is on page 2, lines 12 - 16 with the definition of who is a member of the military being consistent within State statutes. MS. DAHL said they would work at making it consistent. SENATOR LEMAN asked her to work on it until next week and bring it back to the committee as a CS. SENATOR TAYLOR asked what was the purpose for the extensive residency and domicile redefinitions within the bill. MS. DAHL explained that the phrase "permanent place of abode" has been deleted and replaced with "a person's domicile." The two main reasons for this are requiring a permanent place of abode is unduly restrictive and unnecessary to prevent non-residents from obtaining resident privileges in the State. If a person is forced to move from one location to another around the State due to their work commitment they may not satisfy the residency requirement because they have not maintained a permanent place of abode. The second reason for this change is because the term "abode" is not defined in statute. The lack of strict legal definition creates enforcement problems. Black's Law Dictionary says that a person may have two places of residence as in the city and the country, but only one domicile. Residence means living in a particular locality, but domicile means living in that locality with intent to make it a fixed permanent home. They think that replacing "a permanent place of abode" with "domicile" makes it clearer that the legislature intended only those who are domiciled in the State are entitle to residency and licensing. SENATOR TAYLOR asked about the young people who had left the State and are attending college. MS. DAHL replied she thought they would be considered residents. SENATOR LEMAN thought the same. CAPTAIN RICHARD GRAHAM, Division of Fish and Wildlife Protection, said the guidelines under regulation say that people can travel to and from the State and still maintain their fish and game residency. They look at when they are out of State and what they do to maintain their residency in the State during that time frame. The Board's regulations allows them to look at licenses, voter registration, maintaining property, household goods, where the family is physically located; and it allows them to look at whether or not the person has established residency or is receiving residency privileges in another state, which is the one they look at most closely. SENATOR LEMAN said that was consistent with their intent. CAPTAIN GRAHAM said they support the bill and he noted that they added the U.S. Coast Guard to the list of military organizations to which they extend certain residency and license privileges. SENATOR TAYLOR commented that he thought that requiring people to register to vote to then receive the benefit of a residency classification might be violating their rights. He asked him to work with Representative Ogan regarding his concerns with university children, people who may be off on some mission or volunteer work in Vista or the Peace Corps, and congressional staff. CAPTAIN GRAHAM asked if he wanted to expand certain job categories to allow people residency privileges in another state or country as well as keep their Alaska residency. SENATOR TAYLOR said he didn't intend that at all. He didn't want to confuse the residency definition. SENATOR LEMAN asked if anyone else wanted to testify on HB 357. No one responded and he said they would work on it and bring it up on April 10.