STAND. COM. REP. NO. 1078

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    H.B. No. 1282

       H.D. 1

       S.D. 1

 

 

 

Honorable Donna Mercado Kim

President of the Senate

Twenty-Eighth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2015

State of Hawaii

 

Madam:

 

     Your Committees on Public Safety, Intergovernmental and Military Affairs and Economic Development and Technology, to which was referred H.B. No. 1282, H.D. 1, entitled:

 

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO BROADBAND COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY,"

 

beg leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to appropriate funds for a National Aeronautics and Space Administration and Pacific International Space Center for Exploration Systems engineering assessment of a proposal to establish a laser optical communications ground station in Hawaii, leading to infrastructure construction beginning in 2016, contingent on a dollar-for-dollar match of funds from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

 

     Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Business, Economic Development, and Tourism; Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs Cable Television Division; Pacific International Space Center for Exploration Systems; and two individuals.

 

     Your Committees find that space laser technology has the potential to support laser communications between spacecraft and Earth, provide ten to one hundred times higher data rates than traditional radio frequency systems with the same mass and power, and stimulate the State's economy through the creation of high-tech jobs.  Your Committees further find that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration conducted a detailed statistical analysis of weather patterns and identified Hawaii as the best site in the United States to establish the first laser optical communications ground station.  Implementation of this measure will advance the emerging aerospace sector and improve the broadband and optical fiber infrastructure in the State.

 

     Your Committees have amended this measure by:

 

     (1)  Changing the appropriation expending agency from the Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs to the Department of Business, Economic Development, and Tourism; and

 

     (2)  Making technical, nonsubstantive amendments for the purposes of clarity and consistency.

 

     As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Public Safety, Intergovernmental 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 H.B. No. 1282, H.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 1282, H.D. 1, 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, Intergovernmental and Military Affairs and Economic Development and Technology,

 

________________________________

GLENN WAKAI, Chair

 

________________________________

WILL ESPERO, Chair