Opinion ID: 1138725
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: do alaska's subsistence laws violate article viii of the alaska constitution?

Text: Appellants challenge the constitutionality of the state subsistence laws under three clauses of article VIII of the Alaska Constitution, sections 3 (common use), 15 (no exclusive right of fisheries), and 17 (equal application of laws). [7] The court attributes a shared meaning to these three constitutional provisions: that exclusive or special privileges to take fish and wildlife are prohibited. The court then concludes that the subsistence statute's preference for rural residents violates each of the aforementioned clauses and offends the shared meaning of article VIII. I disagree.
Article VIII, section 3 (the common use clause) is derived from laws designed to guarantee the common citizen participation in wildlife harvest, and to divest the Crown of exclusive entitlement to those resources. [8] It is said that this public trust doctrine [9] impose[s] upon the state a trust duty to manage the fish, wildlife and water resources of the state for the benefit of all the people. Owsichek v. State, 763 P.2d 488, 495 (Alaska 1988) (citations omitted); see also Metlakatla Indian Community, Annette Island Reserve v. Egan, 362 P.2d 901, 905 (Alaska 1961), aff'd, 369 U.S. 45, 82 S.Ct. 552, 7 L.Ed.2d 562 (1962); Herscher v. State, Dep't of Commerce, 568 P.2d 996, 1003 (Alaska 1977). In State v. Ostrosky, 667 P.2d 1184 (Alaska 1983), reh'g denied, 468 U.S. 1204, 104 S.Ct. 3572, 82 L.Ed.2d 871 (1984), we accepted the view that the common use clause reflects anti-exclusionist values. Id. 667 P.2d at 1191. Thereafter, in Owsichek v. State, 763 P.2d 488 (Alaska 1988), a case involving an exclusive right to conduct guided hunting in particular areas of wilderness, we reiterated this theme stating that section 3 is fundamentally anti-monopoly in its thrust. Id. at 493 (Because an EGA [exclusive guide area] is clearly a type of monopoly ... [legislative] history strongly suggests that the statutes at issue here are unconstitutional.). Critical to our holding that the guide licensing system at issue in Owsichek was unconstitutional under the common use clause were the following characteristics of the scheme: it permitted a single guide permanently to exclude all other guides from leading hunts professionally on specific lands; it favored established guides at the expense of new entrants in the guiding market; it created a salable, property-like interest in the license; and it established exclusivity of an unlimited duration. Id. at 496. In the case at bar the challenged subsistence laws exhibit none of these characteristics. The state subsistence laws establish a subsistence preference, not an exclusive, monopolistic, or otherwise closed class. Anyone may join subsistence users by moving to a sector of the state which has been designated as a rural area. Further, these laws do not establish subsistence hunting and fishing as an exclusive use, even in rural areas, except during periods of extreme resource scarcity. [10] In regard to this issue I think the court's reliance on Owsichek and Ostrosky is misplaced. Both Owsichek and Ostrosky emphasize that the primary thrust of article VIII is anti-exclusionist or anti-monopolistic, not anti-preferential. I do not read the statutes in question as providing that eligibility to participate in subsistence uses is determined solely with reference to where an individual lives. That is not the case. The subsistence laws at issue here are implemented by multi-factoral regulations which focus not only on place of residence, but also upon particular stocks and populations of fish and game, and particular patterns of subsistence usage. [11] Moreover, individual characteristics are always considered under the state subsistence law during lean periods when it becomes necessary to restrict even certain subsistence uses. In those periods, the determination as to which individuals among those normally eligible for a subsistence permit may continue harvesting is made on the basis of an analysis of individuals' characteristics under the following criteria: (1) customary and direct dependence on the resource as the mainstay of livelihood; (2) local residence; and (3) availability of alternative resources. AS 16.05.258(c). The court's interpretation of the common use clause would prohibit the legislature from making any differential allocation of natural resources whatsoever, an outcome precluded by our holding in Kenai Peninsula, 628 P.2d 897 (Alaska 1981) and the language of article VIII, section 4, which explicitly provides for preferences among beneficial uses. In Kenai, we held that [w]hile section 15 does prohibit granting monopoly fishing rights, that section was not meant to prohibit differential treatment of such diverse user groups as commercial, sport, and subsistence fisherman. 628 P.2d at 904 (emphasis added). Moreover, it is axiomatic that the provisions of article VIII of the Alaska Constitution should be interpreted so as to avoid internal contradictions. Abrams v. State, 534 P.2d 91, 95 (Alaska 1975) (It is an undisputed maxim of constitutional construction that the different provisions of the document shall be read so as to avoid conflict whenever possible); Park v. State, 528 P.2d 785, 786-87 (Alaska 1974) (It is a well accepted principle of judicial construction that, whenever reasonably possible, every provision of the Constitution should be given meaning and effect, and related provisions should be harmonized.). In my view the court's reading of article VIII, section 3 as prohibiting preferences among beneficial uses of Alaska's resources plainly conflicts with article VIII, section 4. That section provides, in full: Fish, forests, wildlife, grasslands, and all other replenishible resources belonging to the State shall be utilized, developed, and maintained on the sustained yield principle, subject to preferences among beneficial uses. (Emphasis added.) The intent of section 4 is that persons situated differently can be treated differently and that some users of a resource may legitimately be given preference over others. In brief, the common use clause constitutionalized the doctrine that wild fish and game are held in trust by the state for the benefit of the public as a whole, rather than by the sovereign in exclusive possession. That principle is consistent with the view that the sovereign state may manage wildlife for the common good, including certain beneficial preferences. Thus I conclude that the challenged subsistence laws do not offend the anti-monopolistic, anti-exclusionist values underpinning the public trust and common use doctrines embodied in section 3 of article VIII of Alaska's constitution.
I also disagree with the court's holding that the state subsistence law violates article VIII, section 15 (the no exclusive right clause). The court relies for its interpretation of the no exclusive right clause upon Hynes v. Grimes Packing Co., 337 U.S. 86, 69 S.Ct. 968, 93 L.Ed. 1231 (1949), a case in which the United States Supreme Court interpreted the federal legislation which governed Alaska's fisheries before statehood, former 48 U.S.C. §§ 221-224 (1941) (hereinafter The White Act). The White Act did include language seemingly prohibitive of the kind of geographic distinction at issue here. Section 1 of the White Act provides, in relevant part: [N]o exclusive or several right of fishery shall be granted ... nor shall any citizen of the United States be denied the right to take, prepare, cure, or preserve fish or shellfish in any area of the waters of Alaska where fishing is permitted by the Secretary of the Commerce. Act of June 6, 1924, Ch. 272, § 1, 43 stat. 464 (emphasis added). On the other hand, I disagree with the court's view that insofar as the White Act was expressly anti-geographic, section 15 should be given a similar construction. For in my opinion Hynes is distinguishable in several important respects. First, Hynes did not involve an allocation of fish and game on the basis of residence; rather, the exemption at issue there applied only to fish, and was predicated upon the users' status as Indians, not their place of residence. 337 U.S. at 89-97, 69 S.Ct. at 971-976. Second, Hynes involved an exclusive right of access which had been made available only to a closed class of fishermen. At issue in Hynes was a regulation of the Secretary of the Interior completely prohibiting commercial salmon fishing in all waters within 3,000 feet of the shores of the Karluk reservation, but exempting Native fishermen from this otherwise comprehensive ban. Id. Therefore, Hynes, like Owsichek, is distinguishable from the classification scheme at issue in the present case, since in the case at bar one may become eligible for subsistence permits by moving into a rural area. Finally, as noted previously, both article VIII, section 4 and Kenai Fisherman's establish that section 15 cannot be read to prohibit differential treatment of such diverse user groups as commercial, sport, and subsistence users.
Although section 17 (the equal application clause) is a component of article VIII, it is essentially, as the court states, a `more stringent ...' equal protection clause [for] ... cases involving natural resources. I will address these issues together.