STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2842

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    S.B. No. 2915

       S.D. 2

Honorable Colleen Hanabusa

President of the Senate

Twenty-Fourth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2008

State of Hawaii

Madam:

     Your Committee on Ways and Means, to which was referred S.B. No. 2915, S.D. 1, entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO TARO,"

begs leave to report as follows:

     The purpose of this measure is to establish the taro security and purity task force.

     Your Committee received testimony in support of the measure from the Department of Agriculture, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, the University of Hawaii, the Hawaii Island Contractors Association, Na Maka O Ka Aina, and two individuals.  Your Committee received comments on the measure from two individuals.

     Your Committee finds that the taro security and purity task force is essential to the taro industry to:

     (1)  Develop guidelines, protocols, and recommendations for taro policy to ensure that taro is saved and protected in Hawai‘i;

     (2)  Develop a program of incentives and projects that enhance taro security and purity, provide support to taro farms and farmers, and improve taro markets for the long-term;

     (3)  Support the recovery of traditional Hawaiian taro cultivars in the State; and

     (4)  Increase public awareness of taro and its role culturally, socially, in health and well-being, environmentally, and economically in the State.

     Your Committee has amended the measure by:

     (1)  Clarifying that the person retained to assist the task force is hired contractually and is not a state employee;

     (2)  Clarifying that the report by the task force is to be submitted to the legislature twenty days prior to the convening of the 2009 regular session;

     (3)  Changing the appropriations in section 8 of the measure to unspecified amounts; and

     (4)  Making technical amendments that have no substantive effect.

     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. 2915, S.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Third Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2915, S.D. 2.

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

____________________________

ROSALYN H. BAKER, Chair