H. Order an obligor to keep the tribunal informed of the obligor's current residential address, telephone number, employer, address of employment and telephone number at the place of employment;

I. Issue a capias for an obligor who has failed after proper notice to appear at a hearing ordered by the tribunal and enter the capias in any local and state computer systems for criminal warrants;

J. Order the obligor to seek appropriate employment by specified methods;

K. Award reasonable attorney's fees and other fees and costs; or

L. Grant any other available remedy.

Sec. 16. 19-A MRSA §3005, sub-§6 is enacted to read:

6.__Convert foreign currency amount to dollar amount.__If requested to enforce a support order, arrears or judgment or modify a support order stated in a foreign currency, a responding tribunal of this State shall convert the amount stated in the foreign currency to the equivalent amount in dollars under the applicable official or market exchange rate as publicly reported.

Uniform Comment

(This is Section 305 of the Uniform Act.)

This section establishes a wide variety of duties for a responding tribunal. It contains: ministerial functions, Subsection (a); judicial functions, Subsection (b); and, substantive rules applicable to interstate cases, Subsections (c)-(e). Because a responding tribunal may be an administrative agency rather than a court, the Act explicitly states that a tribunal is not granted powers that it does not otherwise possess under state law. For example, authority to enforce a support order by contempt generally is limited to courts.

Subsection (a) directs the filing of the documents received without regard to whether an initiating tribunal in another State was involved in forwarding the documentation. It also directs that the individual or entity requesting the filing be notified, but leaves the means of that notification to local law. The advent of a variety of swifter, and perhaps even more reliable,