STAND

STAND. COM. REP. NO.256

Honolulu, Hawaii

, 2003

RE: S.B. No. 735

S.D. 1

Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2003

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Transportation, Military Affairs and Government Operations, to which was referred S.B. No. 735 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO ADMINISTRATIVE RULES,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purposes of this measure are:

(1) To automatically repeal all administrative rules on July 1, 2006, unless the impacted agency can justify the need for the rule to the Legislature prior to that date; and

(2) To direct the Small Business Regulatory Review Board (Board) to conduct an analysis of all regulatory programs to assist the Legislature in determining whether the program should be repealed or continued.

Your Committee received testimony in support of the intent of this measure from the Board. Testimony in opposition to this measure was submitted by the Department of Budget and Finance, the Department of Human Services, the Department of the Attorney General, the Hawaii State Ethics Commission, the Office of Information Practices, Hawaii's Thousand Friends, and the Hawaii Chapter of the Sierra Club. The Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism and the League of Women Voters of Hawaii provided comments.

Your Committee is concerned about the increasing number of administrative rules being adopted in Hawaii, and that those rules are not reviewed often enough to ensure their necessity. Therefore, your Committee supports the intent of this measure, which will force each state agency to review carefully all administrative rules under its jurisdiction.

At the same time your Committee agrees that the wholesale repeal of all administrative rules in three years may be overbroad, and may result in the unintentional repeal of a necessary rule.

Therefore, your Committee amended this measure to blank out the date on which all administrative rules will be automatically repealed, and recommends that this measure be reviewed further by the Legislature. Your Committee also made a technical, nonsubstantive amendment for accuracy.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Transportation, Military Affairs and Government Operations that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 735, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 735, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Transportation, Military Affairs and Government Operations,

		____________________________ CAL KAWAMOTO, Chair