STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2734

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE: S.B. No. 2948

S.D. 1

 

 

Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Third State Legislature

Regular Session of 2006

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Ways and Means, to which was referred S.B. No. 2948 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO THE PUBLIC LAND TRUST,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to appropriate funds to temporarily satisfy the State's obligation to pay the Office of Hawaiian Affairs its pro rata share of revenues derived from the public land trust.

Specifically, the measure, among other things:

(1) Establishes that, until the Legislature finally resolves the issue of how the Office of Hawaiian Affairs' pro rata share of public land trust revenues is to be determined, beginning with fiscal year 2005-2006, the income and proceeds from the pro rata portion of the public land trust to be expended by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, under Article XII, section 6, of the State Constitution, shall be $15,100,000;

(2) Requires certain executive departments and agencies to transfer $3,775,000 of receipts generated by the public land trust to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs within thirty days after the end of each fiscal quarter;

(3) Appropriates $17,500,000 to pay the Office of Hawaiian Affairs receipts from the use of lands in the public land trust that should have been transferred but previously were not transferred to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs between July 1, 2001, through June 30, 2005; and

(4) Declares that nothing in the agreement contained in the measure is to be construed as resolving or settling, or be deemed to acknowledge the existence of, the claims of native Hawaiians to the income and proceeds of a pro rata portion of the public land trust under article XII, section 6, of the state c onstitution.

Your Committee finds that the agreement embodied in the measure does not extinguish past and future claims that the Office of Hawaiian Affairs may have regarding revenue payments from ceded lands.

Your Committee has amended the measure by reformatting the quoted material contained in the measure and by deleting the specific amount appropriated to ensure continued discussion on the issue.

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. 2948, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Third Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2948, S.D. 1.

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

____________________________

BRIAN T. TANIGUCHI, Chair