STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2385

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    S.B. No. 2782

       S.D. 1

Honorable Shan S. Tsutsui

President of the Senate

Twenty-Sixth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2012

State of Hawaii

Sir:

     Your Committees on Water, Land, and Housing and Energy and Environment, to which was referred S.B. No. 2782 entitled:

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

beg leave to report as follows:

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to appropriate funds to the Department of Land and Natural Resources for the immediate protection of priority watershed forests to replenish Hawaii's water supplies and provide many other fundamental benefits to Hawaii's environmental health.

     Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Office of the Governor, Department of Land and Natural Resources, City and County of Honolulu Board of Water Supply, County of Maui Department of Water Supply, West Maui Mountains Watershed Partnership, Sierra Club, National Tropical Botanical Garden, The Nature Conservancy, Coordinating Group on Alien Pests Species, League of Women Voters, Conservation Council for Hawaii, Maui Invasive Species Committee, Good Shepherd Foundation, The Trust for Public Land, Castle & Cooke Resorts, Alexander and Baldwin, Maui Land & Pineapple Company, Hawaii Farm Bureau Federation, and sixty-seven private individuals.

     Your Committees find that maintaining the supply of efficient quantities of water is a challenge due to numerous threats to the water supply, including population increase, climatic conditions, declining rainfall, loss of habitats, and forest-linked water recharge.

Forests are essential to providing water by absorbing moisture from rainfall and passing clouds that condense on thick vegetation and can increase groundwater supply by fifty percent.  However, over half of our forests have been lost to invasive species.  Your Committees find that the Department of Land and Natural Resources watershed program supports public-private partnerships to leverage state funds and provide a diverse range of local jobs.  However, funding for these efforts is not sufficient and forest losses continue.  Your Committees urge the Department of Land and Natural Resources to consider all available funding resources, including the deposit beverage container deposit special fund.

     Accordingly, your Committees have amended this measure by:

     (1)  Inserting an appropriation amount of $5,000,000; and

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

     As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Water, Land, and Housing and Energy and Environment that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2782, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2782, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Water, Land, and Housing and Energy and Environment,

____________________________ MIKE GABBARD, Chair

____________________________ DONOVAN M. DELA CRUZ, Chair