SB 303-BIG GAME GUIDE BOARD & SERVICES  CHAIR SCOTT OGAN announced SB 303 to be up for consideration. REPRESENTATIVE RALPH SAMUELS, Chairman, Legislative Budget and Audit Committee, explained that this bill is in response to an audit that came out in October that listed the problems that have resulted in the absence of the Big Game Commercial Services Board. Guides have been licensed since before statehood and they were regulated by a board from 1973 until the board sunsetted in 1995. The audit, which was requested in the previous Legislature, when it came out, it gave a number of issues and concerns that have not been addressed. You should have a copy of the audit in your packet. The first one was a lack of the ability of the Department of Community & Economic Development (DCED) to coordinate with all the state and federal agencies required in an industry such as the guide industry.... Some of the agencies that are involved in the discussion are the Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G), Department of Public Safety (DPS), Department of Natural Resources (DNR), Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and the Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED); and on a federal level, Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the Forest Service (USFS), U.S. Fish and Wildlife, the Park Service, the Coast Guard and the FAA. The second thing the audit noted was a lessening of ethical standards with the disappearance of the board that was not adopted into the statute. A lack of a detailed operating standards for guides, a weaker focus on hunter safety.... Another point in the audit was a diminished disciplinary climate for unsafe, unethical or even illegal conduct. There are no ethics standards to steer how guides or transporters conduct business. It needs a little direction from the department to address consumer complaints. Usually, their only recourse for a dissatisfied customer goes straight to litigation. Under the current system, there are no sanctions for multiple consumer complaints or game violations. Fines for infractions have been greatly reduced and the qualification exams are only for the registered guides, not for the assistant guides. It's been suggested that these issues could be addressed by the department and without a board. However, after meeting with a lot of the players that are involved, it seems apparent that the department would have a hard time solving all these problems alone. If they could have, they probably would have in the past 10 years. The reestablishment of the board would provide a more accessible public forum to address the problems that face the hunting industry, its interaction with hunters and the various private and public land managers. We are a world-class hunting destination. People spend a lifetime of savings to come up here to go hunting and we should protect both our reputation and the resource. In practical terms, the bill does three things. It moves responsibilities from the department to the board; it changes the term from guide to guide outfitter - we had a hearing two hours ago in House Resources and that was one of the concerns that came up that we should identify.... Before the next hearing, we will come up with a way to better define the combining of the guide and the outfitter term. It also raised potential fines from $1,000 to $5,000.... CHAIR OGAN said it was late in the day and he wanted to give priority to people who had flown in to testify. He didn't intend to move the bill today. MR. RON SOMERVILLE, member, Board of Game, noted the March 2003 letter from the board asking leadership to examine the possibility of reinstituting a commercial services board. In some areas of Alaska, the perception exists that some hunters are being dumped and not picked up. The Board of Game does not have any authority over transporter activities and supports a commercial services board that would exude some control over them. Currently if there is a biological problem, the Board of Game has to either initiate some sort of reduction that applies to locals and non-locals alike or initiate aircraft closures, which hurt locals and the legitimate guiding programs that rely heavily on aircraft. "It creates all sorts of ripple effects when the board takes those sorts of actions. I want to stress that, because from the board's standpoint, that is a major problem." He said economic opportunity exists for residents of the Bush and the state in general to derive some benefit if changes are made. The proposed board would provide focus, motivation, expertise and development of a performance ethic, which is drastically lacking right now. It would provide enforcement and a forum for resolving conflicts and maintain reporting requirements. Finally, a new board would add impetus for creation of training mechanisms for people in rural Alaska, which was being attempted before it was eliminated. Also, it's critical to have some sort of reporting requirement for commercial transporters taking big game hunters to a remote area. SENATOR RALPH SEEKINS asked if someone has hunted rabbits for the last two years in Alaska, could they be an assistant guide to hunt grizzly bears in reference to language on page 8, line 2, under requirements to have an assistant guide. MR. SOMERVILLE replied that would be theoretically possible. He added that a training program could include first aide, how to skin a big game animal, preservation of trophies and things a big game guide should know. SENATOR SEEKINS said if he was spending the big bucks to go hunting and had an assistant guide who didn't know the big game animal he was hunting, he would feel a little bit gypped. MR. SOMERVILLE replied that a class A assistant guide has to book through a registered guide who would be responsible for making sure the assistant guide had the necessary help in the field. SENATOR SEEKINS said in reinstating the board, he wanted to make sure qualifications were at a reasonable level or tighten them up before rather than later. CHAIR OGAN informed him that he was on the Big Game Commercial Services Board before he was in the Legislature and helped Senator Halford rewrite the law. At that time, taking away testing for assistant guides was favored because a lot of rural Alaskans couldn't take a test, but made really fine guides. A registered guide is legally responsible for the mistakes that the assistant under his supervision makes in the field. It's like he did it himself. And I don't think there's any other profession where if you're a doctor and your nurse does something criminal, you go to jail for what your nurse did.... The committee decided to let the guides make the judgment call. SENATOR SEEKINS asked if someone is convicted of a violation based on state statutes and then transported illegally, wouldn't that be a better to say that than language on page 10, lines 23 -24, which says, "(1) is convicted of a violation of a state statute or regulation relating to hunting or to provision of big game hunting services or transportation services;". MR. SOMERVILLE replied that the board hadn't dealt with that particular question, but he agreed that some provision could be made for the board to revoke a license if a person had been convicted of any major federal law. CHAIR OGAN related a case when federal agents caught some hunters killing wolves and the board took their licenses for one year. "So, there has been some history in the past for doing that." SENATOR SEEKINS had a question on page 16, section (b), about whether another guide area could be added to areas that needed more intensive management. He suggested inserting, "unless otherwise provided by law" to facilitate that. CHAIR OGAN and Mr. Somerville thought that was a good suggestion. MR. JOE KLUTSCH, Alaska Professional Hunters Association, said he is a registered master guide and has been involved in the guiding industry for over 30 years. When he was an assistant guide in the early '70s, he attended the very first guide board meetings and attended them until the Owsichek decision. He helped the Legislature recreate a commercial service board. In other words, he has some historical knowledge of this process. CHAIR OGAN stated for the record that the Owsichek decision took away exclusive guide use areas. The state took away the guide board and created the Big Game Commercial Services Board that wrote regulations that redefined and redrew the guide use areas. MR. KLUTSCH said the Association represents the majority of the active full-time contracting guides in the state and the vast majority of members support the reestablishment of a Commercial Service Board. We see the board and the board process as a great forum for interaction between the members of the industry, both guiding and transporting, and the various agencies, state and federal. It's an open forum; it's a public forum and it's really the type of situation where you get an active dialogue. You can't do these kinds of things in communications, either e- mails, conference calls or a few phone calls from all different directions, and count on regulations being developed administratively. It just doesn't work; it's too sluggish. All the respective agencies, in particular state and federal, are confused and disconnected about what each other is doing and that's really caused us some problems in the last five years. In absence of the board, we've had a lack of responsiveness in enforcement of existing statutes and regulations. We're left over with some bits and pieces of statutes and regs that were there prior to sunsetting. Public safety is at a loss to enforce a lot of the existing statutes and regulations. There have been no enforcement actions to my knowledge in the last five years related to ethics, misrepresentation of services, reimbursement of money for services not provided, unethical conduct. It just hasn't been there and it's been very harmful to the reputation of this industry and the state.... MR. KLUTSCH said that Representative Samuels did an excellent job of outlining the inter-relationships between the various agencies and also the justifications for recreating the board. However, he underscored this message for the committee: The guiding industry in particular does not want to see any regulatory board create more regulations or unnecessary regulations.... We want clear and concise statutes and regulations that can be enforced.... He also agreed with Senator Seekins' comments and that this is a critical juncture. CHAIR OGAN took a minute to clarify that he wasn't a big fan of creating more boards and, in fact, wanted to get rid of a whole bunch of them, but he felt this board would be self-supporting. He asked Mr. Klutsch what gave him comfort that a new regulatory board wouldn't write regulations. MR. KLUTSCH conceded the point and said the last thing guides want to see is additional unnecessary regulations. But, as circumstances evolve, land use patterns change, management objectives change, we need a degree of flexibility and a board has that flexibility. We'll be there to participate in the process. We will hopefully have knowledgeable members from all sectors of the commercial service industry represented on the board, members of the public and lots of input from the respective agencies, state and federal. SENATOR SEEKINS asked if his experience with the period of autonomy that has existed until now has been good or bad. MR. KLUTSCH replied: It's had a negative effect not having a board there to be able to adjust regulations where they are unclear as it relates to the driving statutes about who can do what, about reporting requirements, about disciplinary actions, about coordinating with the federal agencies. It's had a very negative effect. The quality of visitor services - we're a key component of Alaska's tourism industry. And Alaska's reputation for having quality big game hunting is slipping relative to Canada and other destinations in the world. I attribute it directly to proper and concise regulations. SENATOR SEEKINS asked if he thought this board would do a good job for the people of Alaska in general and that it's not a capitulation to big game guides and their out-of-state clients. MR. KLUTSCH observed that as another good point and reasoned, "If we're well regulated, resident hunters benefit, subsistence hunters benefit, wildlife viewers benefit. If it's done properly, it benefits everyone." SENATOR WAGONER said a prevalent problem in the last several years is that transporters take people out, especially in Prince William Sound, and drop them off on an island or beach and then pick them up sometimes many days after they said they would return. He hoped this board would put some controls on that, because one of these days lives would be lost. MR. KLUTSCH righteously agreed. He explained that a serious problem associated with those transporting activities is lack of compliance with reporting requirements. The intent of the required form is to provide accountability - that everyone has a license, proper tags and when they are picked up, how many pounds of meat they brought out, its condition, etc. "They are required, if things are out of order, to report it to [the Department of] Public Safety." He related that a transporter in the King Salmon area admitted to turning in at least a half dozen of his moose clients. "It works. It takes enforcement." CHAIR OGAN commiserated that wasting meat in the field is the number one issue in rural Alaska. He's heard of racks coming in with just the backstrap. SENATOR SEEKINS said he didn't live in rural Alaska, but felt offended, as well. MR. PAUL JOHNSON, Alaska guide, said he had been in the business for over 30 years. He pointed out that the guiding industry had never asked the Legislature for loans, advertising or disaster relief. What we're asking for here is reasonable regulations and a board back. We have an opportunity in this state to save some industry here so that guiding will be here for a long time. MR. JOHNSON said that Alaska guides are competing in a global market. People who come to our state have the opportunity to go to a lot of other places and that won't continue to happen "unless we clean it up." A lot of things have fallen through the cracks since a board existed. There has been a big changeover in administrators and there is no collective history. There's confusion on enforcement, there's confusion within the Department of Fish and Game on getting information - they can't get, can't retrieve - complete confusion over definitions - that weren't there before. He agreed with the issues that Mr. Somerville and Senator Seekins raised and emphasized that state agencies aren't coordinated among themselves or with the federal agencies. A new board could solve those problems. "So, it actually saves money. It can't be seen right on top." MR. JOHNSON said the original task force, led by Henry Springer, was working when it was sunsetted; then the whole thing collapsed. He repeated, "The whole thing has collapsed.... We desperately need this. I think this is a shot in our arm that has to happen...." MR. MATT ROBUS, Director, Division of Wildlife Conservation, Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADF&G), said he had met with the Department of Community & Economic Development (DCED) and Department of Public Safety (DPS), but they hadn't come to a consensus position, yet. He wanted to emphasize the importance of this issue to be considered by the Legislature. It's been apparent over the years since the guide board has gone away, in working between my department and the Board of Game, how much of a struggle it is for that regulatory entity to get any traction on some of these issues that we're discussing here. The powers given to the Board of Game are for biological management and while the board, with information provided by the department, can be and is pretty effective in dealing with biological problems, when it comes to allocation between user groups, things become very difficult, because the tools in the Board of Game tool box really aren't the right tools to address that problem. Unless there is a biological problem to be solved, it's really not possible for the department and the Board of Game to allocate between different user groups that may be having conflicts because they use resources in a different way and they get crosswise with each other. Largely we're talking about conflicts between local rural users in the Bush and non-local users, both non-residents and non-local Alaskans who come into the area on top of local patterns of hunting. Oftentimes those conflicts are really conflicts, but they don't occur at a level where there's a biological problem that needs to be solved. Therefore, the Board of Game really can't go there. If there is a biological problem, then the tools that the Board of Game has can be effective in conserving the resource, but they are pretty draconian if you're one of the user groups that get taken out of the picture.... TAPE 04-13, SIDE A  MR. ROBUS said the Board of Game has attempted to deal with some of the conflicts and in most cases has backed away from any final action: It gets so convoluted and so draconian that the cure is almost worse than the problem that we're trying to address. As I said, it would be a complimentary power to improve the regulation of the guiding industry and the transporting industry. I'll also make the point that the transporting industry is an extremely important part of the problem and so far has not been very much in the regulatory picture. The final thing I'll say is just to point out that over recent years, because of the state's inability to allocate between different user groups, we have lost more and more of the wildlife management authority to federal agencies on federal lands, because those agencies do allocate between guides, transporters, private hunters, federally qualified subsistence users - and, in some cases that I could name in Southeast Alaska, for instance, when it came time for the state to try to sort out some of those problems, we were unable to do it. Federal agencies were able to and willing to do it. Therefore, federal management is really, in effect, where state management has not been able to cope. So, for all those reasons, the Department of Fish and Game feels that this is a subject that really does require some attention from you and we will continue working with the other departments to try to come to a consensus position as soon as we can. SENATOR SEEKINS asked, "In other words then, the department says something along this line would be beneficial to your ability to manage the fish and game resources of the State of Alaska." MR. ROBUS replied that was a good way to put it. "Wildlife management in the big sense is more than just solving the biological problems; it's also people management." CHAIR OGAN asked him to talk a little bit about the difference between state and federal management and why federal management was able to differentiate between users more than the state could. MR. ROBUS replied: In Southeast Alaska, with the proliferation of big game guides, mostly for the purposes of hunting brown bear on the ABC Islands and now on the mainland in Southeast, the Forest Service put a moratorium on additional guides joining in just because agencies were trying to solve how the existing number of guides was going to be allowed to operate. On tidelands around the fringe of those federal areas there is still the ability to go in and participate as a guide or transporter under state law. So, the proliferation can continue and the state, basically, is unable to regulate that. I'm not saying the use needs to be prevented, but there does need to be some reasonable regulation and control. The federal agencies have the power to distinguish and decide of all the people who want to be a guide on federal land, they can choose a subset and authorize them to hunt and keep the numbers of guides down to a level that the resource and people interactions can reasonably support. The only way the state could do something similar would be to go to a drawing permit for those brown bears and devastate the guide industry. Because now, instead of being able to agree with a client that you're going to go hunting together and get that person a permit, you would have to go through a drawing process with no certainty that any of your clients would ever end up with a permit.... CHAIR OGAN asked if that was because the feds don't have an Owsichek-type decision. MR. ROBUS replied yes, the feds don't have anything like that, but he is not expert enough in federal authorities to know why they can do what they do. MR. ROB HARDY, Wasilla registered guide, pointed out paragraph 3 of the sponsor statement that says, "Wildlife populations would benefit from more coordinated enforcement of existing laws." He thought that idea could be accommodated more interdepartmentally. He said the key point is when someone today said "if done properly," referring to reinstituting the Big Game Commercial Services Board. He didn't think the board alone would be able to accomplish what people thought it would. He felt that having a 20-day timeframe for reporting violations (in HB 422) is unacceptable. If he were to witness a violation in his own operation, he would report it immediately so the enforcement could happen efficiently. He feared that recreating the board could possibly, if not probably, result in further liberalization of industry regulation. "In closing, I would like to say that this legislation as written does not have to happen on this watch." MR. HENRY WEBB, Staff to Representative Samuels, sponsor, said the representative had to catch a plane, but would look at the transporter and guide outfitter language and consider Mr. Somerville's and Senator Seekins' concerns. CHAIR OGAN called it a day and adjourned the meeting at 5:25 p.m.