STAND. COM. REP. NO.  171-12

Honolulu, Hawaii

                , 2012

RE:   H.B. No. 2260

      H.D. 1

Honorable Calvin K.Y. Say

Speaker, House of Representatives

Twenty-Sixth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2012

State of Hawaii

Sir:

     Your Committee on Energy & Environmental Protection, to which was referred H.B. No. 2260 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to reduce the number of single-use checkout bags by requiring businesses in the State to collect fees for single-use checkout bags provided to customers.

The Department of Land and Natural Resources; the Hawaii Food Industry Association; Retail Merchants of Hawaii; The Nature Conservancy; the Sierra Club, Hawaii Chapter; Times Supermarkets; Safeway; the Hawaii Restaurant Association; the Conservation Council for Hawaii; the Surfrider Foundation; and seven individuals provided testimony in support of this measure.  The Department of Health provided testimony in support of the intent of this measure.  The Department of Taxation, the Department of Budget and Finance, and the Tax Foundation of Hawaii provided comments on this measure.

     Your Committee amended this measure by:

     (1)  Allowing businesses to provide single-use checkout bags free of charge to customers participating in federally approved nutrition assistance programs, including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and the Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children;

     (2)  Deleting the provision that $800,000 of the fees collected annually be deposited into the general fund;

     (3)  Specifying that sixty per cent of the fee revenues collected from January 1, 2012, through December 31, 2013, and seventy percent of the fee revenues collected thereafter, rather than a flat dollar amount of those fee revenues, be deposited into the Natural Area Reserve fund established under section 195-9, Hawaii Revised Statutes for the Department of Land and Natural Resources to expend on watershed protection, restoration, and acquisition;

     (4)  Requiring the Department of Health to request funding to administer the single-use checkout bag fee program in its annual budget request;

     (5)  Adding an appropriation for fiscal year 2012-2013 to the Department of Health to initiate and administer the components of the single-use checkout bag fee; and

     (6)  Making technical, nonsubstantive amendments for the purposes of clarity, consistency, and style.

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Energy & Environmental Protection that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 2260, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 2260, H.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Economic Revitalization & Business.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Energy & Environmental Protection,

____________________________

DENNY COFFMAN, Chair