SSTA-260514-1530

Okay, I'd like to call the Senate State Affairs Committee meeting to order. Let the record reflect that it is 3:34 in the afternoon. We're in in the Belts Committee Room in Juneau, Alaska. I have members present today, Senator Gray Jackson,.

Senator Tilton, myself, Chair Kawasaki, we do have a quorum to conduct business today. I'd like to thank Carrie Thipo and Kyla Thipo from Senate Records and with the Legislative Information Office for being here with us. We do have 4 items on the agenda which we will dispatch very quickly, I hope. The first one is the second hearing on Senate Bill 287, Alaska Native Languages Academic Task Force, sponsored by the Senate Education Committee. A third hearing on House Bill 13, Municipal Property Tax Exemptions, by Representative Andrew Gray.

And a first hearing on House Bill 202, Name the State Vegetable, the Giant Cabbage. First hearing on House Bill 217, Autonomous Vehicles Commercial Driver's Licenses, by the House Transportation Committee. First item we will take up is Senate Bill 287. Alaska Native Languages Academic Task Force. I'd like to call up Louie Flora and Joe Hayes because we do have a draft committee substitute for Senate Bill 287.

May I have a motion to adopt the committee substitute for 287? Senator Tilton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I move to adopt the committee substitute for SB 287 work draft 34-LS1654/h/h as our working document. Great.

I'll object for purposes of discussion. And Mr. Hayes, if you could put yourself on the record and explain the changes to the bill. Thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the committee. My name is Joe Hayes, staff to State Affairs Committee.

And so There's two changes for Senate Bill 287. On page 3, lines 8 to 11, it adds "at least one of whom is a member of the minority" to the House and Senate composition of the task force. Page 4, lines 5, deletes language from the duties of the task force to assess risk to the preservation of research regarding Alaska Native languages, including low moral— low morale relating to treatment of former Alaska Native Language Center employees. And the bill is renumbered accordingly. And those are the changes, Mr.

Chair. Thank you, Mr. Hayes. Are there any questions for Mr. Hayes?

Is there any more comments on adopting the committee substitute as our work draft? Okay, hearing and seeing none, I'll remove my— remove my objection to adopting the committee substitute. And we have the committee substitute version H. Before the committee. I'd like to ask Mr. Flora if he has any comments on the H version of the bill or any other comments on the bill itself. Thank you.

Louis Flora, for the record, staff to Senator Lukey Tobin, and we appreciate the changes made by the committee in version H as it mirrors the changes made in the companion version in the House. I think they're good changes that will build a more bipartisan Task Force, and so we thank you for that. And I have no other comments unless you'd like to receive a sectional analysis on the legislation.

I don't see anybody wanting a sectional analysis at this time, so you're safe. I did have a question about the fiscal note. There looks like to be a fiscal note that is in our package that's dated the 12th, and I wanted to know if this fiscal note was inclusive of the amendments that were just made or maybe it doesn't matter, I guess. If you know the answer to that. To the Chair, this is Louie Flores, staff to Senator Lukey Tobin, and that would be inclusive of the amendment because that did not add an additional member.

It just ensured that there was bipartisan membership. Perfect. Thank you very much for the clarification. Are there any questions for the sponsor of the bill? Is there somebody who would like to make a motion?

What is the will of the committee? Senator Tilton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chair, I move CS SB 28734-LS1655 34/LS1654/H be reported out of committee with individual recommendations and attached fiscal notes.

Are there any objections? Thank you. Hearing and seeing none, CS for SB 287, that's work draft 34/LS1654/H, is reported from committee with individual recommendations and the attached fiscal notes. We will sign the paperwork at the conclusion of the meeting. And we will move directly to the next bill, which is House Bill 13.

House Bill 13.

House Bill 13 is sponsored by Representative Andrew Gray. His staff, Kyle Johansen, is up here to summarize the bill for the members of the committee. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Kyle Johansen on behalf of the sponsor, Representative Gray. House Bill 13 started off with 5 optional municipal exemptions.

The idea was to help spur housing.

In the last committee, the chair added language that was brought by the Alaska Municipal League regarding charges for overpayment of taxes to a municipality. That's sections 3 and 4, I believe. Where I'm— I can't remember, Mr. Chairman, the version W adopted by the committee. Yes. And then section 1 was added by the chairman himself.

So that is a summary of the bill.

Okay. Do we have any questions for the sponsor's designee, Mr. Johanson?

Okay. Hearing and seeing none, what is the will of the committee? Senator Tilton.

Mr. Chairman, there is a committee substitute we are going to adopt. Oh, are we? No. No. Okay.

Thank you. That's what's in the notes. Just looking. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr.

Chair, I move to— I move that— let's see, it's—. Let's take a brief—. Yeah, let's— because this is Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for letting me get it all together here. I move SCS for CS for SS for HB 13, Work Draft 34-LS0194/W, be reported out of committee with individual recommendations and attached fiscal note. Great.

Are there any objections? Hearing and seeing none, House Bill 13, that is Work Draft 34LS0194/W, is reported from committee with individual recommendations in the attached fiscal note. Once again, we will sign the documents at the conclusion of the meeting. We will now move on to House Bill 202. House Bill 202 is the name change Vegetable name— sorry, name the state vegetable, the giant cabbage.

It's sponsored by Representative Delana Johnson. Her staff, Andrew Evans, can come forward too to give us a briefing on the bill itself.

Representative Johnson. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I, I just wanted to— I just— Andy will give— or Andy Evans will give you an overview.

Um, thank you for hearing the bill. And I mean, this is an Alaska State Fair, pretty local. But statewide iconic vegetable. And I would say that since Alaska has had a world record cabbage for the last 90 years, it is a feature of Alaska for certain. And there's never been any other place in the world that's had any vegetable that's this— well, there's probably a vegetable out there that's bigger, maybe a pumpkin.

Maybe that's a fruit. Anyway, glad to be here. Thank you and happy to answer any questions that you might have.

Good afternoon. My name is Andy Evans, staff to Representative Johnson. What I'll do really quick here with the committee's approval is go over what is probably the shortest sectional analysis in history, followed by a quick summary of changes between the original bill and the CS. As far as the As far as the sectional analysis goes, Section 1 amends AS 4409 to add a new section, Section 4409.055, establishing the giant cabbage OSB.

Cross cabbage as Alaska's official state vegetable. Section 2 sets an immediate effective date under Alaska Statutes 01.10.070.

The summary of changes on the bill is very limited. The original bill had an incorrect scientific designation for the giant cabbage, and it is corrected in the CS.

And we do have a PowerPoint presentation, brief PowerPoint presentation, if it is the will of committee to see it. I want to go through it very quickly. I will go through it very quickly. All right. So here we'll go right here.

Vegetable cultivation in Alaska began in the 1870s and expanded to the Tanana Valley in the 1920s. In 1935, with the establishment of the Matanuska Colony in Palmer, sustainable agriculture became firmly established in the state. Today, Alaska produces millions of dollars in agricultural products from more than 1,100 farms. The most iconic of these crops is the giant green cabbage. These cabbages are centerpiece attractions at the Alaska State Fair and garner worldwide media attention.

In fact, the current Guinness World Record for the largest cabbage ever grown belongs to a 138¼-pound giant cabbage grown in Palmer. In 2012. 16 Other states showcase their agriculture with official vegetables ranging from Washington's Walla Walla sweet onion to the Gilfeather turnip of Vermont. And yet Alaska does not have one. Alaska's— actually has an official state bird, dog, fish, flower, mammal, and even a tree, but we have no official state vegetable representative of our long history of success in agriculture.

Of all the produce grown In Alaska, there is none more iconic than our giant green cabbage, and I thank the committee for taking the time to see the presentation. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Evans. We do appreciate the PowerPoint and the great pictures, and it's great to see former President Kennedy, uh, here in 1960. I think this is, um, probably the first time— well, yeah, it had to be the first time after statehood that a president visited or presidential candidate visited, but I don't think he won the state.

I think Nixon ended up winning the state. Yeah. Okay. Are there any other questions of the members of the committee or I'll defer to Representative Delaney Johnson. Oh, I was, I was just going to say, it's just an interesting note that, well, President Kennedy, I mean, former, he was a candidate at that point, kicked off his New Frontiers campaign here in Alaska in 1959.

And actually was in the Palmer State Fair parade in a Cadillac convertible. So interesting, just tie-in. That's cool. Let's see, let me quickly open up invited and public testimony on House Bill 202. I don't see anybody online, but is there anybody in the room who'd like to testify on the giant cabbage?

No, I don't see anybody wanting to testify at this time. We've heard this bill before. I've seen it various— I already thought that we did have the giant cabbage as the official vegetable, so it doesn't bother me if this bill were to move right now. I would just need a motion. Senator Tilton.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move Committee substitute for House Bill 202, work draft 34LS0753/n, be reported out of committee with individual recommendations and attached fiscal note. Great. Are there any objections? Hearing and seeing none, committee substitute for House Bill 202, that is 34LS0753/n, is reported from committee.

With individual recommendations and the attached fiscal notes. Thank you very much, Elena. Good to see you. We will take a brief at ease for the next hearing.

Okay, I'd like to call the Senate State Affairs Committee meeting back to order, where we do have the fourth and final bill before us. We have a first hearing on House Bill 217, Autonomous Vehicles Commercial Driver's License. It's sponsored by Representative Ashley Carrick in the House Transportation Committee, and her staff, Griffin Sukeo, are here to present the legislation.

Thank you. Through the chair, for the record, Griffin Tsukeo, staff to the House Transportation Committee and Representative Carrick. Thank you for hearing this bill. Unfortunately, Representative Carrick is staffing— or sorry, is chairing the House State Affairs Committee right now. The sponsor note is as follows: As commercial autonomous vehicles are increasingly contemplated for and being used in shipping and product delivery, new laws around their use will provide critical guardrails for keeping drivers safe.

Drivers pedestrians, and other road users safe. House Bill 217 seeks to regulate the use of autonomous vehicles and provide specific requirements for autonomous vehicle use as it relates to the movement of commerce, goods, and passengers. House Bill 217 establishes legal definitions for technology being used in modern vehicles, assuring— ensuring that enhancements like collision detection, collision avoidance systems, adaptive cruise control, lane assistance, and similar programs and software are not affected. Additionally, House Bill 217 amends AS 2833.100, allowing applicants who fail portions, uh, a portion of the commercial driver's license test to only retake the failed portion rather than redo the entire test. This aligns Alaska with federal guidelines and allows us to expedite the CDL process, alleviating the CDL shortage in Alaska.

Overall, House Bill 217 protects all road users and sets legal definitions which guarantee the safe implementation— oh my goodness, I'm so sorry— implementation—. Thank you, Joe—. Of commercial autonomous vehicles on our roadways while alleviating Alaska's CDL driver shortage. There is also— I have a sectional analysis, if it pleases the chair. A lot of the bulk of the sectional analysis is all definitions, so I I can do everything up to that, um, if that works.

Okay, perfect. Are there any questions initially? Uh, yeah, let's go with the sectional next. Mr. Tsukao. Thank you.

Through the chair, for the record, Griffin Tsukao, staff to the House Transportation Committee and Representative Carrick. Page 1, line 1 updates the title to reflect the floor amendment that added CDL language into the bill. Section 1 amends AS 28-201.

28.33.100 By adding a new subsection J that states if an applicant does not successfully complete any portion of a driver— driving test required under the CDL licensing portion of the statute, the department may only require the applicant to retake the failed or incomplete portion of the test. Section 2 amends AS 28.90 by adding a new subsection that requires an autonomous vehicle in Alaska must meet federal standards and, and regulations for a motor vehicle operated on a public highway. Subsection B, an autonomous vehicle registered in the state may not engage in the transport of commerce or goods unless the transport is for personal, non-commercial use, has a gross vehicle weight of 10,000 pounds or less, and is designed to transport not more than 16 passengers including the driver. Autonomous vehicles registered in the state may not be engaged in the transport of passengers unless the vehicle has a gross weight of 10,000 pounds or less and is designed to transport not more than 16 passengers. Subsection C, except for a commercial autonomous vehicle that is transporting passengers, an autonomous vehicle operated in the state must have a human safety operator present who is able to monitor and intervene in the vehicle's performance, including operating or shutting off the vehicle.

Subsection D, a human safety operator must meet federal and state requirements for operating an autonomous and non-autonomous vehicle. Subsection E, liability will be determined in AS 09-17-080. That's the statute on apportionment of damages if there were to be an accident with an autonomous vehicle. Subsection F, the requirement of this section do not apply to personal delivery devices that are electronically powered, operated on a sidewalk, or within the right-of-way of highway, is intended primarily to transport property, weighs less than 120 pounds excluding cargo. This amendment happened in House Transportation, and it's really for those little robots that you see in bigger cities that are little delivery drivers on college campuses.

I don't think any of our universities have those yet, but if we get them in the future, they will be exempt. And then subsection G is all the definitions I was talking about. And Section 3, this act takes immediate effect immediately under AS0110.070C. And I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Mr. Sukeo. Is there a question? I guess I have a question about these weights and measures right now. The weight, it looks like there's a 10,000-pound limit, and I'm wondering why that 10,000 pounds is there, and then why the not more than 16 passengers is part of that definition.

Absolutely. Through the Chair, for the record, Griffin Zucchero, staff to the House Transportation Committee. The 10,000 pounds or less is how we describe a commercial vehicle in statute. So it has to— if the vehicle weighs 10,001 pounds or up, that is considered a commercial vehicle. So it's the big 18-wheelers, such big vehicles like that.

With the 16-passengers, That's for big buses, like tour buses. That is also a part of the definition of a commercial vehicle in statute. And so— thank you. This wouldn't regulate then, say, a Waymo. I'm not sure if you're familiar with the company.

Through the Chair, for the record, Griffin-Sukale, correct, it would not. Okay. Any questions? Senator Tilton. Yeah, um, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks for being here today.

Um, is— does the Department of Transportation have any, um, weigh-in on this bill at all with anything that you can share with us? I, I just haven't heard the testimony and I was wondering about that. So we do actually have somebody, um, from Department of Public Transportation and Public Facilities, the emergency— I'm sorry, Emerging Technologies Coordinator He's listed as questions only, but I know that there might be some questions. I guess that's a question. Okay, um, Mr. Glenn, Benjamin Glenn with the DOT, if you could put yourself on the record, and then Senator Tilton had a question.

I'm not sure that you might have heard that.

Hi, we can hear you.

Okay, Mr. Glenn, we—. Mr. Glenn, put a pause on it for a second. We can't hear you very well. Maybe if you are on speakerphone, if you could just lift the handset.

Or if you're on a mobile.

How does that work? Oh, that's much better. Much, much better. Okay, very good. All right.

For the record, Benjamin Glenn, Emerging Technologies Coordinator with the Alaska Department of Transportation. I am the state subject matter expert on commercial— sorry, connected and autonomous vehicles. Could you repeat the question? Senator Sultan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Glenn. I was just wondering if the state DOT has taken a position on the bill.

A position? Well, what I'm permitted to say is the agency wanted to be sure that our concerns about the current language of the bill are noted in record and that we would appreciate the committee, this particular committee, now spending more time working on this legislation.

Follow-up, follow-up. Uh, Mr. Glenn, is there— do we have a document regarding the concerns, or, that you've sent, or can you share those with us? So we've testified in every committee hearing just about on this bill for the last few months. Um, like, we can submit in writing our concerns, but they— I can also elucidate some of them now if you'd like.

Senator Tilton. Um, sure. Um, Mr. Glenn, thank you. Uh, thank you, Mr. Chairman. Um, I haven't been in all the other, uh, committees, so if possible, if you maybe just highlight some of the concerns that you might have, that would be really helpful.

So, very good. Um, through the chair then to Senator Tilton.

So several of the— let's— I'm going to jump straight to Section 2, Subsection G. The definitions, we do find them to be not sufficient. They are not exactly modern. They're about a 10-year-old concept that has been replaced significantly, at least in 2021. And these are not the types of definitions that are used by pretty much any other state with an active AV bill or law. Um, so for example, I'd like to point out that the autonomous technology definition does not actually define autonomous technology.

It defines what it is not, and then it is used to define an autonomous vehicle, um, for instance, being one thing. Probably more useful would be something like the definition of an ADS or an ADAS system, um, advanced driver assistance systems, which is what is excluded in Section 1 there. And then advanced automated— sorry, automated driving systems, which is what autonomous vehicles would be referred to as. Also, then, the levels of automation in Sections 3, 4, and 5 do not meet industry standards. Society of Automotive Engineers standard J3016 set aside the official industry standards of the taxonomy of levels of autonomy, levels 1 through 5.

Interestingly enough, also in this bill, none of these definitions are used to trigger anything operationally within the actual legislation. So it seems that they are setting forward an intended sunset or further updating of these definitions to be used in further legislation, which we would suggest was good 10 years ago but is not current practice.

On top of that, operational design domains are useful definitions, but we would suggest industry standard.

And there's numerous other things, but also we would like to point out that there are operational concerns about how commercial vehicles and potential innovation in the state would be affected, potentially unintentionally. And so we'd like to have the opportunity to go through and clarify several changes that have vacillated the actual implications and outcomes of this bill. And we'd like to make sure that it's worded properly as intended. That's a short summary. We could spend a lot of time.

I'd like to think that a bill as complicated as autonomous vehicles using artificial intelligence to navigate our nation's roads would give Lisa much time to maybe make edits. So that's all I have for now. Thank you, Mr. Glenn. Senator Tilton, do you have a follow-up? I share a follow-up.

Thank you, Mr. Glenn. Um, in previous committees, did you submit this, um, those concerns in writing or just in testimony? We have not submitted them in writing. We've offered them, uh, pretty consistently in testimony verbally. Okay, thank you.

They were in writing. I was just going to ask if you send them to us. Thank you. Yes, Senator— Vice Chair Bjorkman has joined us a while ago and has a question. Thank you very much, Chair Kawasaki, Mr. Glenn.

It's my pleasure to be speaking to you once again about this bill. Yes, it is true. I was, as chair of the Senate Transportation Committee, which last heard this bill, I received a text message from someone at DOT around 6:00 AM or so the day of the last hearing of the bill stating that DOT had some concerns. And I appreciate that. My question is a functional one.

If this bill were to become law today, how would it change or what would it not allow the Department of Transportation and Public Facilities to do that it currently is doing?

So, um, we would become pretty— I'm sorry, for the record, Benjamin Glenn, uh, Emerging Technology Coordinator with the Department of Transportation, uh, through the chair to Senator Bjorkman. Um, it could potentially and will likely already have, um, cycle our grant competitiveness, at least on ITS and other Intelligent Transportation grant opportunities with federal DOT. We've already— Ben, one second. Ben, I'm sorry to interrupt you. If you're on a speakerphone, could you please like pick up a handset?

It's just really garbled and muffled and it's hard to understand what you're saying. I appreciate that. I'm hearing the same thing too, but I'm not on a speakerphone. I'm on a handset. Oh, rats.

Okay, so you said it would hamper ICS. ITS, Intelligent Transportation Systems, is the concept of using IT devices along transportation corridors. There's grant competitiveness, at least, that would be impacted greatly. There's future coming grants that are going to particularly focus on connected vehicles and autonomous vehicles. And what we are concerned about is while innovation stifling might be an unintentional side effect, It will breathe to the industry, I think, innovation strangulation.

Follow-up? Thank you. Through the chair, back to Mr. Glenn.

So tell me about the ITS that DOT specifically would like to use. So the technology along corridors, whatever. Can you, like, make it very simple for the public and myself to understand? So what, what types of autonomous vehicles does DOT want to use that are not compatible with safety drivers?

So there are commercial vehicles, but I will skip that and I will go to— for us, we have concerns around being able to deploy things like a follow-along safety vehicle. So modern work zone safety standards are such that you must usually provide positive protection. So one of the things that we have considered is having an autonomous following vehicle that has a crash-mounted attenuator on it that would provide safety from rear-ending for things like, um, our striping rigs that you would not want a person as they currently would have to drag in a following safety crash truck to be in there. An autonomous vehicle in follow mode would be much better. There are others, but that's just a quick one off the top of my Also transit, there's transit partners that could take advantage of using ADA shuttles, AMPA shuttles that would all be impacted by this.

I would also say the 10,000-pound limit is not actually, I believe the state statute definition of a commercial motor vehicle is really 15,000 pounds. Hey Ben, it's really hard to understand you. If you can slow down and try to enunciate as much as you can. So you said after you talked about striping operations, You talked about shuttles. Is that what you said?

Yeah. So transit vehicles are going to be impacted by this with any of our transit partners.

Follow-up? Buses, shuttles, taxi services. Yes, please.

Okay. My understanding of the changes made in Senate Transportation were that we crafted the bill leaving that committee to specifically allow for automated commercial carriers like Waymo, and as well, I think we included those transit vehicles. Is that not your understanding of what the bill does?

Um, That is not my current understanding of what the bill does. While weighmos specifically may be allowed with their current design of vehicles, it may not be because the operator cannot actually interact with the weighmos. So I know that the human operator requirement seems to no longer be required with the addition of— oh yes, Section 2, Subsection B C, that is, are there exceptions? Excepting for commercial autonomous vehicle that is transporting passengers, an autonomous vehicle operated in the state must have physically present a human safety operator. That excepting for commercial autonomous vehicles, I believe, is attempting to not regulate what is commonly known as robotaxi services.

But this, this is a late addition. That came with the newest revision H. It's still not entirely clear, and what we've heard from industry partners, it is very, still very unclear that actually Group of Texas Services would not still be impacted by this. I would also like to add that there has been talk that I'm aware of that people thought that the international registration plan would allow for some commercial partners to potentially not be held to the same standards. And so there's potential ambiguity as to how a vehicle would be registered and then held to this human safety standard. Would like to point out Alaska does not participate in the international registration plan for the DMV.

Senator Bjorkman. Thank you, Chair Kawasaki. I was wondering if we could have Mr. Tsukiyo talk to the concern about commercial carriers.

Through the Chair, for the record, Griffin-Sukale. With drafting with Legal, we believe that Section 2, Subsection C does do what the intent of the CS is, which is to exclude these type of transit services such as Waymo autonomous taxis, things like that. So I would give a little pushback on that as this was the language that we came to with legal. So—.

Senator Bjorkman. Through the Chair to Mr. Sukio. Yeah, I can confirm on that. Representative Carrick's office worked extensively with my office to craft this language with legislative illegal to specifically exempt Waymos and other commercial carriers of passengers from the legislation. So that's, that's, that's our understanding of what the bill does.

Okay. Um, let me ask a question about, um, Item C. It's also mentioned in Item D. It's also mentioned in G2 on autonomous vehicles. What is a human safety operator? Through the chair for the record. Um, let's—.

For the record, Griffin Tsukayu, a human safety operator is someone typically in the driver's seat who meets federal and state requirements for operating a vehicle. So someone with a driver's license who is able to then intervene, say, if the autonomous vehicle is vehicle is swerving, they are able to take the wheel and correct, and they are also able to shut off the vehicle.

Is— so this term human safety operator, I see now in actually multiple places. Where did that come from? Was that something from the H version of the bill, or did it come before that? Through the chair, for the record, Griffin Tsukeo, it has been in every iteration of this bill. I believe—.

Mr. Chairman, I reckon we may be able to get Ms. Radford on the phone from legal to talk to the drafting of the bill.

Work on that. Yes, that would be great. Or if Mr. Glenn can offer any comment on what a human safety operator is. A person?

A human? I would.

Sorry, I cannot— can you repeat the question? Because the audio— yes, um, thank you. We're trying to figure out where this term human safety operator came from and what would qualify a human safety operator, because it's used actually multiple times now. I see it's used in quite a few of the definitions and quite a few of the concepts of, uh, the auton— the definition of autonomous vehicle. Yes, um, through the chair, appreciate the opportunity to answer the question.

For the record, Ben Blen, Emerging Technologies Coordinator with Alaska Department of Transportation. A human safety operator is a term of art within the industry that is opposing a remote operator, which is usually allowed with Level 4 and Level 5 autonomous deployments with commercial vehicles. So this is a distinction again in the definitions that is being operated on without properly being defined. We have a handful of these as well beyond just this one. Other definitions that we would have liked to have seen added would be a minimum risk maneuver or minimum viable risk attainment, which is something that typically when a Level 4 autonomous vehicle, which is not allowed for or expects a human operator to be involved, it must attain in order to reach a safe situation.

Okay. He went through a lot of other definitions that I don't know how they are embedded in this, what looks like a 3-page bill.

Let's see.

Are there any other questions for Mr. Glenn? Um, before I open it up for public testimony, we might come back to you here in just a little bit. We're going to go ahead and open up invited and public testimony. Um, I don't see anybody online. Is there anybody in the room who'd like to testify on House Bill 217?

Just come forward, state your name and your affiliation, and Welcome to the Senate State Affairs Committee. Thank you. Is this on? Yep. Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name is Patrick Fitzgerald. I'm the political coordinator for Teamsters Local 959. I want to thank the Senate State Affairs Committee for hearing House Bill 217. I'm speaking in favor of this legislation.

I also want to thank Representative Carrick and the House Transportation Committee and their staff, Griffin Siqueo, for carrying this legislation. House Bill 217 will establish a blueprint for regulation of autonomous vehicles for the state of Alaska. Legislation will require human safety operator to be present in the vehicle with autonomous capabilities for the safety of vehicles on the road and other passengers. Alaska's weather is unpredictable and changes quickly for anyone driving on Alaska roadways. Snow, sleet, rain, moose, and numerous other factors require the utmost due diligence for navigating through Alaska's roadways.

Although autonomous technology is developing, uh, and developing more and more advancements, weather conditions, uh, in the state are still very unpredictable, and having a human safety operator will ensure a safety net for any autonomous vehicles operating in the state of Alaska. This legislation does not eliminate or restrict any autonomous vehicles in the state, but simply has a human safety operator within the vehicle with autonomous capabilities. I urge that you support House Bill 217. Thank you. I'm also available for any questions.

Thank you, uh, Mr. Fitzgerald. I do have a question then, since you brought up this human safety operator. Um, I'm curious what the definition is supposed to mean, and then it's used in Section C and then in Section D of this bill, and in Section C it looks like It would exempt a commercial passenger vehicle if it has a human safety operator physically present. But the— but what we're saying— but what, uh, but it doesn't— I mean, Waymo doesn't have a person in the driver's seat, correct? So I'm just trying to figure out what that— if that actually covers a Waymo-type situation, or if you can just sort of run me through that.

Absolutely. Patrick Fitzgerald through the chair. So the human safety operator was the verbiage that was used in the first drafting of the legislation. Basically, you have someone there to take over the control of the vehicle that has autonomous capabilities in case something goes wrong. I'm not necessarily sure that there was a reason for that terminology rather than just saying human or person or driver, anything like that.

But the concept is that the person operating the vehicle would be— would hold the license to that. So if it was a commercial vehicle that a normal or a non-autonomous vehicle would require a CDL for, the person in that seat would be required to hold a CDL license. Same with a personal driver's license for any smaller vehicles, things like that.

Questions? Senator Tilton. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Fitzpatrick, so the human safety officer, is this— we're only— are we only looking at commercial applications of driving? Or I just— just to be clear in the bill, because I know that there are folks out there that do have cars that can drive themselves and that they can be parked in a parking lot and come to pick them up at a door.

Um, is, is, does that, does your human safety officer cover that kind of event? Or I'm just trying to be clear in my mind. Thank you. So Patrick Fitzgerald through the chair, um, in previous versions of the bill, the definition of commercial vehicle was used with that 10,000-pound weight limit or more, as well as the 16-passenger, uh, type vehicles. So for the personal use, like an example of Tesla with those capabilities.

This would not fit under that. However, in the version that came out of Senate Transportation, I believe it does include that. Yep. And through the chair, I— it includes that, right? Yes.

So it's all vehicles with autonomous capabilities.

Thank you. Thank you, Senator Tilton. We do have We do now have Claire Radford, who is Legislative Counsel with Legislative Legal Services, also available for questions. And we do yet have public testimony, so there is somebody else who is online now. Is—.

Do you have any— does anybody have any questions for— any final questions for Mr. Fitzgerald?

Okay. Hearing and seeing none, thanks for your testimony today. Before we go to legal counsel, we will go to— we'll keep public testimony open, and we have a person who's online reaching us from Seattle. We have Rose Feliciano, Executive Director of the Northwest with TechNet, who's called in. If you could state your name and your affiliation, and we welcome you to the Senate State Affairs Committee.

Good afternoon, Chair Kawasaki and members of the committee. My name is Rose Feliciano. I'm here on behalf of TechNet. Safety is a top priority for TechNet and our members when it comes to autonomous vehicle technology. We agree Alaska should have strong oversight and thoughtful standards regarding how this technology is tested and deployed.

However, HB 217 goes far beyond establishing guardrails. As drafted, the bill would effectively stop autonomous vehicle development in Alaska before the technology even has an opportunity to be explored, tested, or adapted to Alaska's unique conditions. The reality is companies will not invest in states where the law effectively prevents innovation from occurring in the first place. If this bill passes in its current form, Alaska risks sending the message that the state is closed to the future of freight technology and transportation innovation. Importantly, no state has enacted this type of outright barrier to autonomous vehicle deployment.

Other states have recognized that while safety oversight is essential, Completely foreclosing testing and development prevents states from understanding whether this technology can operate safely and provide long-term benefits. And for Alaska, those potential benefits are important. Autonomous freight technology could eventually help address supply chain reliability, transportation access, and workforce shortages, especially for remote and difficult-to-reach communities. But none of those opportunities can even be evaluated if companies are prevented from operating there at all. I would encourage the committee to not move HB 217 forward.

TechNet would— and our members would be thrilled to work with the Department of Transportation Innovation Center and come up with some appropriate guardrails that.

Makes sense for Alaska. I appreciate your consideration. Thank you very much, Miss Feliciano. Uh, there is a question from Vice Chair Senator Bjorkman. Thank you, Chair Kawasaki.

Miss Feliciano, thank you for testifying today. I was wondering if you could please describe the process of how you test autonomous vehicles. Like, what do you, what do you do? Are there— you just kind of set them free on the roadway with the commuters and truck traffic and drivers, or is there like somebody on board that makes sure that things proceed safely? How does testing go?

So through the chair, uh, Senator Bjorkman, I apologize for not having the particulars on how the testing is done. I do understand that there's a variety of testing. Sometimes they will have some additional tests with a person physically in there, but many times it is remote and they have somebody observing and monitoring what's going on, but they're physically not in the car. And I think that, I do know that Tesla has been doing some testing out in Delta Junction. And if you would like, I could have them follow up with you and talk specifically about kind of what the steps they've been doing out in Delta Junction.

Well, thank you for that, Ms. Feliciano. I appreciate that.

I think proponents of being able to do testing and to have autonomous vehicles on our roadways here in Alaska that we heard in Senate Transportation were all from outside of Alaska. We had lots of Silicon Valley types. We had lots of folks from Texas and other, other places. That said, hey, we have this great new whizbang and we're going to bring it to your roadways that are often covered with snow and ice and moose and avalanches and everything else. And so what we heard in Senate Transportation, um, there were not super great answers to questions about what happens when there is an autonomous vehicle that breaks down and goes into limp mode or "Come rescue me" road on the side of the Dalton Highway.

And answers given were that, "Oh, we will just, we'll just send someone out. The vehicle will pull over on a road that is very narrow, very Arctic with very limited pullouts. The vehicle will just pull over and someone will come and get it." So you might understand why many folks in the legislature, many Alaskans in general, aren't too crazy about simply releasing this new technology into the Alaskan wild and hoping for the best. And so when I heard your testimony that said, oh, this, this bill is going to ban testing, and then you're not even sure like how the testing works or how it operates, or if there's a safety driver in the vehicle that's being tested or not, like there's, there's a bit of a credibility gap there that exists between what we as Alaskans are hearing from people outside and what we're hearing from our friends and neighbors here that support this bill to take a pause on autonomous vehicles until we can have better answers. And so I think, I think that's really what we're, we're looking at here.

And that was the basis for my question about testing.

I just to follow up on that, I have friends from Philadelphia. I just noticed the big news on Philadelphia, in Philadelphia about the carless drivers. And Waymo in particular, and the city councils trying to figure out if they're able to regulate these driverless cars on roadways. And a lot of the argument is sort of the same thing, that they don't want to have driverless cars tested, and that the city is not a beta project. And I just wanted you to maybe address that comment here today.

Senator Kawasaki, I'll do my best. I'm a trade association. I'm not— I am not one of the companies that do all the testing. I will say that I, first of all, I do know that a number of my member companies have been testing in Well, Tesla in Delta Junction, but I do know some others have been testing out in like Calgary and other parts of Canada. Again, not exactly like Alaska, but certainly with the snow and the cold.

So, just want to kind of acknowledge that.

There are standards. That the autonomous vehicle community, they need to follow in order to be able to do the testing. You know, if you're in Philadelphia, you know, obviously the local communities will set some parameters on that.

But they do prioritize safety. I mean, that— they're not going to be able to operate this technology is not going to be able to take off if it doesn't operate safely.

Thank you. And I'll just say that I, for the record, took a Waymo in Phoenix when it first became available with Representative Daibert and a third person. And I sat in the front and watched the screen as we would pass by various objects that are silhouetted on the screen. And it was, it was pretty cool. I recorded the whole thing.

It's on YouTube. You can see it. But they hadn't opened it up outside of just I don't know, maybe a mile by mile area. So it was pretty, pretty condensed area where they offered this test, and they were eventually going to have it so that you could take the Waymo from, from there to the airport from anywhere in that, in that surrounding area. And I don't know exactly what they had to come to at the local level or at the state level to allow that to happen, but I think it, I think it was pretty cool.

I just wanted to make sure that there's some precautions that are taken from these companies. And I also understand that, you know, the companies also want to make sure that they're not running over kids or being, uh, being obstacles in the way of regular truck traffic. Uh, did you have any other comments you'd like to make? We did get— I think we got a memo or a comment from you Did you happen to remember sending one into the Senate State Affairs Committee?

Senator Klobuchar, I did submit a letter to the committee, and if it interests the committee, I can have some of my member companies, actual AV trucking companies, provide some information about like the processes and whatnot of their testing, if that would be something that you would want to see before. Yes, I think we're, we're getting it. So we're at the very end of our legislative session here in Juneau. We're like 5 or 6 days out. This has gone through, I mean, it was, it was introduced in last year, about, about, I don't know, 12, 13, 14 months ago.

It's gone through a process, it's gone through the House, 2 committees in the House, it went to the floor, passed unanimously, came to the Senate, passed the Transportation Committee yesterday or the day before. Now it's in the Senate State Affairs Committee, and we're just looking at this and we're just asking these questions. Like, I don't know why this wasn't dealt with at a prior engagement, but we appreciate whatever information you could provide to the committee. And if you send it to us, that would be great. And I'll say just on the record for anybody else who's online and listening who wants to send any comments about this bill, they can send it directly to the Senate State Affairs Committee.

At [email protected], and we will make sure that that becomes part of the permit record and available online. Any other questions for this person? Thank you very much, Ms. Feliciano, for being online and for answering our questions.

We will now— we now— we do have Claire Radford again, Legal Counsel from Legal Services. I think Senator— Senator Bjorkman had contacted her. If Ms. Radford would put herself on the record, we have a couple questions from Senator Bjorkman here. Thank you, Chair Kawasaki. Through the chair to Ms. Radford, the committee had questions regarding the definition of human safety driver— or I'm sorry, human safety operator.

Could you provide us with some clarity about the definition for that term?

For the record, this is Claire Radford with Legislative Legal Services. Human safety operator isn't defined for the purposes of this bill. So if a court were interpreting this, they would look to the generally understood definition for this. So there is a requirement in Section 2, Subsection D that the human safety operator would have to meet the federal and state requirements.

Operating both autonomous and non-autonomous vehicles. I think that it's likely a court would interpret that as the human safety operator would be required to be licensed under either state or federal, uh, requirements, whether it's a state of Alaska driver's license or another state.

Senator Bjorkman. Thank you for that answer, Ms. Radford. Would it be a fair statement then to say the definition of human safety operator can and should be able to be plainly understood by the text in the bill?

That is my interpretation. Yes, Senator. Very good. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Radford.

And do you happen to know, or if anybody— I mean, if The chair of the Senate Transportation Committee might be able to answer this. Is there a federal or state requirement for operating an autonomous vehicle? I mean, is there an operator's license that an autonomous vehicle operator needs to get, or is it just part of the regular driver's license? Autonomous.

Again, for the record, this is Clara for Legislative Legal Services. There is nothing currently in state law relating to operating an autonomous vehicle. I can certainly look into whether or not there are any federal requirements for the committee, but I'm not aware of any at this time. You were—. Senator Bjorkman.

Thank you. Thank you, Chair Kawasaki. The, the word there that does the work in D is the word non-autonomous. So the human safety operator in place in the autonomous vehicle would not be anonymous because they would be known to the state and they would have a credential to drive that kind of vehicle, whether that be a commercial driver's license if the vehicle were big enough, or a regular driver's license if it were a regular vehicle that required a regular driver's license. So in D there, we're page 2, line 9 and 10, a human safety operator must meet federal and state requirements for operating autonomous and non-autonomous vehicles.

That would mean that they have to have the same credential as a regular vehicle of that size. If we wanted to come back and somehow make adjustments or additional certifications or endorsements for autonomous vehicles, the state could, but that would be a different conversation. The word that does the work there is non-autonomous. Well, Okay, let's see. Um, thank you, Ms. Radford.

Are there any other questions for council before we let her go?

Okay, I don't, um, don't see any other questions for you. Thank you very much for being online, Ms. Radford. And then we'll—. I will go back to Mr. Glenn and So we've sort of had this conversation. You've heard—.

Let me—. I'm sorry. Let me close public testimony for now. If there's any public testimony that people would like to submit online, you can do that anytime at [email protected]. [email protected].

And we'll move back to Mr. Glenn on the tech front. And you heard some of the testimony from this organization called TechNet. Did I guess, do you have any comments on the— did you have any comments on just generally on this bill? Again, I mentioned to her that it has passed the House, two committees in the House, passed, I think, 39-zip in the House floor. Which is pretty much unheard of, then passed the Senate.

I mean, just passed Senate Transportation Committee. Now it's in the Senate State Affairs Committee. We've got 4 and a half days left, and we're trying to figure out if this bill is something that, um, this bill is something that, that is fixable, can be worked on, could be massaged in the next, again, 5 days, and then still be able to pass. I feel like there's still some comments that need to be made that we haven't heard everything, but I just wanted to hear a little bit more from you.

Okay, thank you. Appreciate the opportunity again. Um, for the record, Benjamin Glenn, emerging technologies coordinator with Alaska Department of Transportation. Um, so specifically to TechNet's comments, um, I will add some of what I know about AV preparedness and testing. When a commercial vehicle deployment of autonomous vehicles is surveying an area for whether or not they wish to deploy, they look for several things and they do some work.

Some of the things they do is they deploy more of a traditional service temporarily. They do digital mapping. They check for things like compliance with the MUTCD's Part 5 readiness for autonomous vehicles standard from, uh, federal DOT on, uh, traffic control device standards. Um, things like, are the traffic signal LED lights going to refresh at a proper rate that a camera can see them? Are there single signal heads per lane?

Do those signal heads have retroreflectivity around them? These are things Alaska has actually already done in many of our, uh, signalized intersections for human purposes already. I would also like to point out that the Dalton Highway is getting mentioned a lot with regards to commercial autonomous vehicles. That's 400 miles of 18,000 miles of Alaska. On top of that, autonomous vehicles by standard have what's called an operational design domain, which is defined in the statute in the NIST I would like to point out that vehicles of certain levels of autonomy are bound by different levels of operational design domain.

A Level 5 vehicle is defined as not having an operational design domain, but can drive anywhere that humans can. That is not practical anywhere in the world, really, at this point. So, really what we're talking about are Level 4 vehicles. Which usually are geofenced. Waymo, like you mentioned, in Phoenix.

I too had the opportunity to ride Waymo in Phoenix after they deployed across the entire city. Also the opportunity to ride them in Houston. They're deploying in Washington State, in Florida, uh, actually I think in New York as well as in Pennsylvania. They're in California. There are other companies like Zoox which are deployed in Las Vegas.

They geofence the areas which their vehicles are allowed to operate in, making sure that those characteristics of the roadway there meet the designed and engineered capabilities of their autonomous technology. This is different from a Tesla, which is a Level 2 vehicle, which is generally allowed to drive anywhere until the vehicle thinks that it cannot. Then it is expecting a human fallback operator, as opposed to a Level 3 or 4 vehicle, which does not necessarily expect a human fallback operator. In all conditions. So my point with some of these definitions and triggers that are most of the state's legislature, um, is that we can actually be much more precise about not wanting to see these commercial autonomous vehicles on the Dalton Highway, but still leave them to be deployed to fill the CDL shortage and other concerns and considerations for the intended and designed and engineered benefit of autonomous vehicles for people who may be cannot get driver's license, do not have the ability to drive, or senior citizens and no longer have a valid driver's license because they can no longer see well enough to.

Those benefits will be curtailed, um, with this, uh, bill as is. I would also like to add that Teslas doing activities like pick me up from the parking lot will no longer be allowed under a bill like this, as well as when Teslas have their, uh, potentially at the end of this year software update that will move them from current version 14 to a later version of 14 and perhaps 15, which will move them to unsupervised. So people drive their Teslas in Alaska may now have a vehicle by the end of the year that would make them unable to operate it without them being in the vehicle.

Again, just some of the concerns. We'll leave it there.

Thank you very much, Mr. Glenn, for those comments. And if we can get some things that are in writing, that would help a lot too, I think. Our bill packet, we don't have a lot of information specifically or any of those concerns cited. Are there any—. We will work with our team to gladly get that to you.

Thank you, Mr. Glenn. Are there any other— well, I've got a couple folks who are— I had closed public testimony, but I would reopen public testimony for folks who would like to testify to Senate or to House Bill 217.

Senator Myers has a big grin on his face.

I would like to welcome to the State Affairs Committee again our resident truck driver, Senator Rob Myers of North Pole. Thank you, Madam Chair—. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Sorry, just got out of Resources.

For the record, Robert Myers, Senator for District Q. Thank you. So in addition to being the resident.

Truck driver in the building. Um, I, uh, my office is also the office that, that wrote the original version of this bill and then shared it with Representative Carrick, who we're very glad was able to introduce it on the House side for us here. Um, so I guess the best way to describe a lot of what we're trying to do with this bill is by a bit of an analogy. Around 20 years ago, the FAA put in a rule that said that any drones had to stay within line of sight of their operator. And after 15 or so years of, of, of testing and a lot of regulatory review, about 2022, and a lot of that testing happening here in Alaska, about 2022, the FAA modified— started modifying their rules and giving permission for drones to start flying out of the line of sight of the, of the operator and expanding it out.

And it holds a lot of promise for remote deliveries and other applications throughout Alaska, you know, firefighting, mapping, things like that.

To some extent, that's what we're trying to do with this bill here. We are trying to say this technology is coming. I don't want it. I'm not trying to stop it from coming, but I am trying to say that we shouldn't just let it rush headlong into, onto our roads right now, especially given how unique some of Alaska's roads are, whether we're talking about distances between services or crazy weather conditions, or the fact that some of our roads that you you run, uh, can be gravel roads as opposed to paved, all these different types of conditions. And I would expect in 10 or 15 years down the line, as the technology has matured and as we've done more testing in Alaska as well as elsewhere— and again, I welcome the testing, and this bill does not prohibit any of the testing.

It simply says if you've— if you're testing the vehicles, if you're testing the technology, you have to have a driver in there as a backup. That is all that we're trying to do with this bill here on that portion of it. And then we're trying to provide some basic frameworks to begin thinking about regulation as we're moving forward, putting in some basic definitions, putting in a basic framework to start thinking about liability, et cetera. So, you know, I expect that in 10, 15, 20 years down the line, as this technology has matured, we will come back and take another look at it and say, oh, the technology is better, um, society has, has adapted, people are more comfortable with the idea of autonomous vehicles, um, without a driver, uh, being on the road. And we come back and, and we loosen some of those restrictions.

Um, this is, this is a way for us to do that, to again not stop technology but to begin to adapt it in a responsible way so that we're thinking about the consequences before it happens, rather than, you know, these trucks or cars get unleashed on our roads and then we're playing catch-up. As we've seen a little bit of that happening in the last decade or so in California and a couple of other places. So this is not meant to be an anti-technology bill. This is meant to be a responsible adoption of technology bill. Mr.

Chair. And with that, I'm happy to answer specific questions about what's in the bill. As I said, I don't know what else has gone on in the last hour, but happy to answer any specifics. Thank you for being here and thanks for your testimony. You're an expert in driving.

We appreciate your comments. And we wanted to— I think Senator Bjorkman had a question for you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I did not exactly have a question, but thank you for the opportunity. Senator Myers, thank you for being here. In working this bill through the process, had you received any concerns or guidance or any communication with or from DOT about definitions or other things in the bill that needed to be updated or changed?

Through the chair, Senator Bjorkman, we have been in contact with DOT since last year over this bill. We understand that they have been uneasy regarding the concept, but they have not brought us specific concerns in terms of things like definitions. That was never something that they brought to us. Thank you. Okay.

Thank you for the question, Senator Bjorkman. Before you got here, we did have some comments from folks from a— like a tech group, and we did have some testimony from a person at the Department of Transportation who did have some comments about the bill and is going to make sure that they are in writing for the committee to, to look at and review. I was wondering, so before you came here also, I did talk about having taken a Waymo a number of years ago. When Representative Diebert and I were in Phoenix. And so Phoenix had opened up a corridor for Waymo to test out their facilities and see how it worked.

And then finally it's expanded. I think it's like all over the area in Phoenix. I was just curious, had you checked to see how those were regulated prior to creating this bill? Because it seems like they were out there. They're obviously— it's where NVIDIA is located.

They've got a lot of high-speed or a lot of connectivity, a lot of that sort of stuff. So it made sense to sort of start that out to test in a city. I'm wondering if that was something that was talked about in construction of this bill. Mr. Chair, originally the construction of this bill, we were focusing on the commercial side.

The definitions fit all autonomous vehicles, but in terms of such as the, the, the The big part that's attracted the most interest, the prohibition of having an autonomous vehicle with nobody in the driver's seat. Initially, we had just done the commercial side. That part just got added in the last committee. And so it's not something we had delved super far into just yet. Okay.

Any questions for Senator Myers?

No. Okay. Um, thank you, Senator Myers. Any, uh, other— is there anybody else who'd like to testify on House Bill 217?

I can touch back on something if you'd like. Yeah, sure. Why don't you just come on, come on forward? We have, uh, Patrick Fitzgerald joining us again, um, political coordinator for the Alaska Teamsters Local 959. Through the Chair, Patrick Fitzgerald, political coordinator for Teamsters Local 959.

I appreciate the committee's patience with this so far. When we were kind of working with the two offices to craft this bill, a lot of the reasons for that was the issues that have come up in the cities. Waymos and driverless cars taking passengers to the destination and then not unlocking the doors. Or shutting, shutting down when there's in a driveway in Arizona and the sun's being on 'em and they, the windows won't unlock, the doors won't unlock, anything like that. There's also stories of them go, going through, uh, an active police standoff because it just follows the, the lines on the road and the traffic signals, but not what's going on around it.

Now, these stories are very far and few between. We understand that the technology is developing to where they're gonna have solutions for problems that arise like this. However, I just think It's the opinion of Teamsters Local 959 that having a blueprint for the regulation of these vehicles is something that's necessary for the state of Alaska. I'm not sure if that answered any questions, but I just want to make sure that that was on the record. Thank you for that.

Um, no, we thank you for putting that on the record. Did have a question though. There was a comment that was made, um, from the organization TechNet that talked a little bit about, um, that this would have a chilling effect on freight and technology innovation. And I wondered if you might want to comment on that. Absolutely.

So once again, through the chair, Patrick Fitzgerald with Teamsters Local 959. This legislation does nothing to limit autonomous vehicles. They're still able to operate. They're still able to drive autonomously. The only thing it does is requires a human safety operator.

To be there in case the vehicle is— an issue comes up on the roadways, as we see all the time with, you know, as I mentioned, weather, moose, things like that. So it's our opinion that it would not prohibit any development of any sort of technologies up here. They can still— the companies can still deploy autonomous vehicles. They would just need to have someone who is able to be in that driver's seat and able to take over controls when it needs to, when they need to.

Thank you very much. Are there any final questions? If the sponsor's designee wants to come forward. Thank you.

Thanks.

Did you have any final comments about any of the comments that were made earlier from either Mr. Glenn at DOT or the person who commented from TechNet or our own alleged legal services? Yes, thank you. Through the chair for the record, Griffin Tsoukaleo. One thing that I believe Mr. Glenn had said was that the definition of commercial vehicle is not in statute. I was able to find the definition.

It is in Section 19.10.399. And it— in Section 1, subsection , it defines a commercial motor vehicle as having a gross vehicle weight rating or gross combination weight rating or gross vehicle weight or gross combination weight of 10,001 pounds or more. For vehicles used in interstate commerce and 14,000 pounds or more for vehicles used in intrastate commerce. And then a bit further down, it talks about commercial motor vehicles being designed to transport more than 15 passengers. So that is a definition in statute.

Another thing I believe Tech Neck TechNet was talking about the pilot program between Calgary and Edmonton. The original version of this bill only talked about commercial vehicles and, and talked about interstate commerce, and so I was looking into Canada's regulations. Um, my understanding of that pilot program is that they chose that section of highway specifically because of its relatively mild weather during the summer testing season.

And human safety operators were still utilized to do all the driving in the first and last mile of the truck trip. So there was someone in the vehicle. And Canada, much like the US, is a patchwork of different regulations. Our close neighbor, British Columbia, and I believe the Yukon as well, has not yet approved autonomous trucking on public roads. So those are two things I wanted to clear up with the testimony.

And again, thank you all so much for hearing House Bill 217. Again, my apologies that Representative Carrick was unable to be here today.

Thank you. You did excellently. We appreciate you being here. I did, you know, did try to think about how this was, and I wish I— I'll have to talk to legal about this a little bit more about the Title 28 deals with motor vehicles. We've dealt with that a couple times.

Title 19 deals with the highways and roads. And I think that we might be—. I don't know. I think we might be in the wrong statute, but we can talk about that at some point in time.

Yes. So since you're here, Senator Myers. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Again, for the record, Robert Myers.

So the reason that we deal with two separate titles here in this— and it gets to be a pain on my end too— is because so many of the definitions that we are dealing with, such as the definition that Mr. Zuckeo just referenced, initially come from federal law. And so what you're seeing in one section is what is— I can't remember which is which now. What you're seeing in one section is state law. And whereas the other sections that you are seeing are dealing when it comes to highways, the highway section specifically, those are copied from federal law and federal statute. And so we actually technically have two different definitions of commercial vehicle in statute.

The one that we have adopted in this bill is the federal definition. Because that— well, initially it's because that governs who needs to have a commercial driver's license and other associated regulation with it. So the other definition of commercial vehicle in statute just means a vehicle that is being used for commercial purposes. So if I've got a pickup truck and I'm driving down the road, it is not a commercial vehicle. But if all of a sudden I'm a carpenter and now I'm using my pickup truck to haul around my tools and materials, now it is a commercial vehicle.

That's We were trying to stay away from that definition, and we went with the more precise federal definition instead. Because again, it's initially, it was primarily those larger vehicles that have higher weights, that have larger passenger capacity, that then become potentially more dangerous out on the roads, is what we were trying to target initially. Now, as I said, in the last committee excuse me, in the last committee, some of these things got expanded. But that's the reason that we've got that definition in there. And yes, I get it, it is confusing, but it is because dealing with federal highway law, there is a whole lot of overlap between state and federal jurisdiction.

And so a lot of things get duplicated in statute.

Thank you, Senator Myers. Any final questions before we set the bill aside? Okay, hearing and seeing none, we will set House Bill 217 aside for a potential future meeting. That will conclude the meeting for today. We do have a meeting scheduled for Saturday, May 16th at 10:00 a.m.

Currently, it will either be moved to a later time to accommodate the senator to my left, or it will— depending on the schedule, I have no idea, but We will try to accommodate every member of this committee will be here on Saturday, or we will completely cancel the meeting and we might not have one. But it will be a surprise. We don't get to talk about the cabbage? We already did. Listen.

Without any more action other than cabbage to deal with, we will adjourn the meeting. Let the record reflect. It's 5:02 PM.