Alaska Legislature: House Transportation, 4/21/26, 1pm

This meeting of the House Transportation Committee will now come to order. It is 1:39 PM on Tuesday, April 7th, in the— in the Capitol Room. Not 7th. It is the 21st— sorry there, typing error— in CAPR Room 124. Present are Representative Stutes, Representative G. Nelson, Representative McCabe, Representative Mena, Representative St. Clair, co-chair Representative Kerik, and myself, co-chair Representative Eichide.

And also I see that we do— well, we do have a quorum to conduct business. We're going to jump right into the business. Representative Hannon and Representative Hall might also be here. I see Representative Hannon. So thank you for being here.

We'll have you come up here shortly. Please take this time to silence your cell phones for the duration of the meeting. Before we begin, I'd like to thank Jordan Nicholson from House Records as well as Susan Quigley from the Juneau LIO for staffing the committee today. Our committee aides are Meredith Trainor and staffer Griffin Siqueo. Thank you for all your hard work, and thank you for everybody here today.

I don't usually have that many folks, so nice to see you. On today's agenda, we have two bills: House Bill 3— 366, Use of Heavy Petroleum as Marine Fuel, by Representative Handon and her staffer Hunter Meacham, and House Bill 302, Travel Insurance, by Representative Haw and her staffer Keith Bruce. We have Representative Hannan's bill up first today, and we'll hear invited testimony following Rep. Hannan's bill presentation. We will follow that up by hearing both invited and public testimony on Representative Hall's bill. Uh, before we begin the bill presentations, we'd like to introduce a committee substitute for House Bill 366 for the committee's consideration today.

Representative Carrick.

Thank you, Co-Chair Eichide. I move that House Transportation Committee adopt the draft committee substitute for House Bill 366, Transportation Work Order Number 34-LS1507/G as the working document. I will object for purposes of discussion, and I would invite Representative Hannan and/or her staffer, Ms. Meacham, to please come to the dais and walk us through the changes in version D.

Thank you, members of the Transportation Committee. I'm Representative Sarah Hannon. You're sitting in my district, which is House District 4. Here in downtown Juneau is included in it. And thank you for your time and consideration.

Today. I will have my staff, Hunter Meacham, directly jump to the differences between the original version and the version that you just are considering for the committee substitute, version G.

Hunter Meacham, for the record, staff to Representative Hannan. Version G of HB 366 clarifies that the restrictions on the use of heavy petroleum fuel oil only applies to large commercial passenger vessels. And the definition of large commercial passenger vessel means a commercial passenger vessel that provides overnight accommodations for 250 or more passengers for hire. Okay, thank you. Are there any, uh, questions for Ms. Meacham or Representative Hannan.

Uh, Representative Nelson. Yeah, I appreciate— thank you, uh, Co-Chair Eichide. Um, to the bill sponsor, I see the definition, but it was really short, so could you just say that one more time from the beginning? I'm trying to compare the versions here. Go ahead.

Okay, Hunter Meacham for the record. So the bill version, the transportation CS would replace vessel with large commercial passenger vessel in each section of the bill. And later after the bill presentation, I'd be happy to go through each section of the bill to explain what that does.

Thank you. Okay, seeing no further questions for the committee substitute, I'm going to remove my adoption— my objection to adopting the committee substitute. Is there any further objection to committee— to adopting the CS? There's an objection. Would you like to speak to your objection, Representative McCabe?

[Speaker:MR. HART] Yeah, Mr. Chair, I'm concerned that we are unfairly— I mean, I guess I'm concerned why we are targeting all of a sudden a cruise ship industry that brings millions, if not more, dollars to Southeast Alaska and we don't— I mean, why are we singling them out? They're not the only ships that operate these waters. I get that the Submarine Highway uses— already uses the MGO fuel, but I don't know, I guess I don't quite understand why we're targeting a business again, for the second time today.

Sir, any further comments on the objection?

Representative Nelson, I looked at you too long. Yeah, thank you. I, I would, uh, I would echo that as well as I was going through and just seeing all the different places where vessel has been replaced. Um, yeah, I would like to understand what prompted the change.

Uh, would the, the, uh, Miss Meacham or Rapana, would you like to speak to that? I am. I, I'd be happy to. Representative Serhan, and for the record, I guess it just— since we hadn't gone through the bill, didn't want to jump ahead. But the specificity is why narrowing it down, because an average ship, a container ship for instance, spends 170 hours in the emissions control area of Southeast Alaska and Southcentral Alaska, where the medium cruise ship spends over 3,270 hours in Alaskan waters.

And ships who are using the large cruise ship passenger vessels who are using bunker fuel is the colloquial term for the HMO or HFO are largely using scrubber systems to reduce sulfur emissions directly, but that means they're either producing water effluent or air effluent. And the concern for most of our coastal communities is the volume of effluent that they are still allowed to produce and discharge into our community's air and water ecosystems. And just, uh, to clarify, the CS just basically takes us from vessels to commercial Large commercial passenger vessels. It's already defined in Alaska statute. Regulated, monitored.

So it's over 250 berths on that vessel to qualify as a large commercial passenger vessel of paying customer berths. So it's not a vessel with 100 passengers and 100 crew. It's at least 250 paying passengers on that vessel. So I just, you know, I think we have a CS motion before us, so I really want to not debate all the underlining things in the bill, but in the CS whether we adopt it. Representative McCabe.

Thanks. Yeah, that's— I guess that's why I was wondering. We haven't really gone through the bill yet, and I'm wondering why the CS all of a sudden popped up before we even actually heard the bill. So in the question, I think the question was germane to why why we did that. But I do have one follow-up, if you don't mind.

You mentioned in hours. Is that underway hours, or is that total hours for, you know, you said 170 hours for an average commercial freighter? For a container ship. Container ship, and 3,700 hours? Is that 3,700?

3,270. 3,270, Sorry. Is that steaming? Sorry if you—. Yeah, go ahead.

Is that steaming underway, or is that total hours in in our waters? I don't know. I'll have to check. But that is reported data in the— there's an emissions control area in Southeast Alaska and South Central that monitor that. And I don't know if that includes hours at port or not.

Because that would be— either they're steaming or they're at port. Because these aren't ships that anchor. Well, actually, they do in some ports anchor. So I'm not sure how those are calculated. But we'll follow up with that.

I'll save my other 2 or 3 dozen questions for later. Okay. Did I see your—. I'll wait until after we adopt that. Okay.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Any further comments on the objection to adopting the CS?

Yeah, Co-Chair Carrick. Thank you, Co-Chair Eichide. So the CS is partially being adopted first as this reflects the bill sponsor's original intention bringing this bill forward and This is the bill that the bill sponsor and the co-chairs would desire that we start discussing rather than adding a layer of confusion into what the intent was and what we should discuss. So that's why we're adopting it first. I just wanted to put that on the record and make it clear so that we can all discuss the same bill that reflects the intent.

No further comments. Representative McCabe, do you maintain your objection? I do. You do? Would the clerk please call the roll?

Representative St. Clair?

No. Representative Nelson? No. Representative McCabe? No.

Representative Stutes? Yes. Representative Mena? Yes. Co-chair Ayeshaid.

Yes. Co-chair Carrick. Yes. Okay. Yay, 3 nay.

With 4 yays and 3 nays, the CS has been adopted. Okay, so that's our working, um, document. Uh, so we have Representative Hanna and Ms. Meacham at the dais already. Uh, would you please put yourselves on the record again and begin your presentation on the CS. Thank you.

Representative Sarah Hannon, House District 4. The Committee Substitute for House Bill 366 proposes to restrict the use of heavy petroleum fuel oil by large commercial passenger vessels sailing in Alaskan waters. This bill was introduced after I heard directly from many Alaskans who are concerned about— with the scientific understanding on the harms associated with heavy I'm gonna call it bunker fuel. It's HFO in the industry. Heavy petroleum oil, or HFO, is sometimes called bunker fuel.

It is a byproduct of oil refining process and contains high concentrations of toxic pollutants that pose serious risk to marine ecosystems and human health. It is dense, viscous, and needs to be preheated to high temperatures to be pumped and burned. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] 97% of the bunker fuel used in Alaska comes from large cruise ships equipped with exhaust scrubber systems. Scrubbers are used as a workaround by large cruise vessels who are burning bunker fuel in order to meet federal and global sulfur limits. Open-loop scrubbers mix toxic exhaust with seawater and then discharge that mixture into the water.

Every large pass— every large commercial passenger vessel cruise ship that makes ports of call in Alaska already has the capability to use alternative fuels such as marine gas oil. Large ships cannot burn bunker fuel in California, Puget Sound, Vancouver, British Columbia, and those are primarily the places that these ships start their journeys. MGO, the marine gas oil, is a low sulfur fuel that does not need to be preheated to be pumped and burned. It's widely accessible, and in fact, most large cruise ships voluntarily burn MGO, as well as small cruise vessels and the Alaska Marine Ferries. According to a 2024 economic report, requiring large cruise ship operators to switch to MGO would only amount to approximately $3.50 per day per passenger.

There is no doubt that the cruise industry is a major economic sector in Southeast Alaska, but this bill would require them to be better partners and help sustain the environment they directly profit from. I hope you will learn some and, uh, I said all. Some large cruise vessels voluntarily use it, not all. Any cruise ship who is transiting into Glacier Bay, which is sort of one of the choice gems on many cruises, are required to use it. So all the ships have two sets of tanks because they have to use it in certain ports and they have to use it if they are visiting Glacier Bay.

Okay, thank you. Um, were you going to go over the sectional analysis? Absolutely. Yes, please. I'll have my staff go over the sectional analysis.

All right, Hunter Meacham for the record. Section 1, AS 30, is amended by adding Chapter 35 on marine fuel. AS 3035.010 prohibits the use of heavy petroleum fuel oil in an auxiliary engine or main engine on a large commercial passenger vessel operating within the navigable waters of the United States, within the State of Alaska, the waters of the Alexander Archipelago, and within the Kachemak Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve. AS30.3502.0, that requires that heavy petroleum fuel oil restrictions do not apply to large commercial passenger vessels during an ocean-going voyage that consists of continuous and expeditious navigation through applicable waters for the purpose of traversing the applicable waters without entering navigable river or waterways within the state, or an arm of the sea or ocean that extends inland to meet the mouth of a river.

The prohibition also does not apply to large commercial passenger vessels using heavy petroleum fuel oil in an emergency or for the purpose of rendering assistance to a person or aircraft in danger or distress.

AS 3035.030 allows for the Department of Environmental Conservation to issue fines that a person may be required to pay for operating a large commercial passenger vessel using heavy petroleum fuel oil in an auxiliary engine or a main engine. And then AS30.350.50 defines applicable waters, heavy petroleum fuel oil, and large commercial passenger vessel. So applicable waters, again, I said it in earlier, but it means the waters of the Alexander Archipelago, the navigable waters of the United States, within the state of Alaska, within the Kachemak Bay National Research Reserve. And then heavy petroleum fuel oil means any marine fuel that has a viscosity greater than 380 centistokes or sulfur content that exceeds 0.1% by weight. And then again, large commercial passenger vessel means commercial passenger vessel that provides overnight accommodations for 250 or more passengers for hire.

Then Section 2, AS 4603-02015, amends the powers of the Department of Environmental Conservation so that it can monitor, observe, and record data and information related to large commercial passenger vessels in applicable waters. Section 3 amends uncodified law by adding a section to require that the Department of Environmental Conservation report to the legislature detailing implementation of Section 1. Section 4 amends uncodified law to allow for the Department of Environmental Conservation to exempt a large commercial passenger vessel operating before January 1st, 2020— 2030 from the heavy petroleum fuel oil requirements laid out in Section 1 if at the time Section 1 takes effect the large commercial passenger vessel is not equipped to convert to using an alternative fuel source. And Section 5 amends uncodified law to allow for the Department of Environmental Conservation to adopt regulations necessary to implement the heavy petroleum fuel oil restrictions. And Section 6 just says Section 5 takes effect immediately, and Section 7 just says Section 1 through 4 take effect January 1st, 2027.

Okay, thank you for that presentation, sectional analysis. Because we got a late start, we're going to go through our invited testifiers and then we'll take questions for the bill sponsor. I believe we have Dr. Morgan Powers in the room with us. Dr. Powers, if you're here, please approach the dais, put yourself in the record, and begin your remarks.

Dr. Morgan Powers for the record. Thank you very much for the opportunity to testify. My name is Morgan Powers, and I'm an aquatic ecotoxicologist based in Anchorage, Alaska. I grew up on the waters of Prince William Sound in the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. As a child, I walked beaches where crude oil was mixed with gravel.

Shorelines were effectively paved. I remember wondering, why did we let this accident happen? Did we know the consequences would be so bad? For the past 17 years, I've studied oil pollution in the marine ecosystems in Alaska and Norway. My work is focused on how hydrocarbons behave in cold waters, their fate, transport, persistence, cleanup, and biological impacts, particularly on sensitive species and early life stages that support our fisheries and ecosystems.

Based on this body of science, I support HB 366 to regulate the use of heavy fuel oil in Alaska waters. As we heard, heavy fuel oil, or bunker fuel, presents, um, a substantial and well-documented spill risk. Its high viscosity and density limit evaporation and natural dispersion, allowing it to persist in the marine environment for extended periods. These physiochemical properties greatly complicate response and recovery and increase the likelihood of prolonged biological exposure. Heavy fuel oil smothers shorelines, benthic habitats, and marine organisms.

And the impacts span all levels of the ecosystem, from microbial communities to primary production to fish, seabirds, and charismatic megafauna like killer whales. These effects are not short-lived. Residual oil from the Exxon Valdez spill persists in silt-shore beaches of Prince William Sound even decades later. By contrast, distillate fuels such as diesel, while still harmful, are lighter, more refined, and easier to manage in the event of a spill. They evaporate and degrade more rapidly, reducing persistence and overall ecological risk.

The vessel's use of heavy fuel oil also requires these exhaust gas cleaning systems, or scrubbers, as was mentioned, to comply with national and international environmental regulations. These generate large volumes of contaminated wastewater that are often discharged directly into marine waters. A single large commercial passenger vessel operating in Alaska can discharge somewhere on the order of 5,600 cubic meters of water per hour, equivalent to more than 5 Diamond Park swimming pools, the local swimming pool here in Juneau, every hour. And this discharge is chemically complex. It's completely devoid of oxygen.

It's acidic, often to salinity— pH units lower than our ambient seawater. It contains elevent— elevated levels of toxic hydrocarbons and metals including vanadium, copper, and lead. And these contaminants are known to individually impact marine life, but little is known about the effects of this mixture. My research shows that cold water embryonic forage fish are highly sensitive to hydrocarbons an order of magnitude lower than those measured in scrubber discharge. Oil droplets can fish to stick to fish eggs, creating continuous exposure.

These exposed fish hatch with deformities of their heart, jaws, spine. This impairs their ability to feed and survive, and importantly, they don't die immediately but experience delayed mortality, something that's rarely captured in routine toxicity testing. Published toxicity studies of scrubber discharge show harmful effects at extremely dilute concentrations. Particularly on sensitive organisms such as zooplankton and larval stages of benthic invertebrates. Adverse effects on reproduction and development of several plankton species have been observed at a sample dilution as low as 1 part per million.

This is equivalent to dumping half of a 5-gallon bucket into Juno's swimming pool. That half bucket is full of scrubber discharge. Currently, there is little research on Alaska species or the impacts of long-term chronic exposure to scrubber discharge. Alaska's marine waters are vast, but dilution alone does not provide the solution to this pollution. In these coastal waters, the timing of commercial passenger— passenger vessel traffic overlaps with critical biological periods, including herring spawning and other early life stages of ecologically, commercially, and culturally important species.

Our short, highly productive growing season concentrates ecological activity into the same place and at the same time, where both chronic discharges and spill risks are greatest. Hydrocarbons and metals from these sources can accumulate in sediments and marine food webs from plankton to fish to marine mammals, posing risks to ecosystem health, subsistence resources, and food safety. While research on scrubber discharge is still developing, the broader body of oil spill science provides clear insights into the risk posed by these contaminant mixtures. I believe that there is sufficient scientific evidence to support a precautionary science-based policy decision such as HB 366. This would be a practical step to reduce the use of scrubbers and the severity of oil spills to better protect Alaska marine ecosystems and the communities that depend on them.

Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Powers. Um, could you state your affiliation again? I heard you're from Anchorage, but can you just state your affiliation and background again?

Yes, great. I am an environmental consultant. I run my own firm called Fjord and Fish Sciences. Okay. My background is in aquatic ecotoxicology, specifically the effects of oil spills on Arctic marine species.

Okay, I suspected as such. Representative McCabe. Thanks, Chair Aishide. So just a couple questions. I appreciate you being here.

Thanks, it's helpful.

You mentioned that there's very little, and you may have already answered this, but you mentioned there's very little peer-reviewed studies showing the impact of, or population-level impact on southeast marine light from cruise ship scrubber discharge. So, I mean, I get, you know, that you study this all the time and that you kind of know what's going to happen, but are there any real studies that show that this specifically comes from cruise ships in Southeast? Dr. Powers. Through the chair, uh, McCabe, uh, I'm sorry, there was a few different questions in there.

I might have to ask you to repeat. What I understood is, are there studies on Southeast-specific species and the effects of scrubber discharge? There are not any studies that look at that. The closest study that we have to Southeast Alaska was done out of Washington, which I have some confidence in because those are the same ships that are visiting Alaskan waters, and they used EPA routine testing and quite high dilutions of the scrubber discharge. They found limited effects.

There is, however, a much larger, more robust scientific peer review that comes out of the Baltic Sea, and they have found these very low concentrations to be adversely impacting these key plankton species. Thanks. Follow-up? Follow-up. So if you don't mind, since you mentioned the Prince William, the Exxon Valdez, essentially I happened to be over top of that in an airplane before even the Coast Guard got there to buoy, boom it off.

A good chunk of that, and it's a little, that's a little bit different than Bunker C, the oil coming out of the Exxon Valdez. And a good problem with that, and maybe you could comment on this, was number one, we took 12 to 18 hours to even start to clean it up, which was our fault. But we also cleaned the beaches, we steamed the beaches, which has proven, I think, to be more problematic almost than the oil itself. Can you comment maybe on the differences between scrubber discharge and oil coming out of the Exxon Valdez? I mean, since you kind of brought it up, so.

Yes. Dr. Powers. Through the chair, I will respond. The difference— so we're kind of talking about several different substances here.

We have Alaska North Slope crude. That's what spilled from the Exxon Valdez. We have bunker fuel, heavy fuel oil, those two are relatively similar, except crude oil is actually more viscous than heavy fuel oil, which is a solid at room temperature for the most part. So I would say that the, the cleanup methods that were used would be more similar between those two, whereas the discharge that's coming out of scrubbers from what I've seen of the characterization, is for a large part dissolved constituents, but a similar mixture of hydrocarbons, including toxic and carcinogenic hydrocarbons, in the parts per million range, and metals.

Thanks. You're a good teacher. I appreciate it. Some of which. Yeah.

And I have myself in the queue, and then I'll go to Representative St. Claire, um, Dr. Powers, uh, I have a little bit of an ecological background, so a word I didn't hear you say, but I think you were talking about the concept, is biomagnification. Uh, is that something you were referring to in some of the studies or some of the impacts? And if so, can you define it for the committee? Great.

Uh, back to the chair. Um, biomagnification is a word that is used in my field. It has a strict definition, which means that if you look at the bottom of the food web, let's call these the phytoplankton or primary producers, they would have a very small concentration of a specific contaminant. And as those were to be munched on by, let's say, a herring, the contaminant concentration inside that herring would be larger because it's feeding on these slightly contaminated things. So now this fish, let's call it medium contaminated, then it would be eaten by a bigger fish, which would get more contamination, And at the top we would have like a, a seal or a killer whale, which would be sort of enriched in this contamination so that they accumulate that over time.

Biomagnification is a special type of contamination because it requires that as the food web grows, those contaminants are not metabolized and not broken down and rather stay stay in the tissue. So oftentimes you find those in fat reserves or in the liver. Um, not all contaminants are like that. Um, hydrocarbons, for example, are metabolized both by invertebrates and by vertebrates, and they are believed to not biomagnify in that same way, but they can bioconcentrate, which means that you have a higher concentration, uh, in your body than you would in the environment. So that's what we see in the hydrocarbon studies done around the world, is that if you measure the concentrations in water, they are far lower than you would find in a blue mussel, for example, which collects these.

There is some recent evidence to say that there is accumulation or biomagnification, maybe, though then I would have to go into the mechanisms to find, did it come from the food? Did it come from this? In fish and in marine mammals around Alaska, so that there is in fact hydrocarbons of potentially toxic nature in these higher-order species. So biomagnification, or if it's just bioconcentration, that's a question for a different scientist. Thank you.

Representative St. Clair. Thank you. Mr. Co-chair and Ms. Powers, I got a couple of questions for you. The scrubber discharge water, is that tested, and is there— who's it tested by, and is there a standard?

Uh, through the chair? Yes, please. Um, is it tested and who is it tested by, or—. Yes. Okay.

Um, I have I have seen several, um, reports of the constituents of this scrubber water. I am not very familiar with the regulations of who has to test it or how often they test it. Um, that would be a question for a regulator. Um, but I do see, uh, analytical chemistry lab reports that give me confidence that it has been tested for these specific constituents that were ordered on that test. It is very difficult in the field of environmental chemistry to look at everything at the same time, so the, the light only shines where you look.

Representative Hannon, did you have a nuance to that? Yes, please.

For the record, Representative Sarah Hannon. The EPA, the Federal Environmental Protection Agency, regulates scrubber wastewater Um, but it calls for scrubber discharge constituents, so cruise ships are to report their own data to the EPA. That's why it makes it hard. The state does not have a database on the discharge. Um, okay, thank you, Representative Hannon.

Uh, follow-up real quick. I was going to ask the same thing about the scrubber exhaust. The scrubber exhaust, RDEC does— excuse me, Representative Sarah Hannan, for the record. DEC, our state agency, doesn't monitor it but does do— I'm trying to remember the test. There's a— it's a number in the testing and it's an opacity testing because they are So our state does air pollution testing and some of that includes scrubber opacity.

But they are not looking at just scrubber air discharge, they are looking at all discharge. And just for the committee's awareness, we do have a D.C. representative on, but I would like to just stick with the invited testimony before we go to those folks. I'll leave it at that. Representative Stutes? Thank you, Mr.

Chair. I have a question, or two questions. What is the availability of the two different types of fuel? Is there a discrepancy in one type of fuel being more readily available than the other? Question number one.

Question number two: what is the cost comparison between the two fuels? Dr. Powers, are you able to answer those? Questions to the chair? No, I will not.

Thank you. Okay, Representative Hannon, and then—. Yes, I'm looking for my notes on that.

In all the ports that cruise ships traveling— Representative Sarah Hannon, for the record— are traveling to Vancouver, Puget Sound, and California. So if they are originating in any of those, both fuels are available. Because like I said, most of the vessels that this impacting already carry it on board because they are going to go into areas where— if they're going to go to Glacier Bay, they're required to have it. When they return to port in Vancouver, they're required to use it. If they're returning to Puget Sound, they're required to use it.

There are 3 vessels that as of 2024 that are large passenger vessels. The Disney Wonder, which carries 2,800 passengers, the Norwegian Spirit that carries 2,042 passengers, and the Pacific Whirl that carries 2,022 passengers are exclusively using the, the, uh, lighter fuel. They They've done away with HFO. Now, the cost difference— I know I have it. They're readily available.

I'm going to have to get back to you because I'm not— it's my first presentation of the bill and it's here in my notes, but as my staff is, they give you lots of backup. And now I got to flip to—. Yeah, let's do a follow-up. But then, you know, I really— Representative Hanna, I really want to get through your invited testimony, so we're I'll come back to you because we do have another bill to hear as well. So try and be as efficient as I can.

A follow-up. Last follow-up. And I'm just wondering what the cost of the conversion would be, if there is a cost, or can they just clean out the one tank and fill it up with the other kind of fuel? Sarah Hannon, for the record. What has been described to me is there is no conversion necessary.

They already burn it. They can use it. Okay, let's move to just our invited testimony for the time being. Is there any further questions for Dr. Powers and her scientific expertise?

Okay, thank you, Dr. Powers, for being here. Next we have online Linda Banken of the Alaska Longline Fishermen's Association. Uh, Miss Banken, please unmute yourself, put yourself on the record, and begin your remarks.

Yes, hello. I hope you can hear me okay. This is Linda Benken. I am the executive director of the Alaska Longline Fishermen's Association. Loud and clear.

Am I coming through clear? Yes, loud and clear. Go ahead. Wonderful. ALFA is a Sitka-based commercial fishing organization committed to sustainable fisheries and thriving fishing communities.

We have over 200 members who own, operate, or crew on small hook and line or pot vessels targeting halibut and sablefish, although many also troll seine or gillnet for salmon during the summer. While we have members spread across the state, the majority of our members are residents of Southeast Alaska. Thanks so much for this opportunity to testify. I also want to thank Representative Hannon for introducing HB 366 in this committee substitute, and also thank SEAC for educating Alaskans on the use and impact of heavy fuel oils, the irony of allowing scrubbers to take the heavy fuel oils or HFO toxins out of the air and release them into Alaska's waterways, and the environmental and economic risk of allowing this practice to continue. As you've heard, HFO is made from sludge-like residue left over in the refining process.

It's full of toxins with high levels of sulfur, metals, and long-chain hydrocarbons. It has known toxic impacts to marine life and human health. Given that the tourism industry markets Alaska's pristine environment to draw customers to Alaska, the use of HFOs is illogical for this industry at best. At worst, it shows a casual disregard for the health of Alaskans and the economic well-being of our state. As you know, Alaskans consume a lot of seafood.

In fact, the Alaska consumption of seafood is many times higher than the national average. Since many of the toxins introduced to the marine environment from HFOs bioaccumulate, this places Alaskans at elevated risk of cancer, respiratory disease, and other illnesses. Alaska— Alaska also exports a lot of seafood, and the catching, processing, and shipping of that seafood is a pillar of Alaska's economy. That seafood is marketed and sold worldwide as coming from the pristine waters of Alaska. In fact, ASMI has worked hard to build that reputation, that Alaska's seafood comes from the clear, cold, and clean waters of this state.

That reputation cannot stand for long if the cruise ship industry continues to dump toxins into our environment. Over 6,000 people in Southeast Alaska are alone— alone are employed by the seafood industry. The annual first wholesale value of seafood harvested off Southeast Alaska is $887 million. Seafood is an economic driver in our region. And across our state.

If Alaska wants to continue to market its seafood as coming from pristine waterways, it is in all of our interest to ensure we protect and seize extreme and toxic pollutants. The straightforward solution is burning cleaner fuel. The industry is already equipped to burn cleaner marine fuel oil and does so selectively. They continue to burn heavy fuel oil most of the time because it's cheaper. The number I heard in the presentation earlier was cheaper by $350 per person per day.

The state of Alaska has full legal authority to regulate fuel types used within its waters, including restricting and burning of HFOs. No federal statute preempts Alaska from adopting shipping fuel regulations, and the Ninth Circuit's recent decision and Pacific Merchant Shipping Association further affirms this authority. Alaska is lagging behind other jurisdictions, both domestically and internationally, in establishing cleaner fuel requirements to protect marine waters and the seafood industry, despite being uniquely vulnerable economically and in terms of human health to these same impacts. I'll close here, but in sum, I want to express our strong support for HB 366 and the community substitute that's in front of you, and to urge you to move it forward. Thanks so much again for the opportunity to testify.

Thank you, Ms. Banken. Are there questions for Ms. Banken? Representative Stutes. Thank you. Through the chair, Mr. Co-chair, I think that you said $350 a day per person.

I think it was $3.50 a day per person. I think that's right. I think I misspoke. My apologies. $3.50 A day.

Yeah, I was thinking my cruise price just went up. Thanks. Yeah, the power of an errant decimal place or two. Further questions for Ms. Banken?

Ms. Banken, I had a question based on something you said that I took a note on. You said, just to clarify, scrubbers don't treat the thing coming out of the emissions, it just transfers it to the water. Did I hear that correct?

Um, to— to—. Yes, I—. That's correct. It's spraying water on these— the toxins, and then it's rinsed directly into the ocean, is my understanding as well. Okay, thank you.

Representative McCabe. Yeah, uh, yeah, Chair Aisha, there's different types of scrubbers actually. There's what she's describing as an open-loop system. There is also a closed-loop system. So maybe, um, maybe we should differentiate between them when we're talking because they are wildly different in the toxins and stuff that they put into the water.

Yeah, I appreciate the amount of water that they use. I appreciate that. I'll need some more information on those systems. Any further questions? Okay, thank you, Ms. Mankin.

And finally, we have Emily Endinshaw. She is the CEO and Tribal Administrator of Ketchikan Indian Community. She's online. Ms. Endinshaw, please put yourself on the record and begin your remarks.

Thank you. Can you hear me? Loud and clear, go ahead. Okay. Thank you.

Hello, everyone. For the record, my name is Emily Edenshaw. I serve as the CEO and Tribal Administrator for Ketchikan Indian Community. I do have some prepared remarks. I want to start with by sharing that I am calling in from the ancestral homelands of the Dena'ina people in Anchorage, Alaska.

As I mentioned, I serve as the CEO of Ketchikan Indian Ketchikan community. We are the second largest tribe in Alaska. For those of you who have not had a chance to read up on Ketchikan this year, we are expected to have more than 2 million visitors via cruise ships come to our 38-mile island. So just for context, that's the size of Phoenix that's coming to Ketchikan this summer. For those of you who do not I am both Yup'ik and Inupiaq.

My family comes from Emonak, Alaska. I'm also part of the Raven Thunderbird Clan. I was ceremonially adopted in Old Masset, Haida Gwaii. My husband owns a house in Heidelberg, Alaska, and we have a house in Ketchikan, Alaska. Prior to stepping into my role as CEO of KIC, I had the distinct honor of serving as the President and CEO of the Alaska Native Heritage Center, where I led the organization through the largest transformation phase since inception.

I also am a PhD candidate. I'm about to graduate with my doctorate in Indigenous studies. So, I want to thank and lift up the prior doctor who testified. I know how hard it is to go down this journey. I also served on the Alaska Tribal Travel Industry Association Board for a term.

I do not serve on that board currently, but I am— I wanted to introduce myself because I am going to be talking a little bit about our work, but I do think it is important so you all know that I am entering into this space, even though it is virtual, that I am coming with experience. I will also say, for those of you who know me, know that cultural tourism is a love language I'm very passionate about this work, but I also, as I'm going to share in my prepared remarks, there needs to be a balance. As a member of a clan, knowing that we need to restore balance, there needs to be a balance as we're talking about the cruise industry in Alaska. So, I'm going to start with my prepared remarks. Members of the House, thank you for this opportunity to speak today in strong support of HB 366.

As I mentioned, my name is Emily Edenshaw, and I serve as the CEO of KIC. KIC is the second largest tribe in Alaska, serving over 6,600 tribal citizens. We operate as both as a tribal government as well as a tribal health organization. You all are invited to come and visit me in Ketchikan, Alaska. We are one of the largest employers in Ketchikan and play a central role in housing, healthcare, and social services in our community.

I am here today because this bill addresses— it's not theoretical for us. It directly impacts the health, well-being, and ways of life of our people. For Alaska Native communities, our connection to the land and waters is not just cultural. It is how we feed our families, how we maintain our identity, and how we pass knowledge from one generation to the next. When pollution impacts our waters, it disrupts our traditional and customary harvesting practices, and when those practices are interrupted, our families are forced to purchase food instead of harvesting it.

That creates a real and immediate economic burden, especially in rural Alaska where the cost of food is already high. At the same time, it erodes cultural practices that have sustained our people for millennia. This is also a public health issue. When contamination enters our waters, it does not stay there. It enters into our food systems.

For communities with high reliance on fish and marine resources, that risk is significant. This is why HB 366 matters. By, by banning the use of heavy fuel oil, this bill directly addresses one of the primary sources of pollution entering Alaska's waters through scrubber discharge. It is a clear and actionable policy that will reduce both water and air pollution and protect the ecosystems our communities rely on. This bill also creates a more level playing field.

Smaller operators in Alaska, including commercial fishermen like my son and local marine businesses, are already expected to meet high environmental standards. It is reasonable that a multi-billion-dollar cruise industry is held to at least the same standard, if not higher expectations. And to be clear, this is not an anti-tourism bill. This is pro-Alaska. The long-term success of our tourism economy depends on protecting the very resources that draw people here.

If we degrade those resources, we are undermining the future future of this industry. I also want to address a point that has been raised earlier, that cruise ships are not the only vessels operating in Alaska's waters. Yes, that is true, but they are the majority, and more importantly, they represent one of the largest, most concentrated sources of impact in our coastal communities. The scale, frequency, and volume the volume of cruise ship activity is fundamentally different from other users of our waters. As I mentioned, we are expecting to welcome more than 2 million visitors to Ketchikan this year.

From a cruise ship perspective, that's 58 ships with over 700 stops. So, I wouldn't necessarily cosign with a narrative that this bill is singling out the cruise line industry. This bill is responding to where the impact is greatest. And with a level of presence comes a higher level of responsibility. The reality is that the cruise industry is a multibillion-dollar industry, and in Alaska, their contributions often stop at what is required through taxes and fees.

Meanwhile, the impacts— environmental, cultural, and economic— are borne by our communities. HB 366 is not about targeting an industry. It's about setting a standard, and a standard that, that reflects the scale of operations, the level of impact, and the value of the resources at stake. The good news is that this is achievable. Cleaner fuel— cleaner fuels already exist, and many vessels are already transitioning to them in other parts of the world.

This bill ensures Alaska is not left behind when it comes to environmental environmental standards. But passing this bill should not be the beginning, not the end of a broad— it should be the beginning and not the end of a broader effort to improve how the cruise industry and tourism industry operates in Alaska. First, we need stronger oversight and accountability. Alaska currently lacks sufficient state-level oversight of one of its largest industries. This legislature, this body that I'm speaking to today has the opportunity to ensure clear standards, consistent monitoring, and enforceable consequences.

Second, we need better data and stronger science. One of the most frustrating challenges we face today from a tribal perspective is how pollution is measured and regulated in our waters. Alaska is a natural resource extraction state. However, at the same time, if we allow— if we allow discharge into the very waters that sustain our communities, whether if it's oil, mining, or cruise ship discharge, the standards being used do not reflect how our people actually live. We don't just live near these waters; we rely on them.

We eat the salmon. And when pollution enters the ecosystem, it enters our bodies. Right now, Alaska Alaska uses a default fish consumption rate of 3.5 grams per day. That does not reflect the reality for Alaska Native communities where consumption can range between 8 to 109 grams per day. That gap matters because it directly impacts how water quality standards are set and how much this pollution is considered quote unquote acceptable.

I implore this body to work with people like Ray Paddiff with Tlingit and Haida. He is one of the leading voices in our state that is trying to get more funding for this work. I want this body to know that there are real concerns because we do not have inclusive statewide data that reflects the diversity of our communities and our actual consumption patterns. Some tribes, like the Saldovia Tribe, have taken the initiative to conduct their own fish consumption studies, but this work should not fall solely on individual tribes to carry forward. We have tried to address this at the tribal level, but we do not have the resources to complete this effort on our own.

And yes, it is connected to the issue we are talking about today. Even if we raise the fish consumption rate on paper, it does not solve the full problem. Large industries continue to discharge into our ecosystems, increasing the parts per million of contaminants that we are taking in over time. States like Idaho, Maine, and Washington have invested in this type of research. I ask this body to do the same.

One clear solution is to fund the science, fund— and I'm going to get this word wrong— statisticians Fund long-term data collection and work in partnership with tribes and agencies like the EPA to establish standards that reflect real consumption and real exposure, because without accurate data, we are setting limits that may look protective on paper but are not protective in practice. And for our communities, that is not an acceptable risk. Third, we need meaningful partnership. The cruise industry should be working directly with tribes, Alaska Native corporations, and local communities, along with the state, to improve practices. And not in a performative way, but in a way that reflects true collaboration and shared responsibility.

That includes environmental stewardship, but also investment in authentic cultural tourism and local economies. Right now, those partnerships are limited. And that needs to change. Fourth, we need to address cumulative impacts. I recently participated in— well, I'm currently here participating in federal subsistence board meetings, and over the last 2 days, tribal consultation, there has been significant concerns raised about tourism more broadly, including sports fishing tourism, and its impact on access to resources and traditional ways of life.

These issues are connected and they require a coordinated statewide approach. HB 366 is an important step forward. It addresses a known problem with a clear solution. Instead of managing pollution after it happens, this bill prevents it from happening in the first place. As this bill moves forward, I would encourage strong enforcement mechanisms and clear reporting requirements so that compliance is not optional and data is transparent to the public.

Right now scrubber discharge is regulated through a patchwork system with no single point of accountability. Standards are not designed for Alaska and enforcement relies on heavy— it relies heavily on industry self-reporting. HB 366 360 is important because it closes one of those gaps by addressing the primary source of the pollution together. Ms. Enshaw? Yes?

This is Co-chair Eichide. If you can wrap up your comments as best you can, I don't want to cut you off, but just if you can just summarize it, I would like to give the committee an opportunity to ask questions.

Okay, sure, I'm happy to do that. I will, in closing, I just want to share my vision, my dream for Southeast Alaska as a resident, as a community leader, and as the CEO of the second largest tribe in Alaska. My dream is that one day we will have as many traditional canoes in the waters as we do cruise ships. Today that would be 59 canoes or more. But that vision depends on something very simple.

Clean, healthy, and thriving ecosystems. Because if we do not protect our waters, if we allow pollution and discharge to continue at the levels we are seeing today, then the future will never come to— then my dream will never come to fruition. This is bigger than one bill. This is about what we want Alaska to look like for the next generation. I ask you to help protect us.

Thank you. Thank you, Miss Andinshall. Are there questions for Ms. Anderson-Shaw? From the committee? Seeing none, thank you to our invited testifiers.

I would invite Representative Hannan to come back and just for some final questions from the committee and also for the committee's awareness, we, as I mentioned before, we have a couple folks from the Department of Environmental Quality online. Director Jason Olds of the Division of Air Quality is available. Available, and Gene McCabe, Director, Division of Water, is also available for questions. So are there questions for the sponsor or any of our experts online? Representative St. Clair.

Through the chair, thank you, sir. This is for DEC on whichever of the two individuals. The same question I asked about scrubber standards, and I was told that it was EPA, but it's rarely— or there's no place to get the data. Could you just give me some insight on that, please?

Can you all hear me? Yes, we can. Go ahead, put yourself on the record and proceed. Yes. For the record, this is Jason Olds, Division Director for Air Quality at DEC.

Through the chair, Representative Eich had the scrubber. There's two discharges. One, my counterpart in the Division of Water, Gene McCabe, could speak to. When we're speaking about air emissions and Method 9 was the reference method, I believe, that Representative Hammond was trying to recall, that is an opacity method that looks at just what's observable coming out of the stack. Stack.

It doesn't necessarily analyze any of the sort of constituent compounds that are in the exhaust itself. Um, and I think some folks did speak to whether you have open loop or a scrubber, uh, or a closed loop scrubber, would have different characteristics as far as closed loop necessarily discharge to the marine environment while open loop would. Um, but, uh, sulfur that's referenced, these fuel standards and things, isn't sort of destroyed through the process of combustion. Any sulfur that's in the fuel would be transferred in the exhaust for air emissions. Thank you, Mr. Olds.

Uh, follow-up. Follow-up. Can I get the other individual to talk about the scrubber discharge and the testing at the state level, if any? EPA level, and if there's a standard. That would be Mr. Gene McCabe.

No relation. No relation. Though he's retired Coast Guard. Thank you. This is Gene McCabe, Director of Division of Water.

Thank you for the question. Through the chair, there is a standard. The Environmental Protection Agency's Vessel General Permit creates an F- limit for the liquid portion of the scrubber discharge. That is, the permit also establishes a reporting frequency that is, that is reported directly to the EPA through their electronic reporting portal for the vessel general permit. The standard that the EPA sets in the BGP is the same for all vessels.

There's really no Alaska-specific standard for for the liquid portion of the covered discharge. The data is collected and is available on an electronic portal through the EPA, through the vessel general portal— I'm sorry, the vessel general permit portal. And I hope that answers the question. Yes, thank you. Co-chair Carey.

Thank you. Through the co-chair, I think this is probably for the bill sponsor, but I'm just I really like that you've brought this bill forward. I really appreciate the direction it's going. I am wondering about whether other states and/or communities, like whatever level this is typically regulated at when it is regulated, um, if they typically do like an emission limit such that a certain amount can— of HFO can be burned, and then if you hit that threshold, then you have to pull back from it, or is it typical to do more of a ban, which is kind of what we're looking at here? And just trying to get a sense of the landscape of policy on this and what's out there.

I'm going to defer to Representative Hannan for the record, and I'm going to defer to my staff, Hunter Meacham. And just for the committee's awareness, we do have another bill, so I'd like to give everyone their, their question crack here, and then we'll probably be— well, we will be bringing this back, I assume, for further discussion another time. All right, Hunter Meacham for the record. Um, I'd have to get back to you on the exact sulfur limits that other, like, other countries and other states and local areas have, have gone with, but I can tell you that The global emission, so the International Maritime Organization, their limit is global, and that is a 0.5% sulfur content. And the North American Emission Control Area sulfur limit is 0.1%.

And just to—. Hello. Just to clarify, what were those two entities again? Set those limits? Yes, Hunter Meacham again for the record.

The first one was the International Maritime Organization, and the second was the North American Emission Control Area, which is federal EPA.

Okay, thank you. Representative McCabe? Yeah, thanks. So a couple things, and then I have a question for the DEE. So MGO is 35 to 50% more expensive than Bunker C, which explains why the cruise ships are using it.

Say again, what was that percent? MGO is 35, roughly 35 to 50% more expensive than Bunker C. So my question for the DEC is, the DEC put out this fiscal note, which is an indeterminate fiscal note, And I'm curious that in your verbiage you say implementation, and I guess this— I'm not sure if this is for Mr. McCabe or the First Gentleman, but implementation would require inspections to verify which fuel is being used. But you say we know how many hours the ships put in here, we know what ports they come to, we know what we would need for inspections, that we'd probably have to see the ship when they stop the first time. So how is it that we have an indeterminate fiscal note? You would know whether you need new inspectors, you would know how many times they need to meet the ships and inspect it.

It says in here too, travel to ports and remote communities would be necessary. So did we just not have the time to do the fiscal note properly, or I mean, how did we get to indeterminate? Uh, Mr. Olds or Mr. McCabe? Mr. McCabe, the unrelated. For the record, this is Jason Olds, Director of Quality, and the indeterminate note was based off of the prior version of the policy that was adopted today.

Narrowed the scope from vessels, which is a much broader category of ships, and so it was unclear to us what the intent was in terms of scoping out what that inspection and compliance program would look like. Obviously, having narrowed it down today with the SEAC, we'll be developing and submitting a fiscal note following the CPV adoption, and that is something that we could go in short order. Thanks. And one follow-up. Follow-up.

And I think this is for the bill sponsor. So Alaska sits, as we talk about, inside the North American Emissions Control Area, and the sulfur cap is actually 1.1% under MARPOL Annex Section 6 and fuel standards for vessels in interstate and foreign commerce are generally a federal matter under United States v. Locke. So I'm wondering if you have alleged legal opinion on whether the state even has the authority to do this, and if so, if we can get a copy of it. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] We did not get any caution from alleged legal on the state's authority to regulate in Alaska waters. We, we already do regulate cruise ships in a variety of ways in Alaska waters.

Thanks. Okay, Representative Stutes. Thank you, co-chair. I say to the chair, I've heard you talk, or I've heard talk about two different types of scrubbers. Is there one scrubber that doesn't allow these pollutants to go into the water and then another one that does?

Can you give me a little bit of information? So I'll give you—. Representative Hannan. On the different types. Representative Hannan, for the record, and I'll give you the baby version and then make my staff give you the primary school version.

There are two kinds of scrubbers. They're called open loop and closed loop. And one is air discharge and the other is water discharge.

For the record, Hunter Meacham, staff to Representative Hannon. I think we've talked a lot about the open-loop scrubbers that wash exhaust and then dump it overboard into the water, but there are closed-loop scrubbers that, um, that also are— have concerns, but they store some of that toxic scrubber sort of discharge on board, and then they'll dump it at, at, um, at port. However, there are still concerns with the closed-loop scrubbers, so transitioning to cleaner fuels takes care of sort of those concerns. A quick follow-up, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. So this legislation would affect both types of scrubbers.

Representative Hannon, for the record, this legislation would do away with scrubbers because you're now cleaning— the scrubbers are to clean bunker fuel to an acceptable discharge level. If we do away with bunker fuel that you're using, you're no longer going to need to use the scrubber systems. You don't—. So follow up, rather than doing away with scrubbers, then this, this bill is doing away with bunker fuel, right? Gotcha.

Which— excuse me, Representative, scrubbers were a way to moderate the pollutants that bunker fuel created. Okay, seeing no further questions, uh, Representative Hannan, do you have any, uh final summary statements before we move on to our next item. No, I want to just thank you for your time today, and I, I know earlier today we talked about on the floor of the House, and many members heard comments about concerns of regulating only Alaskan companies and small operators. And I would say this legislation is at the other end of the pollution stream. We're looking at large, large international or corporations who are operating in Alaska, and our goal is to reduce the pollution that they produce while operating in Alaska, because all of that impacts Alaska's health and safety.

Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you, Representative Hannon and Hunter, and appreciate you coming before the commission— the, the House Transportation Commission. We're just gonna take a brief at ease.

We're— House Transportation back on the record at 2:53 PM. Because of time constraints, the House floor ran a little bit later this morning. We are going to move to our next section, but we are going to change some things. So right now we are going to take up House Bill 302, travel insurance. We will not be hearing public testimony today.

My apologies. But we will hear at least one invited testifier after the bill sponsor has a chance to introduce her bill. So brief at ease. Brief at ease.

Okay, we're back on the record. Um, because we did notice public testimony, we are going to take public testimony. My apologies for the confusion. But first of all, we'd like to get a brief introduction of House Bill 302 from Representative Hall, and I believe she's here with Mr. Bruce. If you'd please come to the podium and begin your brief introduction remarks.

Thank you very much, Co-Chair Eischeid, and members of the House Transportation Committee. Thank you also to Co-Chair Carrick as well. My name is Carolyn Hall, and I represent House District 16, which is the West Anchorage neighborhoods of Turnagain, Spinard, and Sand Lake. Thank you for hearing House Bill 302. It is an act relating to travel insurance.

Insurance. Traveling in and out of Alaska is something Alaskans know not to take lightly. We live in a state of tremendous distances, remote destinations, and unpredictable weather. These factors and others expose travelers to a number of risks, from delays and lost luggage to physical injuries and worse. Each of these risks carry with it a significant financial burden.

HB 302 provides the best practices based on the National Association of Insurance Commissioners and the National Council of Insurance legislators' model legislation, HB 302 repeals existing Alaska travel insurance statutes that have not been updated in over 13 years. The bill replaces previous travel insurance statutes with a more comprehensive and nationally uniform travel insurance statute. My office and the office carrying the companion legislation in the Senate have worked closely with the Division of Insurance to ensure that HB 302 protects consumers while also making the process of regulating and providing insurance easier. The bill before you strikes a balance between the consumer, the insurance industry, and regulatory bodies by providing clear rules, standards, and definitions for the travel insurance market. And now with that, Co-Chair Eishide, I'm happy to move it the direction of your will.

Yeah, thank you, Representative Hall. We are going to hold off on the section analysis right now so we can get to your invited testimony. We have Aduc De Haas of Alliance Partners USA. Mr. De Haas, if you can please unmute yourself and begin your testimony and try not to go too long on the testimony, sir.

Yes, sir. I hope you can hear me okay. Good afternoon, Co-Chair Carrick and Co-Chair Eichcheidt and members of the House Transportation Committee. My name is Duke DeHaas. For the record, I'm Vice President and Deputy General Counsel of Allianz Partners U.S. and I'm also Co-Chair of the United States Travel Insurance Association Law and Reg Committee.

We are a writer of travel insurance and we have an insurance company and a fully licensed Travel insurance producer authorized to do business in all 50 states, including Alaska. Thank you for bringing HB 302 before the committee today. The legislation is important both for travel insurance consumers and the industry, and a special shout-out to Representative Hall for sponsoring legislation and to her staff, Keith Bruce, for assisting with my presentation today. I will be, uh, succinct and happy to answer questions at the end. I noticed that when I came a month ago, it was snowing, and it looks like a month later there's still snow there.

I hope when I come back in June, maybe I'll see some of the state without snow on it, but it's a beautiful place, and I really appreciate the opportunity to testify before you. So with that, we can go to the next slide. I just want to talk briefly about the legislation, and I'm not going to read everything on the page, you'll be happy to know, But basically, this is a comprehensive regulatory framework for travel insurance. So while it was mentioned that we're doing away with existing Alaskan law, which is primarily Section 21.27.152, we're not getting rid of the consumer protections that are included there. They're being incorporated into this legislation, and they are being built upon and fleshed out.

And so just on the slide, you see some of the things that are included. We have definitions, we have consumer protections, permitted, prohibited sales practices, and the like. Next slide, please. And then we can go on to the next one. We're going to talk about the protection or the benefits of the legislation for consumers, as well as the benefits for regulators in the industry.

So next slide, please. I'm sorry, go back one. Uh, so there's built-in consumer protections to the legislation, including things like free look periods. So there's a 10 to 15 day free look period where somebody can purchase travel insurance, which is typically purchased when someone buys a trip to protect parts of their trip like trip cancellation, trip interruption, emergency medical, lost baggage, and the like. When you buy it, consumers are typically purchasing a trip They may often check a box.

For example, Alaska Airlines has our product in the booking path. If you decide after you purchase it that you do not want it, you are able to get a refund for the product, 10 or 15 days, just depends on how you purchased it, whether electronically or whether you received it by mail, for example, from a travel agency. Additionally, there's also clear disclosures and multiple disclosures built within this legislation so that consumers are not surprised when they, when they get their product and they're able to learn more about the product before they purchase. Additionally, they receive fulfillment after they purchase, which contains, of course, the policy and all the terms and conditions. A couple of consumer protections that are built in.

There's no— this is a— there's a prohibition on opt-out sales. So if you notice when you're purchasing Alaska Airlines and our product is there, the box is not pre-checked for you. That is a prohibited practice. We are not engaging that now, but everyone will be on the same, uh, sheet of music, rules of the road, if this is adopted. Um, we can go to the next slide.

I'm going to keep moving here, try to make it as fast as possible. There additionally, there's clear guidance for the regulators, for the division who will have enforcement, enhanced enforcement authority under the legislation. It also provides explicit jurisdiction under the Unfair Trade Practices Act, eliminates some gray areas that are there now. There will be a single filing requirement. The product will be filed as in the Marines, so it will give the regulators understanding of how they should handle travel insurance products when they're filed.

There will be uniform definitions. Across all products. And in every travel insurance transaction, there's an insurance company, there's a licensed producer, and there's what's called a retailer, which could be a small mom-and-pop travel agency or could be a large airline or cruise line. And this legislation provides for authority and jurisdiction over each entity in the chain so that the, the consumers are protected there. Uh, on the same slide, and I apologize I didn't get this updated before the hearing, um, we now have legislation in 42 states that's essentially matching this, Washington becoming the most recent state to enact this in the last couple of weeks.

And we can go to the next slide, please. And finally, what this does for the industry is that it levels the playing field. There are some operators out there who, uh, do not satisfy legal requirements. Or Insurtechs maybe, and think they're not insurance. This will, this will create the same level playing field for all companies.

License, streamline licensing procedures, more distribution channels, and increased competition in the market, which we welcome. We're a big player, but there's plenty of room for other companies to come in. You all travel maybe more. Just to get around in general, perhaps, than other states do, and this product will provide more protections for you there. Next slide, please.

Um, and then this is just— and again, I'm sorry, Washington's not filled in, but it is now the 42nd state up there in the corner. Um, why, why do this now? Why update your laws now? Currently, 42 other states have this legislation in place, and I'll just give you one example. Eligible groups are expanded under this statute.

If your student attends the University of Montana, if your child attends the University of Montana, an eligible group there can purchase travel insurance, for example, for athletic teams to travel, and that student will be protected. However, if your child attends the University of Alaska Anchorage, they will not be able to purchase to get this protection currently because it's It's not a valid eligible group under Alaska law unless you pass this legislation. So you'll have the same consumer protections that all the other states have and additional distribution opportunities and hopefully lower prices and more avenues to buy travel insurance.

And last slide is just a summation. I'm not going to— I just gave you an example about it, so I'm not going to go through it. In any more detail. I'm happy to answer more questions. One more slide, I think, as to why to do this now.

To modernize, it's not reinvention, and this will put Alaska in step with the national standard. I know I rushed through it. I'm happy to answer questions about it. It's really not as, as complicated maybe as it looks from the number of pages, some of which are repeating things that are already in your code. With that, I'll stop, and again, thank you for the opportunity.

Happy to answer questions. Questions. Thank you, Mr. De Haas. Are there any questions for Mr. De Haas? Representative Mena.

Thank you, co-chair. I say through the co-chair to Mr. De Haas, you talked about the inconsistencies and that there are some entities that might not be compliant with either national standards or other standards. Could you give some examples about those entities and the current inconsistencies in Alaska?

Mr. De Haas. Sure. Sure. Uh, through the co-chair, um, Representative Mena, good question. I think an example would be, um, opt-out is just one example, but I guess I can use that one again.

Um, I don't know that anyone's operating and using opt-out sales currently in Alaska, but the division would have to decide that's a prohibited practice under the Unfair Trade Practices Act and actively go after it, whereas this legislation in other states that has the opt-out prohibition in it would prohibit that being done in that state, but not in Alaska. So that's one example. You know, I don't want to name companies by name or necessarily speak to particular practices. The big companies generally are operating in compliance, and this will just codify consumer protections that are in the marketplace generally. Hope that answers the question.

Follow-up? Follow-up? Through the co-chair, thank you, that's very helpful. One other question: what are the different types of companies that travel insurance applies to? I'm familiar with air travel.

Mr. Jahas? Yes, through the co-chair, when you say the— if I'm answering your question correctly, people purchase travel insurance when they buy an airline ticket. It could also be when you you buy a cruise. So the story example I give to a lot of folks is there's a gentleman who paid $70 for a travel insurance policy and went to Italy and had a stroke and was in the hospital there for a couple of weeks and then had to be brought back to the United States in an airline— on an airline. They took out a pod, put it— gave him a nurse.

And, you know, so he was treated on the way back. And it's a happy ending. He had, you know, good recovery. It's a New York resident, not an Alaska resident, but his medical bills for that trip were $70,000, and that was all paid by travel insurance by our company. So it covers you when you go on a cruise.

I've been on cruises with my family for a number of years, look forward to coming to Alaska in June, and it covers things like being medevaced off a ship. Additionally, it is sold through travel agencies or tour operators like Expedia. There are lots of different channels, aggregators as well. Hopefully I am answering your question. Yes, you did.

Thank you. Okay. Any further questions for Mr. De Haas? Okay. Seeing none, thank you, sir, for testifying before the committee.

So we are going to move to our our public testimony. And let me see here, let me find where I am. Okay, we are now open public testimony on House Bill 302, travel insurance.

Public testimony is now open, travel insurance, House Bill 302. Is there anyone in the room that'd like to testify?

Seeing none, we're moved to online.

And seeing no one online to testify, we will now close public testimony on House Bill 302.

I'm available to testify.

I'm sorry, uh, who's that? This is Karen Alvarado. Representative Hall, did you want to speak to Ms. Alvarado? Co-chair Aishide, Ms. Alvarado was part of the invited testimony today, but I know because the committee is so very short on time, we were thinking that we might have to bring her back before the committee at a future bill hearing. But yes, I will leave it to the will of the committee.

Yes, I would prefer that. And Ms. Alvarado, if you heard that, we're just running a little short on time, so We will bring you back for some more invited testimony. We also have the very long sectional to do and so on and so forth. Absolutely. Happy to come back.

Representative Hall, do you want to make any brief final comments? As I said, we're going to be bringing you back, but any final comments before we finish today? Co-chair Aishat, I just appreciate the opportunity to present this bill to you so we can modernize travel insurance statutes to help the insurance industry protect consumers and to offer a framework for the Division of Insurance to be able to do their job. So I appreciate the committee's time. Thank you very much.

Okay. Thank you, Representative Hall. And I just want to let us know about our future activities. We don't have a meeting this Thursday, but We are going to have meetings next week, and because of some of the slow things, we got to readjust here a little bit. So that takes us to the end of our agenda today, and this meeting is adjourned at 3:10 PM.