Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Third State Legislature

Regular Session of 2006

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Media, Arts, Science, and Technology and Water, Land, and Agriculture, to which was referred S.B. No. 3176 entitled:

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to amend section 6E-43.6, Hawaii Revised Statutes, to require the Department of Land and Natural Resources to map burial sites that are inadvertently discovered and the new site to which the remains are to be relocated, using a global positioning system device, and to record the information with the Bureau of Conveyances.

Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and a private individual. The Department of Land and Natural Resources submitted testimony in opposition of this measure.

The historic and cultural heritage of the State is an important asset that must be preserved and enhanced for future generations, especially with respect to historic and cultural property. Your Committees find that amending section 6E-43.6 to require the Department of Land and Natural Resources to map and record the coordinates of the location where human skeletal remains are inadvertently discovered will further the State's efforts in preserving historic and cultural property.

Your Committees further find that the Department of Land and Natural Resources is planning to convene a work group of archeologists who will review the Historic Preservation Division's current operations and will offer recommendations for improving their operations. One of the issues the work group plans to examine is the cost, accuracy, and reliability of various global positioning system devices currently available on the market. Accordingly, your Committees have amended this measure by inserting an effective date of July 1, 2050 to allow the work group time to select an appropriate global positioning system device for the Department to use.

As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Media, Arts, Science, and Technology and Water, Land, and Agriculture that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 3176, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 3176, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs.