Fish and Game plans to cut about 50 of its own rules by year's end

The Alaska Department of Fish and Game plans to eliminate about 50 of its own regulatory requirements by the end of the year, part of a statewide push to trim government rules that supporters call overdue streamlining and critics call a threat to oversight.

The department counts roughly 338 discretionary requirements in its regulations, and aims to bring that to about 288 this year. The target comes from an order Gov. Mike Dunleavy signed in 2025 directing every executive-branch agency to cut its regulatory requirements by 15 percent by the end of 2026 and 25 percent by the end of 2027. The order argues the state's regulatory system "has expanded over time, often adding layers of requirements without considering the burden imposed on Alaska's citizens and businesses."

Not everyone sees it that way. The conservation group Cook Inletkeeper called the order "a reckless and ill-conceived attempt to gut oversight of natural resources."

What Fish and Game is actually cutting, at least so far, is fairly modest and technical. The named repeals for this year include an annual survey of seafood processing capacity, a decades-unused allowance for foreign-flagged processing vessels, and a hatchery surcharge whose expiration date has already passed. Regulations set by the Boards of Fisheries and Game are counted separately, under each board's own plan.

The order does more than cut rules. It also tells Fish and Game and two other resource agencies to set firm permitting deadlines, with permits automatically approved if the state misses them. State commissioners told an Anchorage industry audience this month that some permits now clear in under a week.

Agencies are posting their reform plans on the state's public notice system, and the order requires them to publish stakeholder feedback along with their responses. Fish and Game's reform page is still taking written comment, and the Department of Environmental Conservation says every proposed change will go through a full public process. Quarterly progress reports go to the governor's office and have not been made public.