Alaska Administrative Code › Title 5 - Fish and Game › Part 6 - Fish and Game Advisory Committees and Adoption of Fish and Game Regulations › Chapter 96 - Local Fish and Game Advisory Committees and Adoption of Fish and Game Regulations › Article 5 - Adoption of Fish and Game Regulations › 5 AAC 96.625 - Joint board petition policy

Current through May 31, 2024
(a) Under
				  AS
				  44.62.220, an interested person may petition
				  an agency, including the Boards of Fisheries and Game, for the adoption,
				  amendment, or repeal of a regulation. The petition must clearly and concisely
				  state the substance or nature of the regulation, amendment, or repeal
				  requested, the reason for the request, and must reference the agency's
				  authority to take the requested action. Within 30 days after receiving a
				  petition, a board will deny the petition in writing, or schedule the matter for
				  public hearing under
				  AS
				  44.62.190-44.62.210,
				  which require that any agency publish legal notice describing the proposed
				  change and solicit comment for 30 days before taking action.
				  AS
				  44.62.230 also provides that if the petition
				  is for an emergency regulation, and the agency finds that an emergency exists,
				  the agency may submit the regulation to the lieutenant governor immediately
				  after making the finding of emergency and putting the regulation into proper
				  form.
(b) Fish and game regulations
				  are adopted by the Alaska Board of Fisheries and the Alaska Board of Game.
				  Annually, the boards solicit regulation changes through regulatory proposals
				  described in 5 AAC 96.610(a). Several hundred proposed changes are usually
				  submitted to each board annually. The Department of Fish and Game compiles the
				  proposals and mails them to all fish and game advisory committees and to other
				  interested individuals.
(c) Copies
				  of all proposals are available at local Department of Fish and Game offices and
				  on the boards support section's website. When the proposal books are available,
				  the advisory committees hold public meetings in the communities and regions
				  they represent, to gather local comment on the proposed changes. Finally, the
				  boards convene public meetings, which have lasted as long as six weeks, taking
				  department staff reports, public comment, and advisory committee reports before
				  voting in public session on the proposed changes.
(d) The public has come to rely on this
				  regularly scheduled participatory process as the basis for changing fish and
				  game regulations. Commercial fishermen, processors, guides, trappers, hunters,
				  sport fishermen, subsistence fishermen, and others plan business and
				  recreational ventures around the outcome of these public meetings.
(e) The Boards of Fisheries and Game
				  recognize the importance of public participation in developing management
				  regulations, and recognize that public reliance on the predictability of the
				  normal board process is a critical element in regulatory changes. The boards
				  find that petitions received under (a) of this section can detrimentally
				  circumvent this process and that an adequate and more reasonable opportunity
				  for public participation is provided by regularly scheduled meetings.
(f) The Boards of Fisheries and Game
				  recognize that in rare instances circumstances may require regulatory changes
				  outside the process described in (b) - (d) of this section.It is the policy of
				  the boards that a petition will be denied and not scheduled for hearing unless
				  the problem outlined in the petition justifies a finding of emergency under AS
				  44.62.250(a). In accordance with state policy expressed in AS 44.62.270,
				  emergencies will be held to a minimum and are rarely found to exist. Except for
				  petitions dealing with subsistence hunting or subsistence fishing, an emergency
				  is an unforeseen, unexpected event that either threatens a fish or game
				  resource, or an unforeseen, unexpected resource situation where a biologically
				  allowable resource harvest would be precluded by delayed regulatory action and
				  such delay would be significantly burdensome to the petitioners because the
				  resource would be unavailable in the future. Petitions dealing with subsistence
				  hunting or subsistence fishing will be evaluated under these criteria:
(1) the petition must address a fish or game
				  population that has not previously been considered by the board for
				  identification as a population customarily and traditionally used for
				  subsistence under AS 16.05.258; or
(2)
				   the circumstances of the petition otherwise must require
				  expedited consideration by the board, such as where the proposal is the result
				  of a court decision or is the subject of federal administrative action that
				  might impact state same management authority.