Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Third State Legislature

Regular Session of 2005

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Commerce, Consumer Protection, and Housing and Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs, to which was referred S.B. No. 913 entitled:

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to prohibit lands comprising the Public Land Trust from being sold, exchanged, or otherwise alienated therefrom by the Board of Land and Natural Resources, without the consent of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs.

The Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) and Association of Hawaiian Civic Clubs testified in support of this measure. The Department of Land and Natural Resources and an individual opposed the measure. The Department of the Attorney General presented comments on the measure.

Current law requires that the State hold and manage in public trust lands given, or ceded, to the United States after the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom, and returned to the State under the Admission Act of 1959. Additionally, proceeds from the disposition of public trust lands may only be used to further specific stated purposes, including the support of public education, the betterment of native Hawaiians, the development of farm and homeownership, the making of public improvements, and the provision of lands for public use.

Your Committees find that since accepting stewardship of the Public Land Trust, the State has allowed the trust corpus to be diminished through the sale or exchange of lands, without accounting for or replacing the value of the demised property, thereby jeopardizing the State's continuing ability to fulfill its responsibilities to the trust's beneficiaries.

This measure proposes to require the Board of Land and Natural Resources to obtain the consent of the OHA Board of Trustees before selling, exchanging, or otherwise alienating public trust lands. Your Committees further find that this requirement will help the State to better manage the public trust lands in a manner that enables it to continue to meet its obligations to its beneficiaries.

Your Committees have amended this measure by making technical amendments for the purposes of clarity, consistency, and style.

As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Commerce, Consumer Protection, and Housing 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. 913, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 913, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.