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Minutes for SB307 - Committee on Agriculture
Short Title
Updating approved types of personal flotation devices.
Minutes Content for Wed, Mar 11, 2020
Chair Highland opened the hearing on SB307 at 3:44pm.
Kyle Hamilton, Assistant Revisor, Office of The Revisor of Statutes, provided an overview of SB307 and the statutes that it affects. (Attachment 5) There is a Fiscal Note for SB307.
PROPONENTS:
Colonel Jason Ott, Law Enforcement Division Director, Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks, and Tourism, appeared before the Committee in support of SB307. (Attachment 6)
K.S.A. 32-1129 sets out specific types of personal floatation devices (PFD) to be used by individuals under the age of 12 years of age while aboard a vessel and makes the operator of the vessel responsible for that action. This statute was enacted in 1989 and the specific types of PFD were referred to in statute, unlike K.S.A. 32-1119, which authorizes the Department to set the PFD types in regulation.
Boating laws are largely driven by federal law and administered by the United States Coast Guard. As such, references to types of PFD are changing and eventually, we will need to accommodate this change in regulations but in order to do so, we must first change this statute. Federal law now refers to wearable and throwable PFD and rating classifications are changing from types to level labeling requirements. Current PFD types in use will still be valid until the PFD becomes unserviceable.
There were no neutrals or opponents of SB307.
The hearing on SB307 was closed at 3:59pm.
The Chair adjourned the meeting at 3:59pm.
