BILL REQ. #:  H-0784.2 

Read first time 02/13/2003.   Referred to Committee on Fisheries, Ecology & Parks.

     AN ACT Relating to commercial fishing licenses; and amending RCW 77.70.380.

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

Sec. 1   RCW 77.70.380 and 2000 c 107 s 82 are each amended to read as follows:
     (1) Except as provided in subsection (2) of this section, if fewer than one hundred seventy-five persons are eligible for Dungeness crab-coastal fishery licenses, the director may accept applications for new licenses. Additional licenses issued may maintain a maximum of one hundred seventy-five licenses in the Washington coastal crab fishery. If additional licenses are to be issued, the director shall adopt rules governing the notification, application, selection, and issuance procedures for new Dungeness crab-coastal fishery licenses((, based on recommendations of the advisory review board established under RCW 77.70.030)).
     (2) The department must consider a license transferred to, purchased by, or otherwise held by the federal government as a license renewed under RCW 77.70.280. A license transferred to, purchased by, or otherwise held by the federal government is a license under the limit of one hundred seventy-five established by this section.