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Forest, Parks & Recreation asks committee to add late amendment to preserve 1997 heavy-cutting rule
Summary
The Commissioner of Forests, Parks & Recreation and staff requested a late amendment to H.484 to allow publication of a 1997 'heavy cutting' rule that governs certain large-scale timber operations; agency officials said a 2016 change to administrative procedure law could have repealed the rule because it was never published in code.
Daniel Fitsco, commissioner of the Department of Forests, Parks & Recreation, and Megan Kirby asked the Finance Committee on May 16 to add an amendment to H.484 that would allow the agency to publish a long-standing "heavy cutting" rule and preserve its permitting authority for large-scale timber harvests.
Fitsco explained the rule dates to 1997 and governs forest-management operations of 40 acres or more where the harvest moves forest condition below a silvicultural threshold. "In 1997, the legislature passed an act to regulate heavy cutting with timber resources," Fitsco said, describing the permit requirement and the rulemaking history. He told the committee the rule was initially adopted as an emergency rule and later made permanent by the legislature.
Fitsco and Kirby told the committee that in 2016 the Administrative Procedure Act was amended to require that rules be published in the code by a specified date or be subject to repeal. The agency and its counsel did not realize the rule had to be published and did not publish it; as a result the rule could now be vulnerable to repeal, leaving a potential gap in the agency's permitting authority.
Fitsco described the requested amendment as a straightforward administrative fix that would allow the agency to publish the existing rule and continue administering the heavy-cutting permit program without initiating a full rulemaking process. He said the agency has reviewed the rule and believes it continues to function adequately.
Committee members asked whether relevant subject-matter committees and the rules committee had been consulted; Fitsco said the agency had contacted legislative counsel and some committee chairs but would loop in other committees as requested. The committee agreed to place the request on the agenda for a future meeting rather than act immediately.
