Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2003

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Ways and Means, to which was referred S.B. No. 1151 entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this bill is to clarify which lands belong to the public trust and which revenues from the public trust are to be used for the betterment of native Hawaiians through the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA).

Your Committee finds that the people of the State have long recognized an obligation to use some of the revenues from the ceded lands to benefit native Hawaiians. This obligation has been built into the Admission Act, which states that the new State of Hawai`i was to receive certain ceded lands from the United States and place them into a public trust. One of the five enumerated purposes of this public trust was the betterment of native Hawaiians.

When the OHA was formed pursuant to the 1978 Constitutional Convention, a portion of the public trust revenues was directed to the OHA for the benefit of the native Hawaiians that the OHA serves. Debate between the State and OHA rose as to which revenues from the public land trust were to be considered in making the appropriate calculations. This issue went into litigation. In 2001, in Office of Hawaiian Affairs v. State of Hawaii, the Hawaii Supreme Court sent the issue back to the Legislature for clarification.

The Legislature has demonstrated its good faith in attempting to remedy this situation by enacting interim measures to fund the OHA during this period. Your Committee finds that it is now time for the Legislature to finally define which lands are in the public trust and which part of the revenue stream from those lands is to be given to the OHA for the benefit of native Hawaiians. Only by this action will the State's obligations to native Hawaiians be finally fulfilled.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Ways and Means that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 1151 and recommends that it pass Third Reading.