STAND. COM. REP. NO. 332

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    S.B. No. 1161

       S.D. 1

 

 

 

Honorable Donna Mercado Kim

President of the Senate

Twenty-Seventh State Legislature

Regular Session of 2013

State of Hawaii

 

Madam:

 

     Your Committees on Water and Land and Transportation and International Affairs, to which was referred S.B. No. 1161 entitled:

 

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO VESSELS,"

 

beg leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to clarify that all costs and expenses associated with the impoundment of an unauthorized vessel by the Department of Land and Natural Resources shall be borne by the vessel owner and to specify circumstances under which no vessel registration shall be renewed or transferred.

 

     Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Land and Natural Resources.

 

     Under existing law, the burden, along with the costs and expenses of impoundment and disposal of all unauthorized vessels, is on the Department of Land and Natural Resources when a vessel owner does not repossess an impounded vessel prior to disposition.  The process is costly and time-consuming for the Department.  The State is also not entitled to recover mooring fees incurred by the vessel owner prior to impoundment.

 

     Your Committees find that that in the case of a vessel owner who is in violation of mooring within a state small boat harbor or offshore mooring area, the vessel owner should have a continuing obligation to pay for the consequences.

 

     Your Committees have amended this measure by 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 Water and Land and Transportation and International Affairs that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 1161, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 1161, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.

 

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Water and Land and Transportation and International Affairs,

 

____________________________

J. KALANI ENGLISH, Chair

 

____________________________

MALAMA SOLOMON, Chair