Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-First State Legislature

Regular Session of 2001

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Water, Land, Energy and Environment, to which was referred H.B. No. 687, H.D. 1, entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to change the public notice requirements for auctions, drawings, direct negotiations, exchanges, quitclaims, submerged and reclaimed lands, reservations, and easements from three successive weeks to once in both a statewide and a county publication.

Testimony in support of this measure was received from the Department of Land and Natural Resources. The Hawaii Audubon Society and Hawaii's Thousand Friends submitted testimony in opposition.

Your Committee finds that under existing law, when a public land disposition occurs public notice must be given three times in both statewide and county publications. For dispositions in the County of Hawaii, public notice must also be placed in both the East and West Hawaii newspapers. The cost of publishing notice is passed on to the entity receiving the property.

Your Committee further finds that these costs are overly burdensome and serve to lessen the competitiveness of the disposition process for State lands.

Your Committee has amended this measure by replacing its contents with the contents of S.B. No. 1162, S.D. 1, which requires public notice once (twice for drawings) in either a statewide or local publication, and requires all notices of public land distributions to be posted electronically on the Internet in an easily located manner.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Water, Land, Energy and Environment that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 687, H.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 687, H.D. 1, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Transportation, Military Affairs and Government Operations.