Scope Statements
Health Services
Subject
Amends Chapter
HFS 137, relating to forms for organ and tissue donation to include rules governing a new donor registry for the state.
Policy Analysis
Wisconsin is one of a handful of states that does not have a donor registry for people who wish to sign on to be organ and tissue donors. While the WI Department of Transportation has asked people if they wish to be recorded as donors since the early 1970's, and the response is contained in the driver's record, the connection between what a person said and the person asking about donation in the hospital is absent. In addition, WI residents may choose to renew their license only every eight years so the response may be dated.
In August, 2008, the Bureau of Community Health Promotion of the Division of Public Health was awarded grant funding to establish a registry by the federal Department of Health and Human Services -- Health Resources and Services Administration. This funding will allow the state to build a web-based look-up to read a potential donor's driver's record and a new, public-facing website to allow people to make informed decisions about organ, tissue and eye donation 24/7. The grant requirements specify minimum data items and other elements of a donor registry.
Members of the general public will be the users of the new public-facing website. They will have the option of making an informed decision about organ and tissue donation and having this decision included on their driver's record.
Statutory Authority
In April,
2007 Wisconsin Act 106 was signed into law. This legislation revised the State's anatomical gift statutes and included a provision for the development of a registry:
Section
157.06 (20), Wis. Stats.: “Donor Registry. The Department of Health Services may establish a donor registry. If the department of health services establishes a donor registry under this subsection, the department of transportation shall cooperate with the department of health services in establishing the donor registry. The department of health services shall promulgate administrative rules governing any donor registry established under the paragraph."
Comparison with Federal Regulations
There are federal regulations regarding the recovery and distribution of donated organs, tissues and eyes. For organs, regulation includes the 1984 — National Organ Transplant Act (NOTA — P.L.
98-507). Among other things, NOTA established the framework for the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) within the United States, the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients, a government unit within the Public Health Service (Division of Transplantation) to oversee contractual activities of the OPTN, and prohibited the buying and selling of organs. The regulation and distribution of donated tissue is governed by the FDA.
However, these rules and regulations govern the distribution of organs and tissues once recovered--rules regarding registries and consent for donation are determined by states.
In applying for and accepting HRSA grant funding for a registry, Wisconsin agreed to follow the requirements, criteria and minimum data set specified in the grant guidance, CFDA No. 93.134.
Entities Affected by the Rule
Organ, tissue and eye recovery organizations that work with people in Wisconsin; hospitals; donation and transplantation professionals and advocates.
Estimate of Time Needed to Develop the Rule
It is estimated that the lead staff person for this project will spend approximately 5 hours each week on the rules-making portion of this project, for a total of between 200 and 250 hours.
Contact Information
Martha Mallon
Division of Public Health
608-261-6854
Natural Resources
Fish, Game, etc., Chs.
NR 1—
Subject
Revises Chapter
NR 46, relating to annual adjustments in timber stumpage values and other related changes to the management of forest law.
Objective of the Rule
Amendments to Ch.
NR 46 are being requested to update the annual adjustments of timber stumpage values, create a stumpage table based on weight (tons), create a definition of woody biomass, clarify how lands in multiple municipalities will be administered, created a date when management plans must be received for the first review with the July 1 application deadline, change the date when management plans must be signed and returned to DNR, and require that land owners with large accounts have an approved annual allowable harvest.
Policy Analysis
Amendments to Ch.
NR 46 occur on an annual basis to update timber stumpage values. Stumpage values are used to collect the proper yield and severance tax from landowners enrolled in the Managed Forest Law (MFL) and Forest Crop Law (FCL) programs as payment of deferred property taxes when timber is harvested. Stumpage tables based on weight are needed since up to 75% of the mills purchase stumpage based on weight instead of the traditional cord wood volume. Biomass is a coming market, making it necessary to create a definition on how yield and stumpage taxes will be calculated for this timber market.
Additional administrative changes are requested to make the Managed Forest Law program easier to explain, enter and enforce. Changes include:
1. Clarification of how a landowner's forest land located in multiple municipalities is administered under the MFL .
2005 Wisconsin Act 7 allowed for Managed Forest Law lands to cross municipal lines to allow for lands that would not normally be eligible for the program to meet eligibility requirements in conjunction with the adjacent lands in a neighboring municipalities. NR 46 was changed in 2007 to eliminate references to municipal lines. Inadvertently by eliminating the municipal line reference, all lands owned by a single landowner and applied for entry into MFL in one year are required to be placed under the same order number, regardless of where the land is located within the state. The proposed rule change would clarify when the lands requested to be entered in the MFL lie across a municipal boundary line they will be treated as one unit. If the lands requested to be entered in the MFL are in two or more municipalities but do not touch they will be treated as separate units or orders of entry. This change will make the Managed Forest Law program easier for landowners to enter and understand the MFL program.
2. Create a new draft plan deadline date for certified plan writers (CPW's) to submit a final draft of the MFL forest management plan to the Department for review and modification if necessary prior to the final deadline for processing applications received for the July 1 application deadline. Currently certified plan writers must submit a “completed and approved (by the Department)" management plan to the Department by the 2nd July 1 after the landowner's initial application is received. A high percentage of the CPW prepared management plans need minor adjustments or slight corrections before they can be approved. Creating a draft plan deadline date would allow for any corrections to be made prior to the final deadline. This change to NR 46 would suggest a June 1 draft deadline date and allow “completed and approved" plans to be returned on or before August 15. It would actually increase the time available to CPW's to finalize the work.
3. Landowners with management plans prepared by DNR foresters must return their signed plans by August 1. A change in this deadline to August 15 is proposed to make the certified plan writer and DNR deadline the same for landowners to turn in completed management plans.
4. Large block (industrial) landowners must follow an approved management commitment when harvesting their timber on forest lands enrolled in either the MFL or FCL. The management commitment indicates the general management practices that will take place within each timber type without site specific or property wide details. DNR has seen roughly 90% of the large block owners change hands in the last 8 years. Most of the ownership changes have shifted from primary wood using facilities owning the lands they relied on for a portion of their raw materials to investment organizations such as Real Estate Investment Trusts or Timber Investment Management Organizations. Some large block owners accelerate harvest levels to generate higher returns for their share holders, pay down the principle on debt or to extract the maximum value from harvesting in advance of land sales. Other large block landowners take the opposite approach and do not harvest nearly any available timber hoping to build value for a future land sale. These large block landowners are not harvesting and regenerating the forests when timber reaches a biological rotation age and thus the trees fall over and die. Neither extreme is desirable or acceptable for lands enrolled under a tax law.
Sustainable forestry strives to provide an even and relatively constant flow of forest benefits, including timber to society. Forests that do not have a balanced age structure are managed so that some trees are harvested as soon as they reach maturity and some trees are held (i.e. not harvested) until a future date. The net result is that the entire forest or ownership is not harvested within a few years so that nothing is left for the future years. Thereby a forest would harvest equal amount of timber harvested every year, beginning with the oldest timber first. This forestry practice is called managing by an annual allowable harvest and is done to even out of the flow of timber harvested. It is how all public forests are managed to insure long term sustainable benefits to society.
Under the current management commitment requirements, a large block owner enrolled in MFL does not have to manage by an annual allowable harvest. This proposed rule change would require that large block owners prepare an annual allowable harvest similar to public forests to optimize the flow of forest benefits for their lands in the short and long term.
Statutory Authority
Comparison with Federal Regulations
There are no existing or proposed federal regulations to compare with Wisconsin's Managed Forest Law or Forest Crop Law programs.
Entities Affected by the Rule
All private landowners under the Managed Forest Law and Forest Crop Law programs are affected by changes in the stumpage values when they harvest their timber. Landowner may be pay more or less yield and severance tax depending on individual stumpage values. Local municipalities will also be affected by changes in stumpage values since they receive the money collected from landowners for yield and stumpage taxes. Certified plan writers, DNR foresters and landowners are affected by the changes to the deadlines to review management plans and to submit completed work. The changes allow additional time for this work to be completed and provide a date for initial work to be submitted for review. Large (industrial) block owners will be affected by the change to require an annual allowable harvest. This change may receive the most controversial.
Estimate of Time Needed to Develop the Rule
5 months.
Contact Information
Kathryn J. Nelson, Forest Tax Section Chief
Department of Natural Resources
FOREST TAX SECTION - FR/4
P.O. Box 7921
Madison, WI 53707-7921
Ph: 608/266-3545
Natural Resources
Environmental Protection — Air Pollution Control,
Chs.
NR 400—
