Committee hears bill to restore senior and youth lifetime hunting-and-fishing passes; hearing closed with follow-up planned

The Senate Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee held a hearing on House Bill 2028, which would restore a resident senior combination hunting-and-fishing pass and remove the sunset on a youth lifetime combination hunting-and-fishing license.

Reviser Lawrence told the committee the bill would revive and amend “KSA 30 two-nine-one hundred,” a statute first enacted in January 2013 that the reviser said expired on June 30, 2020. Section 1 would require the Department of Wildlife and Parks to offer a resident senior combination hunting and fishing pass to residents age 65 or older, and section 2 would remove the expiration date on the existing children’s lifetime combination license for residents 7 years of age or younger. Lawrence said the bill would take effect upon publication in the Kansas Register and that House passage was 111–11.

Representative Ken Corbett, the bill’s proponent, told the committee the senior program had expired without broad notice and that removing the sunset language would prevent similar lapses. Corbett said the youth program “started in, maybe October 22, and they they're up to almost 7,000 and the,…