September 15, 2026 · 3,450 words · 6 speakers · 53 segments
. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you. . Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you. . Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you. . Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you. The Joint Committee on the Ministry of Rules shall come to order. It is JCAR policy to only allow representatives of state agencies to testify before the committee. If members of the public wish to express their views with respect to a rulemaking, they should submit written comments to the JCAR office at the following address. Joint Committee on Administrative Rules, 700 Stratton Office Building, Springfield, Illinois, 62706, or via email at jcar at ilga.gov. The committee would also like to remind commenters to submit their public comment on rulemakings in a timely manner and that submitting last-minute comment to the committee is discouraged and may not be considered. Staff, please take attendance. Roll call. Senator Bryant, Senator Castro, Senator Cunningham, Senator DeWitt, Senator Harris, Senator Turner, Representative Delgado, Representative Haas, Representative Reich, Representative Spain, Representative Tarver, Representative Vela. Ten members are present and quorum is established. Representative Delgado moves and Representative Vela seconds that the minutes of the August 19, 2026 committee be approved. All those in favor say aye. Opposed, nay. Opinion of the chairs, the ayes have it, and the minutes are approved. We'll now move to our agency responses, starting with the Department of Children and Family Services, tab 15, entitled Department of Children and Family Services Scholarship Program. Staff, please read the committee response. To the appropriateness of the agency's response, no further action. Now to review of agency rulemaking, starting with the State Board of Elections, tab 2, constitutional amendments and statewide questions of public policy. Can we have a representative of the State Board of Elections?
Please come forward to the witness table and identify yourself for the record. Good morning. My name is Heidi Poyer. I am legislative counsel for the Illinois State Board of Elections.
Thank you, counsel. We appreciate the work you've been doing on this, but it's the feeling of the committee that this needs a little more time, so we're just interested to see if you're willing to take an extension on this particular rulemaking.
Yes, we are, and we appreciate all of the work. that JCAR has put into reviewing these rules and providing very thorough and thoughtful feedback.
Okay. And we appreciate it. We know this is a busy time for your agency. We appreciate that. But we also hope that this is something you can work with with your board members and bring up some of the concerns that we have and hopefully bring back an amended rule to us before the next couple of meetings.
Sure. Yeah, this will work out perfectly. I'll be able to take this feedback to the board, and then we will be able to report back.
Okay. Thank you.
Sure.
Staff, please read the motion. J. Carr with the concurrence of the State Board of Elections. Extend the rulemaking titled Constitutional Amendments and Statewide Questions of Public Policy for an additional 45 days. Representative Tarver moves, and Senator Castro seconds, that the motion just read be approved. All those in favor say aye. Opposed, nay. In the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it, and the motion passes. Next, we will go to the Department of Health Care and Family Services, tab 6. It's entitled Medical Payments. Staff, please read the motion. J.G.R. with a concurrence of the Department of Health Care and Family Services. Extend the rulemaking titled Medical Payment for an additional 45 days. Representative Haas moves and Senator Turner seconds that the motion just read be approved. All those in favor say aye. Opposed, nay. Depending on the chair, the ayes have it and the motion passes. Next, we have the Department of Natural Resources, Tab 10, Deere Removal Permits. Can we have someone from the department come to the table? We have some discussion. The committee would like to engage in here. Please identify yourself for the record.
Good morning. My name is John Fisher. I'm the Acting Deputy General Counsel for the Department of Natural Resources.
Thank you. Senator Bryant is recognized.
Thank you. and thank you for attending the hearing today. So I have just a couple questions for you. I believe the Illinois Farm Bureau posed some of them and you've been kind enough to answer some, but I'd like to get a few of those on record if we could because I'm still a little bit confused about what direction this is going to go. So one of the issues had to do with what's termed as colored electric vinyl fencing. and in our conversations, you and I, you kind of mentioned some colors, but I noticed that in the answers to Farm Bureau's questions, it actually says that it must be blue, green, or violet flagging and tape placed a minimum of 10 to 15 feet apart on the fence. So I don't think that that is actually in the rule, that it would be that far apart, and that there are specific colors. So I would like a little bit of clarification on that. So I'm going to ask you a couple questions and then actually ask if you would... We probably going to move this today but I like for the department to come back with some additional rulemaking by January 1st So that would be one of the issues And if you could also explain what and then I quiet for a minute what is the vinyl fencing that you're referring to? Can you define vinyl fencing?
Sure. So in this section of the rule, it's the section that's dealing with the different types of damage that deer can be causing. A lot of times, you know, crops, corn, soybeans, things along those lines. But this particular section is when deer are causing damage to fencing. And so when they are damaging a fence, before the department will issue deer removal permits, so lethal permits to take deer, it's the recommendation that you either put up, you know, this, what is it, flagging system. So, you know, again, ribbon, that kind of thing, so that you're identifying where the fence is.
What kind of flagging system?
So, again, that's where we're talking about the different types of color. We were talking about anything other than really red or orange, because deer have a hard time seeing that. So, again, you know, yellow, green, blue, those types of things, so that it's more visible for the deer so that they won't run into the fence.
So it's actually not fencing.
I think it's described kind of as ribbons, So they would maybe take, let's say you have a barbed wire fence. On the barbed wire fence, you would tie ribbons of a certain color on the barbed wire fence so the deer could see it?
Yeah, the deer could see it.
Or the other option, obviously, is getting, as the rule sort of lays out, is you could get, it's colored electric vinyl fencing. And it's not as a substitute for the fence. But again, it's more just to have the deer be able to see that fencing before they run into your actual fence so that they will avoid damaging any of those.
So I'm not familiar with colored vinyl electric fencing. I'm familiar with white fencing like you use for horses. But what is an electric colored vinyl fence?
So I think what they're referring to is, from my conversations with our wildlife biologists, They're talking about more of like that orange sort of like snow fencing that sometimes that you'll put out.
Yeah, but that's not electric, though. That's just a fencing that gets put up along the highway. It's a snow fence.
I think they're meaning more of like an electric color, not like actual electricity. We're not talking about a fence that has some sort of electric barrier to it. It's more of the type of color. So bright sort of electric colors is what they're getting at.
So you see where I'm talking about needing a lot of clarification on this? Because as somebody that actually has a nuisance deer problem, panic arose in me. First of all, that I was going to have to put fencing around all of my soybeans.
Now your explanation is good.
Sure. Right? That it's to make the fence actually more visible. But the terminology of electric fence says to me, I've got to put an electric fence up, and then I've got to go out and find colors that match the colors that you've identified here. And then when we talked about it kind of in the hallway, these aren't the colors that you and I talked about. Not that it, the colors, like you said some other colors. I'm only bringing that up because if it's going to be defined, when a biologist goes out, what colors are going to be acceptable to that particular biologist when they're looking at the deer damage, then I think that has to also be in the rules. What colors are or if it going to just be colored with a you know a fluorescent color right Something like that Just not electric fence coloring And then the issue of the five acres I think it says let me just read to you the explanation
DPRs for plots less than five acres in size where the damage is mostly limited to access roads or field perimeters unless it is to augment other techniques, fencing, deterrence, repellents.
So this idea that they're not going to be allowed or limited to access roads or field perimeters, I'm not really clear why we're distinguishing where that five acres would be. If I have five acres of, let's say I have a five acre plot of sweet corn that I'm going to sell at a farmer's market. If I've got five acres that is being damaged by deer, why does it matter where that five acres is? Right? I'm using your explanation here. The rule text that stated it will not issue DPRs for plots less than five acres in size where the damage is mostly limited to access road or field perimeters unless it is to augment other techniques.
What that means is, you know, for a five acre plot, you know, when we're talking about like these specialty crops or other small crops. So we're not talking, you know, your normal corn and soy beans that are in most of the fields in the state of Illinois. what we're talking about here is that we will issue deer removal permits but there has to have been some other sort of deterrent method that has been undertaken by the landowner before we will issue those so whether it's fencing whether it's noisemakers whether it's it's some sort of repellent whether there's you know again fencing any any of those types of things if if those
aren't being successful then we will issue the deer why have you carved out the five acres Why is five acres carved out? What's specific about, what am I missing on five acres? What difference does it make if it's five acres or 40 acres?
Well, if it's 40 acres, it's a lot harder to fence 40 acres. The department's not requiring or looking to make sure that if you've got a much larger field, a lot of times some of those additional types of deterrents are going to be impractical on a much larger size field. When you get five acres and smaller, it's a bit more practical for those methods to be successful. But if you're talking about 40, 80, 120 acres, you know, a regular repellent may not work because the field is so large. But a five-acre field or smaller is small enough that the department would prefer to see an alternative method used first. And if that is unsuccessful, then the department will then be issuing deer removal permits.
The question is why? Why? Why would the department want that? You want to ask? I can follow it up. Yeah, okay. As you can tell, we're going to have some follow-up questions and maybe ask you all to put, memorialize this in another rule. So we'll have more conversations, I'm sure. I don't want to hold up the committee, and I certainly don't want to hold up the issuance of the nuisance tags for another planting season, right? So we want you to be able to do that. But we would like, I am asking that you come back by January 1 with additional rules that will answer some of these questions So we don have folks out there that think they doing the right thing We have great biologists but once in a while there a rogue individual who might need a little bit more framework, and we might have a rogue farmer who might need a little bit more framework.
And the department has no problem, as we've discussed with staff, bringing a clarification rule back by January 1st.
Thank you very much.
Representative Tarifer. Thank you. Just a quick question. This is certainly less of an issue in my district, so I'm just trying to better understand. So a couple things. One, the permit application allows for up to 10 individuals on there. Explain me the rationale behind that. so the rationale behind that is um if someone has you know in generally these are these are more being looked at for you know large sort of farming fields um an individual could be having deer damage but they may not be a hunter they may not be interested in in shooting or going after deer for the removal but they have individuals that they know that would be willing to do that for them. And so this allows them to list those people and then they would be authorized to use those permits to take the deer that are causing damage. Got it. And you mentioned people they may know but there's no requirement of any kind of nexus. I think for instance we were talking a little bit earlier maybe somebody's 90 years old and they might want to utilize one of their tenants or so on but there really is no nexus at all. You can pick any individual to be one of the tenants. Is that right? You can pick any
individual, the only requirement is that they are not currently suspended or revoked from hunting privileges in the state of Illinois and that they have an active hunting license.
Okay, that's important. That's kind of what I'm getting to as well. And then it mentions that you can't keep the antler skulls, those types of things. You can't sell them, barter them without, I'm sorry, when using one of these permits. What are the penalties for doing so,
just out of curiosity? That would be a violation of the wildlife code. I believe that's a class A misdemeanor. So you're looking at up to a year in jail.
Again,
but it is a misdemeanor.
It's a deterrent, so I just wanted to make sure. Thank you very much.
Senator Turner?
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Deputy. Just a couple more questions. Actually, I want to follow up on what Representative Tarver just asked that the misdemeanor because of that fact that that's such a great charge, I think it's really important that we have more education regarding all of this. Because sometimes not everyone understands it. Many of us have different agencies that come to our districts and we partner with them. Like I would have a partnership with IDNR and say, we're going to come talk about anything that has to do with this specific thing. Is that something that you folks already do or would be willing to do to help us out?
The department would be more than willing to provide any sort of additional information to any constituent at any point in time. I do know that our wildlife biologists spend quite a bit of time talking. When people are filing applications and they have questions about these things, we're feeling calls and emails on a regular basis almost every day in regards to not just deer but other nuisance animals. animals and their legal removal.
Well, thanks for taking the time to talk to us beforehand. We appreciate that. And the only other question. as Terry mentioned something about that plots for less than five acres, what's the difference between the five acres and anything greater than that? Why different rules for that, I guess, is what kind of what she was getting at. I guess I don't quite understand that either.
So the purpose behind the five acres was there are some deterrent methods that are going to be more successful on a much smaller scale than they will when you try to scale those up. And the cost on those could be almost prohibitive when you're talking about a field that's 80, 120 acres. You know, trying to fence a 120-acre field as opposed to a five-acre field is vastly different. So that's more of what we're looking for. So when, and I'll take like corn or soybeans as an example, When you have a much larger field, you don't have to demonstrate additional remediation methods that you've taken beforehand. If you have enough damage, then we will just be issuing the permit. We don't require additional remediation ahead of time. But on the smaller five acres and lower, we do ask that they try other non-lethal methods before we would then issue the deer removal permit.
And that landowner could determine what they want. We talked a little bit about this. They could use, I don't know, I think Senator Cunningham said that deer crossing sign we could put there. No deer crossing that would be nice But any kind of deterrent such as the flags or horns or some kind of smell animal urine I sure of some sort that works for them it it can yeah there are different methods that can work for a
deterrent but again they work on a much smaller area if you try to apply that to a much larger field the cost would be prohibitive yeah again I think that really would be helpful to just have
more educational areas that we can have people talk and discuss those things. But thank you for coming today.
No problem.
Okay, thank you. Just to repeat what Senator Bryan said, we certainly want to see this rule go forward so we have something in place as soon as possible, but we think it needs some work. So we'd like to hear back from you by the end of the year with another crack at a new rule.
Not a problem. Thank you.
Thank you. Next we're going to move on to our certification of no objection. Staff, please read the certification motion. The committee shall inform the agencies to whose rulemakings the committee has not voted an objection or extension or did not remove from the no objection list. The committee considered their respective rulemakings at the monthly meeting and based upon the agreements for modification of the rulemaking made by the agency, no objections will be issued. Senator Bryant moves and Senator DeWitt seconds that the certification motion just read be approved. All those in favor say aye. Opposed nay. and the pinning of the chair, the ayes have it, and the certification motion passes. JCAR's next meeting will be held on Tuesday, October 20th, 2026 at 11 a.m. in room C600 of the Blandick Building in Chicago We now move to adjournment Seeing no further business to come before the committee Co Spain moves and Senator Castro seconds that this meeting of the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules stand adjourned. All those in favor say aye. All those opposed say nay. In the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it, and the committee stands adjourned. Thank you. We don't get applause frequently. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you.