Honorable Calvin K.Y. Say

Speaker, House of Representatives

Twenty-Third State Legislature

Regular Session of 2005

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Public Safety & Military Affairs, to which was referred H.B. No. 1630 entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this bill is to appropriate funds to enable the Hawaii Civil Air Patrol to continue vital search, rescue, and emergency transport services, and cadet education.

The Civil Air Patrol, an official auxiliary of the United States Air Force, is a volunteer organization with approximately six hundred members. Flying more than eighty-five per cent of all federal inland search and rescue missions, the Patrol saves approximately one hundred people every year. It also plays a vital role in disaster relief, flying relief officials to remote locations, supporting local, state, and national disaster relief organizations with experienced pilots and manpower, and transporting time-sensitive medical materials, blood products, and body tissue.

The Hawaii Wing of the Civil Air Patrol has three primary missions: search and rescue, aerospace education, and the cadet program. It is an active participant in counter-drug operations for the Drug Enforcement Agency, flying over one hundred seventy-five missions in 2003. Since the 1950s, it has also provided the State of Hawaii with tsunami warning services, responding to National Weather Service tsunami alerts by making repeated passes over beaches and coastal communities, using sirens and loudspeakers to warn residents.

The sum appropriated by this bill will alleviate the impact of recent funding cuts that have resulted in the termination of weekly tsunami watch patrols, difficulties in notifying essential personnel of emergencies, and cadet program reductions. The Department of Defense will match this appropriation dollar-for-dollar.

Testimony in support of this bill was received from the Hawaii Wing of the Civil Air Patrol, a member of the Civil Air Patrol, two members of the Cadet Program of the Civil Air Patrol, the Disabled American Veterans Department of Hawaii, and the Oahu Veterans Council. The Department of Defense of the State of Hawaii testified in support of the intent of this bill.

Your Committee has amended this bill by deleting the specific appropriation amount to facilitate further discussions.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Public Safety & Military Affairs that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 1630, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 1630, H.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Finance.