STAND. COM. REP. NO. 233

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    S.B. No. 165

       S.D. 1

 

 

 

Honorable Shan S. Tsutsui

President of the Senate

Twenty-Sixth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2011

State of Hawaii

 

Sir:

 

     Your Committees on Public Safety, Government Operations, and Military Affairs and Economic Development and Technology, to which was referred S.B. No. 165 entitled:

 

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO AEROSPACE DEVELOPMENT,"

 

beg leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to:

 

     (1)  Extend the sunset date of the advisory committee created under Act 161, Session Laws of Hawaii 2009, to assist the Department of Business, Economic Development, and Tourism in developing a statewide starlight reserve strategy; and

 

     (2)  Appropriate funds for the Office of Aerospace Development to carry out its duties to identify and promote opportunities for expanding and diversifying aerospace-related industries in the State.

 

     Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from one state department, eleven entities, and six individuals.  Your Committees received testimony in opposition to this measure from one individual.

 

     Your Committees find that the aerospace industry presents a timely opportunity for strategic investment in a growth industry that can realize Hawaii's potential as a major contributor to and beneficiary of global space enterprise.  Hawaii has hosted a broad range of nationally-funded programs in planetary geosciences, satellite communications, space-based remote sensing and environmental monitoring, deep-space surveillance, and other aerospace-related activities sponsored by the University of Hawaii, the United States military, and numerous private interests.  Major national aerospace companies are already established in the State and are poised to expand their operations in Hawaii as a means of creating a bridge to larger Asian and Pacific markets.

 

     Your Committees further find that the aerospace industry is demonstrably a dynamic growth industry in which strategic investment will produce returns to alleviate the State's economic malaise.  Aerospace development is a sustainable project that will reward relatively modest up-front investment with increasing long-term scientific, educational, and economic returns.

 

     Your Committees have amended this measure by making a technical, nonsubstantive amendment for the purposes of clarity and consistency.

 

     As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Public Safety, Government Operations, and Military Affairs and Economic Development and Technology that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 165, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 165, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.

 

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Public Safety, Government Operations, and Military Affairs and Economic Development and Technology,

 

____________________________

CAROL FUKUNAGA, Chair

 

____________________________

WILL ESPERO, Chair