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House Passes Board of Fish Meetings Bill
HB 216 Clarifies Commissioner's Emergency Order Authority

(JUNEAU) - The House today passed a bill that would clarify the fish and game commissioner's ability to issue commercial fishing openings, and that would require the state Board of Fish to show scientific justification before considering changing its meeting agenda.

Sponsored by the House Resources Committee, House Bill 216 would clarify state law authorizing the commissioner of the Department of Fish and Game to issue emergency openings to let commercial fishermen target an unanticipated, harvestable surplus of fish, even if management plans established by the state Board of Fish would hinder such harvest.

HB 216 would also place into statute current regulations that allow the Board of Fish to take up proposed changes to its meeting agenda more frequently than under the normal three-year rotation, only if the Department of Fish and Game concurs that there is a conservation concern, said Rep. Drew Scalzi (R-Homer), co-chair of the House Resources Committee.

"Currently the Board of Fish can take up anything if they declare a conservation concern," Scalzi said. "It's very subjective, and there's some risk that this discretion could be misused. This bill simply requires some scientific justification by requiring the department to issue a finding that conservation is actually an issue. It takes the politics out of the Board of Fish, and makes such decisions much easier for them."

HB 216 arose in response to situations such as occurred in August of 2000 in which an unanticipated surge of 20 million pink salmon appeared in Cook Inlet at the same time the state's silver salmon management plan for the Inlet blocked all commercial fishing, Scalzi said. It took nine days for fishermen to petition the commissioner for an emergency opening, the commissioner to defer to the Board of Fish, the board to meet and reject the petition, and then meet again to hear a second petition. By that time most of the pinks had escaped upstream and were lost to fishermen.

"House Bill 216 would allow the commissioner to deviate from a management plan when there's a biological, allowable resource harvest that would otherwise be delayed and be unavailable in the future," Scalzi said. "This is a very simple adjustment to the Board of Fish process."

HB 216 moves next to the Senate for consideration.

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