Alaska Legislature: House Floor Session, 5/4/26, 3pm

We are under consideration of the daily calendar.

Madam Clerk, please read the first item on today's calendar. House Bill number 210 by Representatives Kopp, Galvin, and Bynum, entitled an Act Relating to Occupational Disability Benefits for Peace Officers and Firefighters and Providing for an Effective Date.

The Labor and Commerce Committee considered the bill, attached one new indeterminate fiscal note, signing the report do pass. Representatives Carrott, Colon, Sadler, Freer, D. Nelson, and co-chairs Hall and Fields. The Finance Committee also considered the bill, recommends it be replaced with committee substitute for House Bill 210 Finance with a new title, attached 1 previously published indeterminate fiscal note. Signing the report do pass: Representatives Jimmy, Galvin, Hannon, and co-chairs Schraggy, Josephson, and Foster. No recommendation: Tomaszewski, Moore, Bynum, and Allard.

There is 1 committee substitute substitute. Mr. Majority Leader.

Mr. Speaker, I move and ask unanimous consent that the Finance Committee substitute for House Bill 210 with a new title be adopted in lieu of the original bill. Thank you. For purposes of an explanation of changes, there is an objection. For purposes of explanations between the two versions.

Do you need that at ease, Mr. Majority Leader? Okay. Yes, Mr. Speaker, the House Finance Committee made the following changes: increased the occupational disability benefit rate from 40 to 75% starting when the employee is approved for the disability benefit by the Division of Retirement Benefits expanded eligibility to all public employees and teachers, not just police officers and firefighters, and added healthcare coverage to members approved for occupational disability. Is objection maintained?

I remove my objection. The objection has been removed. Finance Committee substitute has been adopted. Madam Clerk, are there any amendments? Amendment number 1 by Representative Sadler, beginning page 1, line 1.

Representative Sadler. Hey, Mr. Speaker, I move Amendment 1 to House Bill 210. There's an objection. Thank you. Glad to speak the objection.

I'm going to refer my notes best I can here and, uh, without reading them. Mr. Speaker, this amendment falls squarely within the state of the impact and desired end of HB 210, uh, the title Disability Benefits for Firefighters. I bring it at the request of my Chugiak Volunteer Fire and Rescue Department and on behalf of them and other volunteer fire departments around the state, and frankly every fire department around the state. This amendment does align with the bill's original purpose, which repeated by the sponsor just a minute ago, that firefighters and now peace officers and others face special vocational hazards and should not face extraordinary financial consequences if they should suffer a career-ending work-related injury. This amendment is very much to the point.

It would make it simpler and less expensive for firefighters to get workers' compensation disability benefits for serving— for certain work-related cancers and illnesses. You know, everyone knows firefighters are the brave guys and gals who run into burning buildings. They breathe the smoke, even with their SCOTPAKs. It can be hazardous and can cause respiratory illnesses and cancers, including cardiovascular events and various cancers. Now, state law does allow a firefighter the presumption who contracts such diseases that it was as a result of their work under certain conditions, and that they are therefore entitled to workers' compensation disability benefits.

However, the law currently sets up a number of pretty high, pretty narrow hoops for firefighters to jump through. They have to get costly medical examinations each year for 7 years. If they miss one, one of those examinations in 7 years, they don't qualify. That can cause stress to departments and personal stress for firefighters. Now, what the amendment does is it loosens that requirement marginally by requiring over 6 years examinations every other year.

Now, because these examinations are expensive and volunteer fire departments do not have revenue from the municipalities, that places a burden on the departments. It makes it hard for them as volunteers, firefighters, —exposed to the same risks as others—to get this kind of coverage. The provision still makes sure that firefighters who are not unduly penalized for missing a single exam early in their career and again relieves small departments of the onerous financial obligations. Again, I think this amendment squarely comports with the original and underlying intent of this bill and advances the fundamental goal to protect first responders who experience disabilities related to their injuries. Voluntary exposure to hazardous conditions who take those risks on behalf of Alaskans.

The question was raised about the possible cost of this amendment. Very, very similar legislation was brought last year and it had zero fiscal note. And if anything, this does not cost the state or the departments. It saves departments, volunteer departments' money and it saves municipal taxpayers' money as well. I'm glad to listen to arguments for, against, hope for, and encourage members to vote yes on Amendment 1.

Brief it is. Brief it is.

Will the House please come back to order. Under debate on Amendment Number 1.

Mr. Majority Leader, did you wish to address the amendment? Yes, Mr. Speaker. I oppose the amendment for the following reasons. First, I want to say I appreciate the spirit of the amendment maker and his desire to take care of a presumption of duty-related diseases for firefighters.

Mr. Speaker, the reason why I oppose this is because workman's compensation is an entirely different animal than the occupational disability benefit, the narrow scope of this bill. We don't have actuarial analysis of what it would mean to extend a presumption of a duty-related disease out for many years. What does that look like? What, what would that presumptive cost be? I have not seen that.

Secondly, Mr. Speaker, I haven't had any volunteer or professional firefighter groups come to me and ask for this amendment. If I had, I would give it more consideration, but for those two reasons. One, that it's outside of the narrow scope of this bill with occupational disability benefits. Two, I do not have any actuarial analysis to project what the cost would be to the state if we presume that this list of diseases, which is quite extensive, are duty-related many years out. I do not support the amendment, and I would prefer to keep the scope of the bill to what it is.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Representative Prox.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise in opposition to Amendment Number 1.

I guess I'm concerned that if we're admitting a presumption of disease for an occupation or an injury or whatever, you run into problems with OSHA. In a formal— a former employment situation that I was in, you're supposed to do something to eliminate the hazard. That would be starting with engineering or procedural work. The last thing is personal protective equipment. But it doesn't come in to compensate the employee for a known risk.

So I think this opens the gate to another whole complex set of problems with OSHA and job safety regulations. So I don't think we should open that gate. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Representative Stapp.

Uh, thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm just going to raise a question to the maker of the amendment. Um, on page 2, lines 9 to the end, basically, it looks like we are changing the nature of where— when we administer annual physicals from once every single year to every 2 years, and shortening the amount of time from 7 years to 6 years. And I'm curious because it makes me feel like the I think the amendment is kind of counterproductive if we want to have firefighters be eligible for these specific diseases if they're exposed to, but then not necessarily catching them as often as we would if we had physicals on an annual basis. So my question is, are we changing in this amendment annual physicals that is currently a requirement from a single year to every 2 years?

To the maker. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Representative Ruffridge.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm going to rise in support of Amendment Number 1. Mr. Speaker, I had the opportunity of hearing, I think, this as a bill in the 33rd legislative session. Had a lot of the same questions that were just put forward by the Majority Leader and ultimately came up with the following conclusion, which is why I'm in support. The items that are in Section 1 of the amendment, uh, all of the respiratory disease and cardiovascular events, as well as the following cancers, are all currently in state statute, uh, as being covered.

One of the issues that we see, especially with volunteer firefighting departments, as mentioned by the amendment sponsor, is that they have a significant cost that they have to go through in order to have their individuals that are covered under this disability component to be able to qualify for that disability. And that item is an annual medical exam. There's a significant cost for doing that. And so changing this— so this bill, when it was a bill and now is an amendment, wasn't seeking to add any of the, the following items for disease states. It's seeking to just limit the amount of times that a fire station or firefighting services required to have the medical exam.

So this is saying that they have to have it at first employment and did not have any evidence of disease, as well as have one every 2 years instead of annually during each of the first 6 years of employment. So that's going to be 3 exams that don't show evidence of the disease. And if that's true, then you can have the option for disability for a period of— instead of the— what's currently in statute is for 3 calendar months for each year of requisite service, but cannot extend for more than 5 years is what's in statute. Now this says, well, you know what, we're going to extend that for 10 years because we know, Mr. Speaker, that some of the things that firefighters are exposed to, similar to our men and women in military service, sometimes don't know the results of those things for quite some time. And I think that there are individuals that have served our state in emergency response that actually we're kind of leaving hanging out to dry.

This bill both seeks to save money and cover additional people who have served our state well, and for those reasons I'll be in support of Amendment 1. Thank you. In wrap-up, Representative Sadler. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the chance to wrap up.

To echo the statements of our minority whip here, the current statute does provide for this presumption of cancers and other respiratory illnesses. That's nothing new. So we approved that many years ago, and a couple years ago in the other body, they extended that to cover breast cancer. So this is an established law. Firefighters can qualify for coverage under the current law.

That's, again, that's not a new benefit. To the desire for actuarial analysis, I regret that we don't always have full actuarial analysis of all that we do in this body. Sometimes the fiscal notes are indeterminate, but we still pass those legislation. This is a bill that has been under discussion for about 3, 4 years now, and I have never heard concerns raised about the actuarial basis of this. It is a sweetening of the retirement benefits for people who are injured, and which I think would probably sweep away some of the statistical requirements for dotting every T and dotting every decimal point.

As to whether firefighters have indicated support for this, Mr. Speaker, the Professional Firefighters Association have clearly told me they support this. They supported it way back when, and In the course of discussion, they suggested a sweetener, which is extending the period of presumption from a maximum of 10 years to 20 years, and they like that. And I thought that that was a— I'm sorry, 5 years to 10 years, my apologies. And so I accommodated that with my amendment and indicated strongly to me that they were in favor of this. So I'm not sure where the perception or assertion that the firefighters do not like this has come from.

To the question raised by the member from East Fairbanks, This does not touch on every physical examination a firefighter may need to have. I think some firefighters may, and I suspect some do, get an examination every year. This is the minimum number required to qualify for the presumption that certain diseases and cancers were work-related. Again, both of the bill— I'm sorry, both of the law that exists right now and under the amendment would require a medical examination upon first employment as a firefighter and then 6 years instead of 7 and every other year. Again, the target here is to cover long-acting, long-developing cancers and respiratory illnesses with the final goal, I want to say again, is to provide firefighters with disability workers' compensation benefits.

So if you support firefighters and want them to have more safe financial futures, even if they injure themselves in the line of duty, this is the amendment for you. Thank you. Please push the green button. Are you ready for the question? The question being, shall Amendment Number 1 pass the House?

Members may proceed to vote.

Will the clerk please lock the roll?

Does any member wish to change his or her vote?

Will the clerk please announce the vote? 19 Yeas, 21 nays. With a vote of 19 yeas, 21 nays, Amendment Number 1 has failed to pass. Madam Clerk. I have no further amendments, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Majority Leader.

Mr. Speaker, I move and ask unanimous consent that the Finance Committee substitute for House Bill 210 be considered engrossed, advanced to third reading, and placed on final passage. There is an objection. This bill be held to the next day's calendar. Madam Clerk, could you please read the next item on today's calendar? House Bill number 302 by Representative Hall entitled an Act Relating to Travel Insurance.

The Labor and Commerce Committee considered the bill, recommends it be replaced with committee substitute for House Bill 302, Labor and Commerce, with a new title, attached 1 new zero fiscal note, Signing the report do pass, Representatives Freer, Carrick, and Co-Chair Hall. No recommendation, Colon, Sadler, Nelson, and Co-Chair Fields. The Transportation Committee considered the bill, recommends it be replaced with committee substitute for House Bill 302, Labor and Commerce, with attached 1 previously published zero fiscal note. Signing the report do pass, Representatives McCabe, Sinclair, Mena, Stutes, and Co-Chairs Eischeid and Carrick. There is one committee substitute.

Mr. Majority Leader. Mr. Speaker, I move and ask unanimous consent that the Labor and Commerce Committee substitute for House Bill 302 with a new title be adopted in lieu of the original bill.

Hearing no objection. I would like to object. Representative Johnson, do you want to lift your mic up so you could speak into it, please? Brief it is, Mr. Speaker.

Brief it is.

Will the House please come back to order. Representative Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to object to the adoption of the committee substitute for purposes of updating on the changes. Representative Hall.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are two changes from version A to the committee substitute version N, and that is the first one on page 7, line 28, 8. It replaces wet marine and transportation lines with inland marine. This is a technical change and points to the correct line of insurance under which travel insurance should be filed and reviewed. Permission to read, Mr. Speaker?

Sorry for being tardy on that. Historically, travel insurance has been filed under the inland marine line, and this change is also consistent with page 7, lines 23 and 24, which states Travel insurance is classified and filed for purposes of rates and forms under the inland marine line of insurance. The second change between versions is on page 16 after line 12. It adds an effective date of January 1st, 2027, and this will allow insurers and producers to prepare for implementation. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Is the objection maintained? Representative Johnson? Objection has been removed. Not seeing an additional objection. The committee substitute for Labor— the Labor and Commerce Committee substitute has been adopted.

Madam Clerk, are there any amendments? I have no amendments, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Majority Leader. Mr. Speaker, I move and ask unanimous consent that the Labor and Commerce Committee substitute for House Bill 302 be considered engrossed, advanced to third reading, and placed on final passage.

There is an objection. This bill be held to the next day's calendar. Madam Clerk.

Committee substitute for Senate Bill Number 192, Community and Regional Affairs, by the Senate Community and Regional Affairs Committee, entitled an Act Relating to Evacuation Designation Levels and Relating to the Alaska Disaster Act. The Community and Regional Affairs Committee considered the bill. Attached one previously published zero fiscal note. Signing the report, do pass, Representatives Holland, Prox, G. Nelson, St. Clair Hall, and co-chairs Hemshoot and Mears. I have no House committee substitutes.

Madam Clerk, are there any amendments? I have no amendments, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Majority Leader.

Mr. Speaker, I move and ask unanimous consent that committee substitute for Senate Bill 192, Community and Regional Affairs, be considered engrossed, advanced to third reading, and placed on final passage. There is an objection. This bill will be held to the next day's calendar. Madam Clerk, are there additional items on today's calendar? There are citations on today's calendar.

Mr. Major here. Mr. Speaker, I move and ask unanimous consent that the House approve the citations on today's calendar. This brings us to unfinished business. We're hearing no objection. The citations are approved.

This brings us next to unfinished business. Mr. Majority Leader. Mr. Speaker, I have no excused absences to read at this time.

Are there any committee announcements? Representative Gray. Mr. Speaker, House Judiciary will resume 15 minutes after floor adjourns.

Are there any other announcements? Representative Hannon.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to make sure that members know that tomorrow may June 6th is the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples Day, and here in Juneau, uh, there is an organized effort to mark that, and it begins from with some sign waving from 4:30 to 5:30 along Egan Drive on Whittier Street. That's the intersection some nights known as the Jack intersection. They will, uh, people at 4:30 sign waving, at 5:30 they'll march to the Elizabeth Povratovich Hall where there will be a vigil from 6 to 7 and a panel discussion. And the Tlingit and Haida Community Behavioral Services will be there, and they would welcome any of our participation in attendance to mark Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples Day.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Representative Freer. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Permission to read? Permission granted.

Thank you. So today I stand before you to speak about a day that the representative from District 4 just spoke about, that carries both deep pain and urgent purpose. Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples Day, MMIP Day, takes place tomorrow, actually Tuesday, May 5th, and I urge you all to wear red in solidarity. Across the country, Indigenous people, especially women and girls, face disproportionately high rates of violence disappearance, and homicide. Many of these cases go unsolved and families are left without answers, support, or justice.

This is not only a public safety issue but also a reflection of deeper systematic problems including gaps in law enforcement coordination and limited resources. MMIP Day helps shine the light on the crisis that is happening across the nation. To help combat the crisis, we must listen to Indigenous communities It means recognizing that behind every case is a human being who deserves safety, dignity, and respect. It is a reminder that every life is valuable. Every story matters.

And no one should ever be invisible. So again, please, I encourage all of my colleagues to wear red tomorrow to show support for missing and murdered indigenous women and girls. Indigenous Peoples' Day. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Representative Foster. Uh, yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Uh, House Finance will resume 15 minutes after floor adjourns. Representative Fields. Uh, Labor and Commerce will meet 10 minutes after adjournment.

This brings us to special orders.

Representative Holland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. On the topic of Wildfire Awareness Week. Representative Holland. Great, thank you. The executive has issued a proclamation and it joins with a national movement to recognize May 3rd to May 9th as Wildfire Awareness Week.

This is a national effort each year to bring greater awareness to the wildfire danger to many of our communities, both in terms of the work that we do to prevent these fires as well as to be prepared for evacuations and the work to reduce the impact of these fires. The risk to Alaska has continued to grow with the change in our climate that has both increased the risk of more severe wildfires as well as extending the length of the seasons. We're seeing fires earlier in the season and extending later in the season. There are a variety of opportunities for Alaskans to be preparing around their own homes and being fire-wise, aware of the work that they can do to reduce the danger to their homes. It's a body of work that I've been involved with now for, I think, about 8 years, looking not just at the case of are we prepared to fight the fires and to be able to provide the immense amount of resources and support to the wildfire response.

But I believe that someday we should be working towards a goal of eliminating the catastrophic and deadly impact of wildfires that have devastated many communities that we've seen in the U.S. The risk of our wildfire perimeters, our wildland perimeters burning down our cities is something that we need to move to a day when that is no longer something We live in fear of, you know, the district where I'm, you know, working in, District 9, as well as the rest of the hillside, worries that a large catastrophic wildfire is not a question of will it happen. They worry that it's just a question of when does it happen. And I don't think that's the way we should be working in the future, to think about when will we burn down our communities. It used to be 100 years ago that we used to expect major catastrophic fires to destroy our urban cores.

Chicago, London, San Francisco, Fairbanks, even Seward, Valdez have had catastrophic urban core fires. And we beat that problem over 100 years ago. We invested in our firefighting capability. We invested in building codes. We put in sprinkler systems, water hydrants.

And we did the work to have alarm systems and evacuation sprinklers. We are now at a point in time where we no longer worry about our urban suffering a catastrophic fire that burns it down. But today we somehow are faced with the urban perimeter fires. Palisades, Lahaina, Bend, and the cities that have been destroyed in the last 10 years through these fires. And I was motivated particularly with the Palisades fire, the Camp Fire in California, when I realized that what was happening there with these limited-access points into areas with insufficient mitigation work done, left a community there to suffer catastrophic damage in terms of lives lost and buildings lost.

So I'm working on a variety of fronts to look at policies that will change the future that we have. But for this week, I urge all of us to be looking for the resources that are available to reduce the dangers around our homes, to be supporting our firefighting programs, their mitigation work, the training that they go through each spring to be ready, and the support that they provide for our communities to be able to safely evacuate if we have to. So again, Wildfire Awareness Week has started at this point. For my Anchorage colleagues, we have our major Anchorage wildfire awareness event on Saturday at the Hilltop ski area. I would encourage you to get folks out there to learn about the resources, the tools, and the work that's going on.

And I know there's other activities going on around the state that the BLM and the Weather Service are supporting information. So I encourage everyone to learn more about this and to encourage our involvement in reducing the risk of these catastrophic fires. Thank you. Representative Mears. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

On the topic, may the fourth be with you. Representative Mears. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So for sci-fi fans, I'm sure like yourself and others in the room, may the fourth be with you is a phrase synonymous with the Star Wars universe. But a few years before C-3PO and R2-D2 were more than letters and numbers, my world changed on May the 4th, and I went from being an only child to being a big big sister.

So I'd like to wish my baby brother Dan a happy birthday. Thank you.

Representative McCabe. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. On the subject of resources— Representative McCabe. So, Mr. Speaker, we had a hard winter in, uh, in Alaska. Pretty cold.

Those that have been watching the Singsha drawdown know that it's at critical levels. We're going to struggle to replace that this summer. One of the things a couple years ago that I was talking to leadership from Hilcorp about was the game changer that the West Sioux Access would be for them for drilling in the wintertime. And I just wanted to highlight that because it's been a couple years since we talked about it, since I talked about it. Since it came up.

Once the DOT gets across the Big Sioux, which is I think phase 2 on their West Sioux Access, it seems to me that Hilcorp and Chugash frankly said that they would build their road over to meet it, which would open up some wintertime use and drilling, which could possibly help us with replenishing Siksika. So I'm bringing this up right now just to urge us to consider we have this resource going through that, or this road going through to resources that we desperately need in Southcentral Alaska to, you know, I would hate to have to make a choice between heat and electricity, and I don't even know how you would make that choice because most boilers run on electricity as well as natural gas. So I think it begs a larger question and it deserves a bigger look than just maybe stripping money out of the budget. And if you don't mind, Mr. Speaker, I'd also like to say Tuesday is Cinco de Mayo and Taco Tuesday. Some of us have been training for this all our lives.

[LAUGHTER] [Speaker:CHAIR] Representative Eichcheid. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. On the topic of teachers, Representative Eichardt, you know, there's a lot of things happening today apparently and tomorrow, uh, but it is also National Teacher Appreciation Week, and I just want to shout out to all the teachers, uh, and others that teach, uh, school board members, the whole team. And I'd also be reticent if I didn't include parents, the most important teachers I did a little tally between our body and the other body, and based on my limited information, about 13 folks between the two bodies are involved in education. And then I realized, I think my colleague from Sutton, District 29, I think he and his spouse are teachers for their family.

So I think I undercount it. So anyways, this is Teacher Appreciation Week. Tomorrow's Teacher Appreciation Day. Go buy a favorite teacher a taco tomorrow, and if you can't do that, consider just reaching out to somebody who's made a difference in your life, taught you something. It's a good time to have a little bit of gratitude and to all appreciate this good earth we live on.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Representative Prox.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. On the subject of complacency. Representative Prox. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to follow up a little bit on what the representative from Anchorage was talking about on defensible space preparation, and specifically there is a state program, Firewise, and the Department of Forestry, or Division of Forestry, I guess, has pamphlets that show people things that they can do to harden their home against wildfires.

And I know in District 33, there's a lot of areas where that is an extreme danger. And perhaps you can't do everything to completely insulate your home against wildfires, but there are things that you can do to reduce that risk. Some of them fairly inexpensive, some of them more expensive, but it's worth, as we maybe go around campaigning this year, to keep those brochures in mind, maybe take some with you, and just remind our neighbors and our friends that there are things that we can do to protect ourselves. We don't have to wait for the fire department to come and save us. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Majority Leader. Mr. Speaker, I move and ask unanimous consent that the House stand in adjournment until Wednesday, May 6th, at 10:30 AM. There being no objection, the House will stand adjourned until Wednesday, May 6th, at 10:30 AM.