Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-First State Legislature

Regular Session of 2002

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Water, Land, Energy and Environment, to which was referred S.B. No. 2505 entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to require a draft and final environmental impact statement (EIS) to be prepared by a qualified environmental consultant retained by the Office of Environmental Quality Control (OEQC) in accordance with the competitive sealed bidding or the competitive sealed proposals selection methods, at the expense of an applicant, if the applicant for a proposed action is a regulated utility.

Testimony in support of this measure was received from Hawaii's Thousand Friends and Na Leo Pohai. The OEQC, Hawaiian Electric Company, Inc., Kauai Electric and The Gas Company, Verizon Hawaii, and Land Use Research Foundation of Hawaii testified in opposition. Sierra Club Hawai`i Chapter submitted comments.

Your Committee finds that while there may be support for creating a bidding process with a pool of environmental consultants, OEQC would need additional resources to administer this change, and it may also create a conflict of interest.

Your Committee has heard that ensuring an objective review is vitally important, however, particularly in the case where an agency may be both the proposing agency and the accepting authority for environmental assessments.

Your Committee has amended this measure to delete the proposed new language and in its place, to authorize OEQC, when a conflict of interest may exist because the proposing agency and the agency making the determination are one and the same, to review the agency's determination, consult the agency, and make a final determination.

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 S.B. No. 2505, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2505, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Commerce, Consumer Protection and Housing.