STAND. COM. REP. NO. 1109

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    S.R. No. 144

       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 Transportation and International Affairs and Energy and Environment, to which was referred S.R. No. 144 entitled:

"SENATE RESOLUTION REQUESTING THE DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION TO ADOPT RULES TO ENCOURAGE TAXIS TO USE HIGH EFFICIENCY VEHICLES, INCLUDING HYBRID ELECTRIC VEHICLES, AT HONOLULU INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT,"

beg leave to report as follows:

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to request the Department of Transportation to adopt rules to encourage taxis to use high efficiency vehicles, including hybrid electric vehicles, at Honolulu International Airport.

     Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from EcoCab and three individuals.  Your Committees received testimony in opposition to this measure from Charley's Taxi and Limousine.  Your Committees received comments on this measure from the Department of Transportation and one individual.

     The State of Hawai‘i and the United States Department of Energy established the Hawai‘i Clean Energy Initiative, designed to accelerate the transformation of Hawai‘i into one of the world's first economies based primarily on clean energy resources.  The Hawai‘i Clean Energy Initiative's stated goal is to achieve seventy percent clean energy by 2030, with thirty percent from efficiency measures, and forty percent from locally generated renewable sources.  The Hawai‘i Clean Energy Initiative recognizes that transportation accounts for more than sixty percent of the energy consumed in Hawai‘i.

     SustainableHNL is the first airport sustainability initiative and pilot for the airport system sustainability program of the Department of Transportation Airport Division.  The Airport Division has found that ground access vehicles, including public passenger vehicles and taxis, and other forms of non-renewable fossil fuel based transportation that travel between Honolulu International Airport and the rest of Oahu account for approximately 18,182 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (mtCO2e), or 21.58 percent, of Honolulu International Airport's total emissions of carbon.

     Other jurisdictions such as the City of San Francisco with 1,500 taxis have similarly found that the taxi industry is a major user of non-renewable fossil fuels and a major emitter of carbon dioxide, emitting 75,000 mtCO2e per year.  In 1999, San Francisco initiated policies and regulations, including subsidies and priority at airport taxi stands, to increase the use of high efficiency vehicles by the taxi industry.  San Francisco has reported that as of March 2012, ninety percent of its taxi fleet consisted of clean cabs (eighty-five percent hybrid electric vehicles and five percent compressed natural gas), resulting in an annual greenhouse gas reduction of 35,000 mtCO2e.

     San Diego International Airport in 2011 launched an airport clean cab program of subsidies and priority at airport taxi stands that resulted in a thirty percent adoption rate of hybrid electric vehicles (117 hybrid electric vehicle cabs) among all cabs serving the airport in just ten months, resulting in an annual greenhouse gas reduction of 2,736 mtCO2e, with each hybrid electric vehicle producing sixty-two percent less greenhouse gas than the typical airport taxi vehicle, a 2008 Ford Crown Victoria.

     Your Committees find that, given the success of other jurisdictions in reducing the emission of carbon dioxide through initiatives to increase the use of high efficiency taxis, Hawaii should strive to achieve similar reductions through incentives for the use of high efficiency vehicles as taxis.

     Your Committees have amended this measure by 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 Transportation and International Affairs and Energy and Environment that are attached to this report, your Committees concur with the intent and purpose of S.R. No. 144, as amended herein, and recommend its adoption in the form attached hereto as S.R. No. 144, S.D. 1.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Transportation and International Affairs and Energy and Environment,

____________________________ MIKE GABBARD, Chair

____________________________ J. KALANI ENGLISH, Chair