STRA-260505-1330

Good afternoon. The time is 1:32 PM, and I'd like to call this meeting of the Senate Transportation Committee to order. We are in Butchovich Room 205 in the nation's most beautiful capital city of Juneau, Alaska. Today is Tuesday. May 5th, 2026.

Members present are Senator Steadman, Senator Keele, Senator Tobin, and myself, Senator Bjorkman. Senator Rauscher will be here shortly. Let the record reflect that we have a quorum to conduct business. Welcome everyone to Senate Transportation. Please turn off or silence your cell phones and join me in welcoming our LAO moderator, Doug Bridges, and our recording secretary, Heather Ramseth.

Our agenda today is the appointee confirmation of Angel Holbrook and Colin Maynard to the Board of Marine Pilots. Following that, we will have a hearing on HB 217, autonomous vehicles. First up, we'll take up consideration of the governor's appointees to the Board of Marine Pilots. Members have received the qualifications and resumes of Angel Holbrook and Collard Maynard, the two appointees who were referred to the Senate Transportation Committee. Members have not asked that either of these appointees be brought before the Senate Transportation Committee for questioning.

Is there any committee discussion on either of these two nominees?

Seeing and hearing none at this point in time, I will open public testimony on these two nominees to the Board of Marine Pilots. Is there anyone in the public who would like to testify?

Is there anyone online? Seeing and hearing no one at this time, I'll close public testimony.

That brings these nominations back before the committee. Is there any committee discussion? Still none. May I have a motion, please? Mr. Chairman, I move to advance Angel Holbrook and Colin Maynard to the joint session of the House and Senate for consideration for appointment to the Board of Marine Pilots.

Is there any objection? Hearing and seeing no objection, Ms. Holbrook and Mr. Maynard will be forwarded to the joint session for consideration. I remind everyone that a signature on this report does not reflect an intent by any of the individuals to vote for or against the confirmation of these nominees during any further sessions. We'll take a brief at ease while we sign the committee paperwork. Brief at ease.

We're back on the record now. It's 1:36 PM here in Senate Transportation. Next up, we will take up House Bill 217, sponsored by the House Transportation Committee. While this is the first hearing for House Bill 217, we heard the companion bill, Senate Bill 148, on Tuesday, April 21st. We have the honorable chair of the House Transportation Committee here with us in the room today.

Her name is Representative Ashley Carrick. Her staff is with her, Griffin Sukow. Thank you for joining us today. Please put yourselves on the record. And begin your presentation of the bill.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the Senate Transportation Committee. For the record, Ashley Carrick representing House District 35, West Fairbanks. And on behalf of the House Transportation Committee, as well as the member of this body from North Pole behind me, I'm happy to bring forward House Bill 217 today. It sounds like because you've heard the companion bill, I'll just paraphrase that this is a bill which seeks to require that a human safety operator be present in commercial autonomous vehicles. I think two important points here.

One, we're not preventing autonomous vehicles from operating in Alaska. We're simply providing a reasonable guardrail on specific types of transport. And I— this is reflective of Alaska's very unique conditions. The second point is that this bill does not halt any innovation of autonomous commercial vehicles or other autonomous vehicles in Alaska. We're simply setting a reasonable parameter regarding this new technology in our state.

And then, Mr. Chairman, just to make members of the committee aware of the differences between the Senate version of this bill and the bill that's before you today, there have been a couple of changes made in the House. One is that we have in Section 1, subsection J, amended statute to say that, um, on the underlying commercial driver's test, if an individual fails to successfully complete a portion of that driver's test, they may retest on that specific failed or incomplete portion, as opposed to having to default to taking the entire test over again. While this is not necessarily related to the underlying bill, it is subject similar enough, and it resolves an underlying challenge. And so we considered this a friendly amendment. Additionally, other changes in the House specified that this bill does not apply to vehicles used for personal or non-commercial use.

That includes vehicles with a gross weight of 10,000 pounds or less, or designed to transport less than 16 passengers, including the driver. And in subsection— Section 2, Subsection D, we have clarified civil liability. And what this does is it essentially defaults this civil liability to current civil liability regarding motor vehicle crashes, as opposed to creating an entirely new system. And then in Section 2, Subsection E, we clarify that this legislation does not apply to personal delivery devices that are electronically operated on a sidewalk or path and intended to transport property less than 120 pounds, including cargo, with a maximum speed of less than 10 miles per hour. Mr. Chairman, that's reflective of these newer, in urban areas, little robots that will transport things around on sidewalks in larger cities.

And the intention by the House Transportation Committee was to make sure we explicitly carved those out from the provision of those bill— of this bill. And so what you have before you is a bill that strictly applies in the narrow circumstance of commercial freight in our state and again, does not halt innovation, but rather requires a human safety operator to be present in that specific type of transportation. And Mr. Chairman, that's a summary of the bill and the changes between this bill and the other body. Thank you very much, Representative Carrick. Are there any questions from committee members?

Senator Keele. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don't understand the part you— the sponsor talked about that was unrelated to the main topic of the bill. How many retakes can this apply to? This ability to just retake the failed portion.

Thank you. Through the chair to Senator Keele. It's not specified, but there is a time limit on which your regular commercial driver's test is applicable for. So there— my understanding from the maker of the amendment, the member of the House from Soldotna, brought this forward on the floor. But my understanding is there is a reasonable time period within which you would not— you would have to retake your full test.

So it doesn't apply in perpetuity. If you fail one portion of it, this is language which just specifies that You only need to retake that one portion that you have failed instead of going through the entire process, which without the lived experience myself, my understanding is that's a fairly rigorous process for getting a CDL and going through that testing. I hope that answers your question. Maybe, maybe not. Mr. Chairman, it would be good to know how many portions there are, how many questions there are.

Statistically speaking, can you— if we pass this, can you just take the test several times and not being able to read and eventually with my random chance get enough right answers since we narrow it every time? Through the chair to Senator Keel. So my staff also just passed me a note that this section is also aligning us to federal regulations on CDL testing, but my understanding is there's multiple components of the test. So you wouldn't just get those answers. You wouldn't have to just take those answers of those specific questions again.

You'd have to take the component over again that you had failed on. So not knowing in a lot of detail all the components of a CDL, my understanding is there are several components. And if you fail one component of the test, you currently have to retake every component of the test. And this is saying that you would have to retake just that component within which you failed, but not, not an ever narrowing set of questions.

And the member from North Pole behind me may be able to, from lived experience, better talk about CDL testing. Mr. Chairman, first hearing on the bill. Happy to move on to the main thrust of it, but I have some lingering concerns and would like to understand that portion much better. Absolutely. Senator Tobin.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I too am just curious, as similar to Senator Keel, as I see here, to get your commercial learner's permit in the state of Alaska, you have to have been scheduled and completed your road test in 180 days. If you failed a portion of the test and that time period to retake the test passed the 180-day mark, would you be no longer subject to these provisions? I am also curious about some of the, the dynamics of retaking a portion versus resetting the whole clock again and beginning to take the test in its entirety.

Through the chair to Senator— or to Vice Chair Tobin, my understanding is that 180-day clock is— if that resets, you've got to take the whole test again regardless. And so that would be unchanged here.

Very good. I have a question regarding the carve-out for personal use vehicles. It seems to me that an autonomous vehicle that was not under kind of the structure plan and protection of a company that was specializing in autonomous vehicles would be more of a safety risk than one that was. So why is there a carve-out for autonomous vehicles for, for private use?

To the Chair, I think, Senator, the goal here was to strike a balance on— a balance between the appearance or the actuality of a prohibition on autonomous vehicles entirely, since it is an emergent but steadily improving technology, and making sure there were reasonable sidebars given our very unique environmental conditions. And the House Transportation Committee felt like that balance was struck by continuing to have a carve-out for personal vehicles. But at the same time, I share some of your concerns about autonomous vehicles generally and their safety on Alaska roads. I think, again, the, the idea here from the committee was just to make sure that we were setting reasonable parameters on, say, commerce going up the Dalton, for example. And I know we have a potential testifier online who might be able to speak to that a little bit more.

Very well, thank you. My next question is about interstate commerce. How would this bill impact freight cargoes moving up the Alaska Highway from the Lower 48 and through Canada and into Alaska?

To the chair, they are subject to the provisions of this bill. So if you were to have a freight truck coming up the Alcan into Alaska, the Canadian government may require something different, but you would have to have a human safety operator present for the commerce that's entering Alaska.

And I think my staff has an answer as well. Through the chair, for the record, Griffin Tsukeo, staff to Representative Carrick in the House Transportation Committee. From what I can find online, a lot of Canada has, much like the US, different regulations when it comes to levels of autonomous vehicles, what is allowed on their roadways. From what I can find specifically for the Yukon Territory of Canada, they do not allow fully autonomous vehicles, which is what this bill specifically— or autonomous commercial vehicles, which is what this bill specifically targets to drive on their roads. Um, so this is more of a prevention, or like a alignment with the Yukon Territory.

Um, but as, as these trucks would come to the border of Alaska, they would be required to obtain a human safety operator that is qualified with a CDL to finish their route into our state.

Thank you very much, Mr. Sukeo. I'm sorry I mispronounced your name earlier. Any further questions or committee discussion?

Hearing and seeing none, any closing comments, Representative Carrick, before we set the bill aside? Just a thank you to the chair and the members of the committee for hearing the bill, and we will work with Senator Keele's office and the committee to get some answers around CDL testing. I apologize, I don't have all the details on that. We added that as an amendment on the floor at the behest of the members who heard this bill. But it is a slightly different subject matter, and I want to make sure we get back to you with more information.

Senator Steadman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think it'd be nice to— when the dialogue is with Senator Keel, because in remote parts of Alaska, particularly southeast, it's expensive and awkward to get a CDL. That we take that into consideration too. It's difficult if you're on Prince of Wales Island to pick up a CDL or you're in one of the other more remote communities.

If you're up in the rail belt, you can drive to Anchorage and go to a class and stay in a hotel. But it's very expensive. It costs thousands of dollars to get a CDL.

Through the chair to Senator Steadman, I think that amendment really reflects some of those concerns that it is very expensive, very time-consuming to get a CDL. And I believe the intent from the amendment sponsor was just if you fail one component of that test, that you have a reasonable opportunity to correct and still receive a CDL without having to go through that entire process over again, which for folks who are not living on the rail belt system is even more of a challenge. But in terms of the timeline for how long that can apply for, where you can retake the test, and some of those questions, I'm happy to get back with folks. Thank you very much, Representative Carrick. Anything further?

With that, we'll set this bill aside for further consideration at a future meeting. The Senate Transportation Committee will meet again on Thursday, May 6th, May 7th, when we will hear pending referral from the House, House Bill 302, travel insurance. As there is no further business to come before the committee today—. May 7th. Thursday, May 7th.

Thank you. We are adjourned at 1:50 PM.