STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2516

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    S.B. No. 3144

       S.D. 1

Honorable Colleen Hanabusa

President of the Senate

Twenty-Fourth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2008

State of Hawaii

Madam:

     Your Committee on Energy and Environment, to which was referred S.B. No. 3144 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO SOLID WASTE,"

begs leave to report as follows:

     The purpose of this measure is to establish the goal of reducing the amount of solid waste entering the State's waste stream by seventy-five per cent by the year 2012.

     Testimony in support of this measure was submitted by Department of Health, the Sierra Club Hawai‘i Chapter, and one private citizen.  Testimony in opposition to this measure was submitted by the City and County of Honolulu Department of Environmental Services.  Comments on the measure were submitted by the University of Hawaii Environmental Center, and the Windward Ahupua‘a Alliance. 

     Your Committee finds that since 1999, trash from households increased by over thirty per cent on Oahu alone.  Hawaii residents generate more than six pounds of trash per day, which is forty-one per cent higher than the national average of 4.4 pounds.  Your Committee further finds that reducing the amount of solid waste entering the waste stream is a laudable goal from which the environment and future generations will benefit.

     Your Committee has amended this measure by incorporating the comments made by the Department of Health by:

     (1)  Removing the section requiring the counties to incorporate the revised goals by 2010; and

     (2)  Removing the section authorizing the Director of Health to adopt rules to provide appropriate penalties for a county's failure to achieve the goals in a timely manner.

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Energy and Environment that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 3144, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 3144, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Energy and Environment,

____________________________

RON MENOR, Chair