S-4940.1  _______________________________________________

                    SUBSTITUTE SENATE BILL 6529

          _______________________________________________

State of Washington      54th Legislature     1996 Regular Session

By Senate Committee on Natural Resources (originally sponsored by Senators Drew, Owen, Oke, Sutherland and Winsley)

Read first time 01/31/96.

Requiring the fish and wildlife commission to simplify licensing requirements for recreational hunting and fishing.

    AN ACT Relating to fish and wildlife department recreational fishing and hunting licenses; and creating a new section.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

NEW SECTION. Sec. 1.  (1) The fish and wildlife commission shall develop proposed legislation for the 1998 legislative session that will simplify, consolidate, and modernize the recreational fishing and hunting license program.  The commission shall evaluate the benefits and drawbacks of eliminating the distinction between food fish and game fish and make recommendations to retain or revise the statutes accordingly.  An analysis must also be made to determine the suitability of merging the wildlife fund with the general fund.

    The goal of the license simplification request legislation shall be to reduce the number of recreational licenses required while not adversely affecting the revenue to the department.  The purpose of license simplification is to remove unnecessary burdens placed upon the recreational clientele of the department and to ease the sale of licenses by the license dealers.  Evaluations must be made of modernized computer-based systems utilized in other states.

    The requirements for individual catch or harvest records must be reviewed, and the commission shall determine on a case-by-case basis if some of these individual data-keeping requirements can be simplified or eliminated.

    The commission shall also evaluate methods to improve and simplify service to the license dealers, investigate technology improvements to improve the durability of license forms to the deteriorating effects of moisture and laundry soap, and develop recommendations for adjusting the price of licenses to reflect the changes due to inflation or the need for program changes.

    The proposed legislation must be submitted to the appropriate legislative committees on or before December 1, 1997.

    (2) The commission shall review the current license system to achieve better service to the public and for the dealers during the interim period until a more modern system is in place.

    (3) The commission shall make changes in the current system to eliminate the fraudulent issuance of duplicate licenses and shall report back to the legislature on or before December 1, 1996, on the present system improvements and fraud elimination procedures.

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