STAND. COM. REP. NO. 1692

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    S.B. No. 2271

       S.D. 2

 

 

 

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Twenty-Eighth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2016

State of Hawaii

 

Sir:

 

     Your Committee on Ways and Means, to which was referred S.B. No. 2271, S.D. 1, entitled:

 

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION,"

 

begs leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to appropriate moneys for research and mitigation efforts relating to rapid ohia death disease.

 

     Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Agriculture, Department of Land and Natural Resources, Oahu Invasive Species Committee, Conservation Council for Hawaii, Coordinating Group on Alien Pest Species, and Hawaii Farm Bureau.

 

     Your Committee finds that the ohia trees are important to Hawaii for environmental and cultural reasons.  Recently, rapid ohia death disease has devastated thousands of acres of native forests on the island of Hawaii.  The spread of rapid ohia death disease is so pervasive and destructive that the Board of Agriculture has placed Hawaii island ohia trees under quarantine, thereby limiting the transport and shipment of the trees.  Your Committee finds that funding research and mitigation efforts to address rapid ohia death disease is crucial for the health of Hawaii's native forests and for the preservation of the ohia tree.

    

Your Committee has amended this measure by:

 

(1)  Changing the appropriation amount from $200,000 to an unspecified amount; and

 

(2)  Changing the effective date to July 1, 2050, to facilitate further discussion on the measure.

 

     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. 2271, S.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Third Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2271, S.D. 2.

 

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

 

 

 

________________________________

JILL N. TOKUDA, Chair