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ACMP gridlock continues in Legislature Second special session fails to materialize as House, Senate leadership can’t reach agreement on Alaska Coastal Management Program Kristen Nelson Petroleum News
Hopes of a quick special session starting May 31 to pass an Alaska Coastal Management Program bill faded as House and Senate leadership said May 29 that they had, once again, failed to reach agreement on extending the program.
The 1972 federal Coastal Zone Management Act created an option for states to participate, and Alaska’s program was established in 1979, giving coastal areas a voice in state permitting of development and giving the state a voice in federal coastal zone decisions.
Industries trying to work in coastal areas became frustrated by the program and in 2003, under Gov. Frank Murkowski, a number of changes were made in the program, including elimination of a coastal policy council. The division in charge of the program had been in the governor’s office but was moved to the Department of Natural Resources and the 2003 legislation centralized authority for the program with the DNR commissioner.
Coastal communities have argued ever since that they have been stripped of a meaningful voice in ACMP decisions.
Because of action the Legislature took in 2005, ACMP terminates at the end of June unless extended. Gov. Sean Parnell proposed extending the existing program. An audit by the Division of Legislative Audit found problems with the program, but recommended extension.
After much negotiation the administration, House members, coastal districts and affected industries reached agreement on changes to the program, reinstituting a coastal policy council with local representation and making a number of other changes. The bill passed the House 40-0 at the end of the first regular session.
The House bill was included in the governor’s call for the first special session.
The Senate amended the bill, but the House, by a vote of 17 yea, 20 nay, failed to concur with the Senate changes. A conference committee was appointed.
The conference committee approved one major change, inserting definitions eliminated in the Senate version.
The House took two votes, but failed by one vote to concur with the conference committee version, which the Senate later approved.
Conference committee version The Senate Bipartisan Working Group said in a May 29 statement that it was ready to go into special session on ACMP, but only if the House agreed to accept the conference committee version of the bill. Senate leadership cited unanimous support for the compromise by the conference committee, calling it the “best compromise to keep the program alive and protect Alaska’s best interests.”
“We are concerned about this program. There are very high stakes if this program disappears,” Senate President Gary Stevens, R-Kodiak, said in a statement. “The Senate believes this compromise fully meets the needs of the parties on both sides of the debate.”
The Senate majority said the conference committee compromise “includes seven major items that were important for the program to succeed including a clarification of the definition of local knowledge versus scientific evidence, removal for cause from the Coastal Management Board, a six-year sunset clause and a requirement for a second report on the status of the program to be made in four years.”
The conference committee The three Senate members of the conference committee were Sens. Donny Olson, D-Golovin, Bill Wielechowski, D-Anchorage, and Albert Kookesh, D-Angoon, all members of the Senate Bipartisan Working Group.
House members were Reps. Craig Johnson, R-Anchorage, Bob Herron, D-Bethel, and Beth Kerttula, D-Juneau. Johnson, who chairs the House Rules Committee, chaired the conference committee. Herron, along with other Bush Democrats, is a member of the House Majority Republican caucus.
Of a number of items proposed for discussion, the conference committee agreed on one change, reinserting definitions of local knowledge and scientific evidence similar to language in the House version, but removing a portion of the definitions which said scientific evidence would trump local knowledge and inserting elsewhere in the bill a requirement that DNR “address conflicts between local knowledge and scientific knowledge by determining the relative strengths of the scientific evidence and the evidence supporting the local knowledge, and render a written decision.”
The conference committee recommendation was unanimous, but Johnson led the fight against the conference committee report on the House floor. The House voted 20 to 15 in favor of the conference committee report, a vote shy of the 21 votes required for concurrence. The Senate voted 14 to 4 in favor, easily meeting its 11-vote requirement for concurrence.
Bill failed twice In a May 29 statement House Majority leader Mike Chenault, R-Nikiski, said the Alaska Senate failed to agree to a compromise with five original Senate “must-haves.”
“Why would we go back into special session to vote on something that was twice failed by the House on the last day of the special session?” Chenault asked. “We offered a compromise with five changes the Senate originally wanted and we were prepared to go with those, but the conference committee report was not acceptable to House members.”
Chenault said there was no sense in House members going back to Juneau to take up a bill the House already voted down.
The House Majority statement said legislators and staff had been working on an ACMP compromise, using Senate Bill 56 as the vehicle because House Bill 106 died in special session.
House Minority Leader Beth Kerttula, D-Juneau, said in a May 29 statement that the state’s elected officials are not working together “to resolve issues for Alaska’s benefit.”
She called the coastal zone program “essential if Alaska is to have any say in planning federal projects off Alaska’s coast.”
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