Opinion ID: 2569468
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The gear license requirement and the special circumstances provision

Text: The Limited Entry Act, enacted in 1973, is designed to promote the conservation and the sustained yield management of Alaska's fishery resource and the economic health and stability of commercial fishing in Alaska by regulating and controlling entry of participants and vessels into the commercial fisheries in the public interest and without unjust discrimination. [8] To this end, the Act restricts use of commercial fisheries to persons who have established economic dependence on the fishery by fishing while holding gear licenses. [9] The CFEC administers the Act by assigning points to applicants based on their past use of the fishery. [10] Those who score twenty points or higher (on a scale ranging from zero to forty) are entitled to permits. [11] Since 1973 a line of cases interpreting the Limited Entry Act has clarified the general requirements for obtaining a permit and the particular circumstances under which points can be awarded. In Isakson v. Rickey, [12] we held that a portion of the Act, codified in AS 16.43.260(a), denying permits to those who did not possess a gear license before January 1, 1973 violated the Equal Protection Clauses of both the Alaska and federal constitutions. As we noted, this requirement undercut one of the stated purposes of the Act by discriminating against many applicants who would be able to demonstrate substantial indicia of hardship as a result of their exclusion from commercial fishing. [13] As a result of this decision, the CFEC created a new class of applicants, composed of fishers who first obtained licenses in 1973 and 1974, and permitted these applicants to claim the gear license points necessary to obtain a permit. [14] In Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission v. Templeton, [15] we considered the question whether a fisher whose gear license was held in the name of a partner in 1971 and 1972 could claim gear license points. Templeton, who was a co-owner and operator of the fishing vessel, relied on a regulation allowing an applicant to claim up to ten points if special circumstances exist such that an applicant's income dependence is not realistically reflected by his income dependence percentage for the years 1971 and 1972. [16] Because allocating one permit between two partners solely on the fortuitous circumstances of which one held the gear license in two given years does not realistically weigh the relative hardship which each partner would suffer by denial of a permit, we affirmed the superior court's award of ten points for income dependence and an entry permit. [17] We clarified the Templeton holding in Kalmakoff v. State, Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission. [18] Kalmakoff, who sought a permit to fish in the Chignik purse seine fishery, had fished under another person's license in 1971 and 1972, but he had been a crew member rather than a co-owner of the boat. [19] We declined to extend Templeton's holding to crew members, noting that crew members were less likely to suffer hardship from being forbidden to fish than gear license holders or co-owners operating under a partner's gear license. [20]