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This week I am posting information on the six bills I have proposed for this legislative session. Today I’ll tell you about two of those bills.

DIF&W’s system of licenses and permits is too complicated and needs reform and simplification. Currently DIF&W sells 240 license, permits, and registration, 1/3 of them to hunters.

An Act to Simplify and Encourage the Sale of Hunting and Fishing Licenses, sponsored at my request by Rep. Mike Shaw, the House Chair of the Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Committee, will create a task force to create a plan that reduces the number of licenses, permits, and registrations.

DIF&W’s online system (MOSES) is almost as old as its namesake and desperately needs to be updated and improved. This bill will require the agency to prepare a plan to do so, and submit it to the legislature with a request for an appropriation by April 1, 2013.

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When we discovered that Chef Arturo Montes was cooking this winter at Orono’s Black Bear Inn, and presenting his first Chef’s Table dinner on New Year’s Eve, we booked our places immediately. We’d follow Montes anywhere!

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At The Olde Post Office Café in Mount Vernon, the view across Minnehonk Lake is beautiful, the featured art is always spectacular, the food is incredible – and we can walk to it!

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This week I'm posting summaries of the six legislative bills I've submitted. Senator Tom Saviello is the sponsor of this one, certainly one of my most ambitious ambitious bills.

Now that DIF&W has reliably estimated the moose population to be 76,000 animals, far higher than previous estimates, this bill will use that estimate to increase moose hunting permits, by applying the allowable harvest percentages in each Wildlife Management District in the agency’s current moose management plan to establish new annual permit numbers. The result will be a lot more permits.

This bill will allocate those additional permits in ways that will increase the economic value of moose to the hunting economy, including auctioning 10 percent of the moose permits to Maine guides, allocating 15 percent to nonresidents, and establishing a guaranteed draw system for Maine residents.

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This week I am posting summaries of the six legislative bills I’ve proposed for the 2013 session.

An Act to Expand Turkey Hunting is sponsored by Senator Tom Saviello, one of the most respected legislators and someone who can work collaboratively in a nonpartisan fashion, something that is very important to me and to the process. Tom also represents my district in the Senate and is someone I have come to admire, respect, and look to for advice. I’m really pleased that he was willing to sponsor this bill, and one other that I’ll tell you about later in the week.

At the December Fish and Wildlife Advisory Council meeting, DIF&W Commissioner Chandler Woodcock said, “It’s time to rethink the turkey issues.” Well, I’ve done that already, and submitted a bill that will give the department a great opportunity to expand, not just rethink, the turkey hunt.

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This week, I’ll be posting columns about the six legislative bills that I’ve proposed, focused growing Maine’s outdoor economy, expanding hunting and fishing opportunities, protecting native species, simplifying rules and streamlining the rule-making process, and empowering individuals in the legislative and rule-making process.

These bills grew out of my 18 years as the state’s primary lobbyist for sportsmen, during my tenure as executive director of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine. I’ve put a lot of thought into each bill and recruited excellent sponsors. These bills will be provocative, and are designed to stimulate thoughtful consideration and debate.

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As the legislature grapples with difficult budget issues, it’s a good time to take a close look at the finances of Maine’s Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. In the last fiscal year (July 1, 2011 to June 30, 2012), the agency raised $34,071,863.

$9,397,726 (28%) was federal funding. $15,238,773 (45%) came from the sale of licenses and permits, and $3,800,213 (11%) came from registrations of snowmobiles, ATVs, and boats.