Honorable Calvin K.Y. Say

Speaker, House of Representatives

Twenty-Third State Legislature

Regular Session of 2006

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Transportation, to which was referred H.B. No. 3081 entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this bill is to increase the efficiency of government operations by appropriating funds to purchase an aircraft to transport state officials in the course of conducting official state business.

The Department of Transportation (DOT) opposed this bill.

Your Committee finds that while other states own aircraft for the same purpose and that Hawaii's geographic configuration makes it a prime candidate for such an aircraft, operational and maintenance costs are prohibitive.

On the other hand, recent events in Afghanistan and Iraq are requiring the deployment of the United States Army's 68th Medical Company's Medical Assistance to Safety and Traffic helicopter, more commonly known as MEDEVAC, leaving Oahu without a roto-wing aeromedical service to transport critical patients from outlying rural areas to medical care facilities in Honolulu.

Accordingly, your Committee has amended this measure by:

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Transportation that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 3081, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 3081, H.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Finance.