Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-First State Legislature

Regular Session of 2001

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Economic Development and Technology, to which was referred S.B. No. 678 entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to appropriate money for the New Economy Transition (NET) program.

Your Committee received testimony in favor of this measure from the Department of Business, Economic Development, and Tourism, Japanese Chamber of Commerce & Industry of Hawaii, Honolulu Japanese Chamber of Commerce, Hawaii Banker's Association, Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii, and the Vietnamese-American Chamber of Commerce.

Your Committee finds that the New Economy Transition program will allow businesses to use technology to increase productivity, work faster and more efficiently, create a more flexible, less hierarchical style of doing business, and be more competitive both locally and globally.

Your Committee amended this measure by emphasizing the partnership between government and business; appropriating $1 to DBEDT for the NET program; requiring all infrastructure at all existing technology parks be completed before the governor may allocate funds for the construction of new technology parks; appropriating GO bond funds to extend the community-based economic development loan and grant program to information technology for distressed rural areas; creating a high technology task force to develop clear goals and an implementation plan to improve Hawaii's high technology industry; requiring the conversion of legislative documents and all reports received by the legislature from state agencies, including budget material, from hard copy to electronic information to reduce transactions; and requiring the administration to process all bill payments electronically.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Economic Development and Technology that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 678, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 678, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.