SENATE BILL REPORT

                  SHB 2399

              As Reported By Senate Committee On:

   Natural Resources, Parks & Recreation, February 21, 2000

Title:  An act relating to technical corrections to various natural resource laws.

Brief Description:  Making technical corrections to Titles 76, 78, 79, and 79A RCW.

Sponsors:  House Committee on Judiciary (originally sponsored by Representatives Constantine, Esser, Lantz, Barlean, Cairnes and Pflug; by request of Office of the Code Reviser).

Brief History:

Committee Activity:  Natural Resources, Parks & Recreation:  2/16/2000, 2/21/2000 [DP].

SENATE COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES, PARKS & RECREATION

Majority Report:  Do pass.

  Signed by Senators Jacobsen, Chair; T. Sheldon, Vice Chair; Hargrove, Oke, Rossi, Snyder and Spanel.

Staff:  Vic Moon (786-7469)

Background:  Inaccuracies in the Revised Code of Washington may occur in a variety of ways.  Words may be inadvertently omitted, or typographical, drafting, or grammatical errors may be made in bill drafts and floor amendments.  A bill may change a particular term, or an entity may be renamed or abolished, and references to these terms or entities in other provisions of the code become inaccurate.

In addition, sections  may be repealed, recodified or amended in a way that changes their internal numbering.  References to these sections or subsections in other provisions of the code then become incorrect.  In 1999, the Legislature recodified many chapters from various titles into a new title:  Title 79A.  Internal cross-references in these recodified sections were not updated so that Title 79A contains many inaccurate cross-references.

There are a number of decodified sections in the code.  Decodification of a section occurs when the Legislature passes two bills affecting a section, one that amends the section, and the other that repeals that same section.

Summary of Bill:  Technical corrections are made to various provisions of Titles 76, 78, 79, and 79A RCW, which relate to fish and wildlife and natural resources.

The technical corrections include changes to:  correct grammatical, drafting, and typographical errors; correct inaccurate references to terms that have been changed or entities that have been abolished or renamed; remove obsolete language; alphabetize definitions; and correct inaccurate cross-references resulting from amendments, recodifications, vetoes, or repealers.  In addition, several decodified and obsolete sections of the code are repealed

Appropriation:  None.

Fiscal Note:  Not requested.

Effective Date:  Ninety days after adjournment of session in which bill is passed.

Testimony For:  From time to time the Revised Code needs to be corrected and technical amendments need to be made.  There are no substantive changes in SHB 2399.

Testimony Against:  None.

Testified:  PRO:  Dennis Cooper, Mark Lally, Code Reviser=s Office.