STAND. COM. REP. NO. 812

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    S.B. No. 1118

       S.D. 1

 

 

 

Honorable Donna Mercado Kim

President of the Senate

Twenty-Eighth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2015

State of Hawaii

 

Madam:

 

     Your Committee on Ways and Means, to which was referred S.B. No. 1118 entitled:

 

"A BILL FOR AN ACT MAKING AN EMERGENCY APPROPRIATION TO THE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH FOR HAZARD EVALUATION AND EMERGENCY RESPONSE PREPAREDNESS,"

 

begs leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to preserve public health by making an emergency appropriation to the environmental response revolving fund.

 

     Specifically, this measure appropriates $1,050,000 in general fund revenues for deposit into the environmental response revolving fund for the purpose of hazard evaluation and emergency response preparedness for the remainder of fiscal year 2014-2015.

 

     Your Committee received written comments in support of this measure from the Department of Health.

 

     Your Committee finds that declining consumption of petroleum products in the State has led to a reduction in revenues to the environmental response revolving fund, which receives $0.05 of the $1.05 barrel tax, and is the primary source of funding for environmental hazard evaluation and emergency response preparedness.  Your Committee also finds that an emergency appropriation is necessary to allow the Department of Health to continue to provide necessary environmental services for the remainder of the 2014-2015 fiscal year.

 

     Your Committee notes that, should S.B. No. 359 or another measure increase the barrel tax distribution to the environmental response revolving fund, pursuant to amendments made to section 243-3.5, Hawaii Revised Statutes, your Committee will be working with the appropriate Standing Committees of the House of Representatives and your Committee on Conference to retrieve a portion of the funds deposited into the environmental response revolving fund by this emergency appropriation.

 

     Your Committee has amended this measure by reducing both the appropriation from the general fund to the environmental response revolving fund and the appropriation out of the environmental response revolving fund to the amount of $800,000.

 

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Ways and Means that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 1118, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Third Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 1118, S.D. 1.

 

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Ways and Means,

 

 

 

________________________________

JILL N. TOKUDA, Chair