SB 238-PUBLIC RECORDS: STATE SECURITY & SAFETY    CHAIRMAN JOHN COWDERY called the Senate Transportation Committee meeting to order at 1:38 p.m. and announced SB 238 to be up for consideration. Senators Ward, Elton, Wilken and Cowdery were present. MS. CAROL CARROLL, Department of Military and Veterans, said that Deborah Behr from the Department of Law would testify with her. MS. CARROLL said that SB 238 addresses state security and safety plans and procedures. She explained that Section 2 deals with exceptions to Alaska's public records statute. Currently, Alaska's public records statute is quite broad; most state information is available to the public. Section 2 will allow state agencies to withhold certain documents in certain circumstances. Section 3 pertains to the Administrative Procedures Act and allows plans to be adopted by Executive Order instead of by regulation, which requires public comment. CHAIRMAN COWDERY asked her to explain the changes made in the Senate State Affairs committee substitute. MS. CARROLL responded that the original bill had a section that allowed the Department of Transportation and Public Facilities (DOTPF) to have citation authority in international and rural airports. [Ms. Carroll's next statement was indiscernible.] Currently, the FAA can fine the states for security violations at international airports. There is no easy way for the state to pass that on to the actual violator so the State Affairs Committee took that out of the bill. In addition, Section 3 was tightened up. Section 3 used to apply to boards and commissions but the Senate State Affairs Committee thought that was too broad. CHAIRMAN COWDERY asked her to explain the type of information they are talking about. MS. DEBORAH BEHR, Regulations Attorney, Department of Law, told members that she is before the committee because she frequently advises state agencies on the public records act. She stated that Section 1 of the bill is designed to deal with a very narrow set of state records that deal with security plans, programs, procedures and detailed descriptions of state infrastructure. She explained: It allows those records, which arguably could be disclosed to the public, to be exempted from public disclosure. Just because something is a security plan, it doesn't automatically mean that a state agency can preclude its release into the public. We have to show that the disclosure would interfere with its implementation or that it would disclose confidential guidelines or would cause a substantial risk to the public to do so. The privilege in the bill is very similar to what law enforcement privileges are to law enforcement officers. The federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) has a national defense exception to it. We do not have a similar exemption in the state statute. People who believe that a state agency has unjustifiably withheld a record can ask for an administrative appeal on the issue and then ultimately go to court if they need to. CHAIRMAN COWDERY asked her to give an example of the kind of information that would be undesirable to be made public. MS. BEHR replied that an example might be a security system for a state building in which people wearing red badges on a certain day of the week were considered law enforcement officers and were not subject to the same level of search as the general public. In that case, the badge color of the day would not be disclosed to the general public. There being no further discussion, SENATOR ELTON moved to pass CSSB 238(STA) with the attached zero fiscal note from committee. There were no objections and it was so ordered.