HRES-260515-1300

Good afternoon. This meeting of the House Resources Committee will now come to order. It is now 1:52 PM Friday, May 15th, 2026, in Capitol Room 124. Members Present are Representative Fields, Representative Hall, Representative Mears, Representative Elam, Representative Sadler, Co-Chair Freer, and myself, Co-Chair Representative Daibert. Please let the record reflect that we have a quorum to conduct business.

Please take this time to silence your cell phones for the duration of the meeting. Thank you so much. I'd like to thank Cheryl Cole from Records and Renzo Moises from the Juneau LAA. Juno LIO for staffing the room today. Thank you so much.

Today we will have Senate Bill 208 from Representative— Senator Bjorkman on agricultural land leases. This is a companion bill to House Bill 296 from Vice Chair Mears that we heard last week. To begin, we need to adopt the latest version of the bill. That passed from the Senate. Do I have a motion?

Thank you, Co-Chair Dybert. I move that the House Resources Committee adopt the CS Senate Bill 208 work order number 34-LS0832/L as our working document. Thank you, Co-Chair Fearr. And let the record reflect that we have been joined by Representative Kahloum at 1:54 PM. I will object for purposes of discussion Senator Bjorkman's staff, Ms. Atchie, please come forward, introduce yourself for the record, and walk us through the bill and any changes in the CS.

Welcome. Thank you very much, Co-Chair Dybert. Um, essentially last week this committee heard the companion legislation, House Bill 296, which was sponsored by Vice Chair Mears and was presented to the committee. What you have just done is updated the Senate version to match what you heard last week. So there's no changes between now as of adopting this CS.

There's no changes between the House and Senate version. Okay, with the changes explained by Ms. Atchey, I'm going to remove my objection to adopting the CS. Is there any further objection to adopting the CS? Seeing none, the CS has been adopted. Ms. Atchey, do you have any additional information on the bill you'd like to share with the committee this afternoon?

Madam Co-Chair, no additional information. I'm happy to provide a really brief recap if you'd like, and we do also have the subject matter experts that were present last Friday available online today as well. Thank you. Not for testimony because you've already heard them, but to answer any questions you may have. I will look to the committee.

Any questions for Ms. Ache? Okay, seeing none, I think we're ready to move on. Um, I would entertain a motion to move the bill from committee. Uh, thank you, Co-Chair Dybert. I move Senate Bill Work Order 34-LS0832/L as amended from committee with individual recommendations and attached fiscal notes.

Is there any objection? Seeing none, committee substitute for Senate Bill 208 passes from committee.

We will now go at ease while members sign the committee report. Brief at ease.

Back on the record, House Resources. We are— and before we begin our wrap-up, I would like for the record to welcome Representative Prox at 2 o'clock. Good afternoon. Welcome. And you're just in time for the final comments.

This very well could be our final House Resources Committee meeting of the 34th Legislature. I want to thank every member of this committee and your staff for your hard work, thoughtful participation, and long hours. This session. I know House Bill 381 took up a significant amount of this committee's time, but I'm incredibly proud of the work this committee did on that bill and the version we passed from the committee. We tackled difficult issues, asked tough questions, and I learned a lot along the way.

And I just appreciate really learning a lot about your communities that you represent. I really appreciate that, helping me understand Alaska at a deeper level. I also want to give special thank you to our committee aides, which are Sarah Snowberger to my left and Calvin Zulo, for all their work behind the scenes to keep this committee running smoothly throughout this entire session. And thank you as well to the LIO staff, Renzo and Cheryl. Thank you for your— for keeping the room running smoothly the last 2 years.

It's been truly an honor to serve with all of you. I would like to pass the mic over to my co-chair, Representative Freer, for any closing comments you may have. Thank you, Co-Chair Dibert. Well, I didn't prepare anything, but I just want to thank the committee. I think that we've done a lot of hard work and our coach— er, our our committee aides, the LIO, records, all of your help, committee members.

We had a change mid-session, but I appreciate all of the insight that all of you have, the knowledge and experience that all of you have. We've got an engineer, an individual who worked in DNR for a long time. We've got a lot of experience in this room, and I think that we did a lot of really great work.

And I think we accomplished a lot. It's been an honor to serve as a co-chair of Resources for the last 2 years and hope to be back here next year. And so I just want to say thank you all for everything.

Thank you, Co-chair Freer. And any other final comments? Looking to the committee. That completes— thank you all so much. Thank you.

That completes the agenda for our House Resources Committee meeting today. The time is 2:02 PM, and this hearing from the House Resources Committee is now adjourned. Thank you very much. Anabaasi.