Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Third State Legislature

Regular Session of 2006

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Transportation and Government Operations, to which was referred S.C.R. No. 131 entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to request the Office of Hawaiian Affairs to convene a task force to make recommendations on the appropriate lease rent for the Mauna Kea Summit Lands.

Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Mauna Kea Anaina Hou, and Sierra Club-Hawaii Chapter. Comments were submitted by the University of Hawaii System.

The Mauna Kea summit land is ceded land and part of the public land trust. The lease agreement dated June 21, 1968, for a term of sixty-five years, between the Department of Land and Natural Resources as lessor, and the University of Hawaii as lessee, for the lease of the Mauna Kea forest reserve does not provide for any lease rent amount. Instead of charging lease rent, the university reportedly requires each facility to provide a percentage of its observatory time to the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy.

Your Committee finds that a long-standing and genuine issue has arose as to the amount of lease rent that should be paid for use of the Mauna Kea Summit land. The Office of Hawaiian Affairs has the knowledge and resources to convene a task force to bring the interested parties together to confer and cooperate to reach a mutually agreeable solution to the issue.

Your Committee has amended this measure by adding the Royal Order of Kamehameha O Mamalahoa, Heiau Helu 'Elua (the one not affiliated with the University of Hawaii), Mauna Kea Anaina Hou, and Sierra Club-Hawaii Chapter to the task force.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Transportation and Government Operations that is attached to this report, your Committee concurs with the intent and purpose of S.C.R. No. 131, as amended herein, and recommends its adoption in the form attached hereto as S.C.R. No. 131, S.D. 1.