Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Third State Legislature

Regular Session of 2006

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Energy, Environment, and International Affairs and Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs, to which was referred S.B. No. 2145 entitled:

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to require the Office of Environmental Quality Control to contract with the University of Hawaii Environmental Center to perform a comprehensive review of the environmental impact statement process, and to appropriate money to the Department of Health to fund the contract and for the Environmental Council to hire a program director to coordinate the State's environmental justice activities.

The University of Hawaii Environmental Center, the State Office of Environmental Quality Control, the State Environmental Council and the Chair of the State Environmental Council, the Conservation Council for Hawaii, and one individual submitted testimony in support of this measure.

Your Committees find that it has been fifteen years since the most recent review of the environmental impact statement process. According to the University of Hawaii Environmental Center, numerous changes have occurred during that time in the theory and practical application of environmental management. These changes impact the ability of existing environmental impact statement procedures to deal adequately with new and continuing development proposals. A comprehensive and scholarly review of the process will help determine the process' efficacy and whether a need exists to update chapter 343, Hawaii Revised Statutes.

Your Committees further find that there is a need to develop an environmental justice guidance document. Such a document will help ensure that principles of environmental justice are systematically included in all phases of the environmental review process. The document will also assist in ensuring that each agency fulfills its duty to identify and address any disproportionately adverse human health, environmental, or cultural effects on minority populations, native Hawaiians, and low-income populations that would be caused by the agency's policies, programs, activities, or proposed actions.

Your Committees amended this measure by making technical, non-substantive amendments for clarity and style.

As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Energy, Environment, and International Affairs and Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2145, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2145, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.