STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2659

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    S.B. No. 2557

       S.D. 1

Honorable Colleen Hanabusa

President of the Senate

Twenty-Fourth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2008

State of Hawaii

Madam:

     Your Committees on Agriculture and Hawaiian Affairs and Economic Development and Taxation, to which was referred S.B. No. 2557 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO BURIAL SITES,"

beg leave to report as follows:

     The purpose of this measure is to transfer jurisdiction of inadvertently discovered native Hawaiian burial sites from the Department of Land and Natural Resources to the appropriate Island Burial Council and to provide sixty days for an Island Burial Council to make a determination on the treatment or removal of a burial site.

     Testimony in support of this measure was submitted by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Society for Hawaiian Archaeology, and five individuals.  Testimony in opposition to this measure was submitted by the Department of Land and Natural Resources.

     Your Committees have amended this measure by incorporating the recommendations submitted by the Society for Hawaiian Archaeology.  Particularly, this measure has been amended by:

     (1)  Providing that if a determination has not been made by the appropriate Burial Council within sixty days from the Department of Land and Natural Resources being notified of the discovery, that the determination be made by the Department of Land and Natural Resources rather than the State Historic Preservation Officer;

     (2)  Providing that this measure applies to the inadvertent discovery of human skeletal remains as well as burial sites; and

     (3)  Providing that the Department of Land and Natural Resources may immediately remove inadvertently discovered burial sites and human remains where they are subject to imminent harm.

     As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Agriculture and Hawaiian Affairs and Economic Development and Taxation that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2557, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2557, S.D. 1, and be placed on the calendar for Third Reading.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Agriculture and Hawaiian Affairs and Economic Development and Taxation,

____________________________ CAROL FUKUNAGA, Chair

____________________________ JILL TOKUDA, Chair