STAND. COM. REP. NO. 265

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    S.B. No. 941

       S.D. 1

Honorable Donna Mercado Kim

President of the Senate

Twenty-Seventh State Legislature

Regular Session of 2013

State of Hawaii

Madam:

     Your Committees on Technology and the Arts and Public Safety, Intergovernmental and Military Affairs, to which was referred S.B. No. 941 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO BROADBAND,"

beg leave to report as follows:

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to require the State and counties to approve, approve with modification, or disapprove all broadband-related permits within sixty business days of submitting a permit application and a fee and to specify that the application will be automatically approved if there is no action taken on the sixty-first day.

     Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Public Utilities Commission; Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs; Department of Land and Natural Resources; Hawaiian Electric Company, Inc.; and Hawaiian Telecom.

     Your Committees find this measure supports the deployment of high-speed broadband infrastructure in Hawaii and streamlines the permit application process under the State's broadband initiative.

     Your Committees have amended this measure by:

     (1)  Extending the maximum processing time from sixty business days to one hundred twenty business days, allowing a more reasonable timeframe to complete an adequate review of proposed projects;

     (2)  Deleting language that exempts the State and counties from any liability on account of actions or results from reviewing, approving, modifying, or disapproving a broadband-related permit application;

     (3)  Requiring that a public utility shall use reasonable efforts to comply with all applicable safety and engineering requirements relating to the installation, improvement, construction, or development of infrastructure relating to broadband service or broadband technology;

     (4)  Clarifying that the development of broadband service infrastructure, as referenced in the definition of "broadband-related permits", is limited to the landing of an undersea communications cables, not all undersea cables; and

     (5)  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 Technology and the Arts and Public Safety, Intergovernmental and Military Affairs that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 941, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 941, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committees on Commerce and Consumer Protection and Judiciary and Labor.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Technology and the Arts and Public Safety, Intergovernmental and Military Affairs,

____________________________ WILL ESPERO, Chair

____________________________ GLENN WAKAI, Chair