STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2290

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    S.B. No. 2416

       S.D. 1

 

 

 

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Twenty-Eighth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2016

State of Hawaii

 

Sir:

 

     Your Committees on Transportation and Energy and Public Safety, Intergovernmental, and Military Affairs, to which was referred S.B. No. 2416 entitled:

 

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO LASER DEVICES,"

 

beg leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to make it a criminal offense to intentionally or knowingly direct the beam from a laser device at an occupied aircraft under certain circumstances.

 

     Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Transportation and Honolulu Police Department.

 

     Your Committees find that this measure is needed due to the recent incidents in which aircraft have become targets of green laser lights while flying or landing at an airport.  Hawaii's existing penal code does not adequately address situations in which an offender injures or causes delays in flight schedules.  Although pointing a laser at an aircraft is not yet a pervasive problem in Hawaii, it is a problem across the country and its frequency in the State is increasing.  During the last ten years, 21,500 incidents involving laser devices and aircraft have been reported by pilots to the Federal Aviation Administration.

 

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

 

     As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Transportation and Energy and Public Safety, Intergovernmental, and Military Affairs that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2416, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2416, S.D. 1, and be referred to your Committee on Judiciary and Labor.

 

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Transportation and Energy and Public Safety, Intergovernmental, and Military Affairs,

 

________________________________

CLARENCE K. NISHIHARA, Chair

 

________________________________

LORRAINE R. INOUYE, Chair