STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2831

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE: S.B. No. 2954

S.D. 2

 

 

Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Third State Legislature

Regular Session of 2006

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Ways and Means, to which was referred S.B. No. 2954, S.D. 1, entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO AGRICULTURE,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to promote the repair and maintenance of irrigation systems throughout the State. Specifically, this measure:

(1) Establishes the irrigation repair and maintenance special fund;

(2) Provides grants from the irrigation repair and maintenance special fund to private irrigation system owners who provide matching funds equal to the amount received from the special fund; provided that the lands served by the irrigation system is dedicated to diversified agriculture;

(3) Defines "diversified agriculture";

(4) Provides an income tax credit equal to the amount that the irrigation system owner provided in obtaining funding from the irrigation repair and maintenance special fund;

(5) Authorizes the Director of Finance to issue general obligation bonds in the sum of $30,000,000 and appropriates the same amount to be deposited into the irrigation repair and maintenance special fund; provided that $50,000,000 in federal matching funds are also deposited into the irrigation repair and maintenance special fund;

(6) Makes an appropriation out of the irrigation repair and maintenance special fund in the sum of $80,000,000 for repair and maintenance of irrigation systems; and

(7) Makes appropriations out of the general fund in the sum of $11,886,000 for repair and maintenance of certain irrigation systems and an unspecified sum for the administrative costs of the Agribusiness Development Corporation.

Your Committee amended this measure by:

(1) Changing the amount of the general obligation bond issue and the various appropriations in this measure to an unspecified amount to facilitate further discussion on these matters; and

(2) Making technical nonsubstantive changes for clarity and consistency.

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. 2954, S.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Third Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2954, S.D. 2.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Ways and Means,

____________________________

BRIAN T. TANIGUCHI, Chair