Director disagrees with legislative counsel that temporary-rule status is available
The counsel for the N.C. Legislative Rules Review Commission and the executive director of the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission disagree over whether the Commission could have pushed through controversial regulation changes in time for the 2009-10 seasons.
Joe Deluca, counsel for the RRC, said disputed game-and-fish regulation changes that are hung up in the legislature could have been submitted as temporary rules and be in place for the upcoming hunting seasons.
“It’s (a) proven (tactic) for the Wildlife Commission to use temporary rule-making to put into effect changes in seasons, bag limits and certain hunting and game laws,” Deluca said.
But Gordon Myers, the Commission’s executive director, sent a June 2 news release to agency “conservation partners” explaining the Commission couldn’t use temporary-rule status to include all 2009-10 proposals as “temporary rules.”
Myers said the Commission is allowed to submit proposals that only deal with fishing or hunting seasons, no-wake zones and game lands as temporary rules. Other proposals, he wrote, aren’t subject to temporary-rule status and can’t be considered by the General Assembly until 2010.
Based on Myers’ statement, seven proposals appear to fit into the “temporary-rule status” and could have been submitted in time for the 2009-2010 season:
• Remove the daily bag limit for deer.
• Allow hunters to use archery equipment to harvest deer during the muzzleloading firearms season on game lands.
• Shorten the bow season by one week and open the muzzleloader season one week earlier to create a two week muzzleloader season.
• Extend the deer season in the Northwest section to Jan. 1. Deer seasons in the Eastern, Central, and Western deer season structures will remain unchanged.
• Deer seasons on game lands in the Northwestern deer season will be changed so that the regular gun season is extended through January 1. Deer seasons on game lands in the Eastern, Central, and Western deer season structures will remain unchanged.
• Open all private lands in the Eastern, Central, and Northwestern deer seasons to the maximum either-sex deer season.
• Assign all of Moore County to the Eastern deer season.
Deluca said these seven proposals could be accepted as temporary rules if requested before the legislative session ends.
In the past, the WRC submitted changes in wildlife and fisheries regulations as permanent and temporary rules to the Rules Review Commission at the same time. The double filing was done so legislators would know the proposals already been through the public-hearing process and consideration by the agency.
Indications are (contrary to Myers’ statements) that temporary-rule status could have been applied to all WRC game-and-fish proposals for 2009-10 but weren’t because Myers, being a former engineer for the WRC who was unfamiliar with the process, didn’t know the agency could have filed proposals as permanent and temporary rules at the same time. Then the proposals would have bypassed the legislature and would have been implemented immediately. The next year they would have been submitted as permanent rules.
A few years ago the WRC received a dispensation from the legislature with regard to temporary rules because of the changing seasonal nature of fish-and-game regulations. Plus, the legislature knew WRC use of temporary rules wasn’t an end run around the public because public hearings already have been held. For 2009-10, the WRC received 40,000 comments regarding proposed changes in fish-and-game laws.
The legislature originally altered temporary-rule structure at the behest of developers and home-builders who wanted a way to speed up the process of obtaining building permits, but the change also aided the WRC.
Myers may be unwilling to request proposals H3-H9 be included as temporary rules now because once the chance to file proposals with Rules Review as temporary and permanent rules has passed, temporary proposals would be considered “new” and the public hearing process isn’t included in documentation sent to Rules Review. If a proposal doesn’t have public hearing reports attached (normal with WRC proposals), Rules Review most likely would note that in forwarding the proposals to the legislature. Rules Review might even refuse to send the proposals to the legislature. In either likely outcome, Myers would be reluctant to use temporary rules.
Joan Troy, the Commission’s Rules Coordinator, also said the RRC allows the agency to catch a break when it comes to temporary rules.
“(The Commission) used to have to file all proposals with the legislature, but it was such a slow process,” she said. “It would take one to two years to get a proposal into law after the commissioners had approved it. The legislature finally amended the temporary-rule process just for game and fish laws because they understood seasons and bag limits change every year and (the Commisson) has professional biologists who keep a finger on game-and-fish population numbers.”
When questioned, Troy said neither Myers, WRC chairman Wes Seegars, nor any of the other 18 commissioners asked her for input regarding temporary-rule status for 2009-10 proposals.
Troy said she could have advised Myers or the commissioners that temporary-rule status was available, but she wasn’t asked to provide input.
Troy has been banned from attending WRC meetings. She said Myers had indicated to her and her division chief, Col. Kenneth Everhart, that she wasn’t to attend meetings.
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