STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2316

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    S.B. No. 2435

       S.D. 1

Honorable Donna Mercado Kim

President of the Senate

Twenty-Seventh State Legislature

Regular Session of 2014

State of Hawaii

Madam:

     Your Committees on Agriculture and Energy and Environment, to which was referred S.B. No. 2435 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO AGRICULTURE,"

beg leave to report as follows:

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to:

     (1)  Give preference to monies deposited into the agricultural development and food security special fund as a portion of the environmental response, energy, and food security tax for the acquisition of real property for agricultural production; and

     (2)  Increase the allocation of the environmental response, energy, and food security tax to the agricultural development and food security special fund.

     Your Committees received comments on this measure from the Department of Agriculture, Tax Foundation of Hawaii, and Babes Against Biotech.

     Your Committees find that Hawaii imports about eighty-five percent of its food.  To promote diversified agriculture and thereby increase agricultural self-sufficiency, it is vital that the State purchase and safeguard agricultural lands for agricultural production. 

Your Committees have amended this measure by:

     (1)  Removing language that increases the allocation of the environmental response, energy, and food security tax to the agricultural development and food security special fund because this adjustment is better fulfilled by S.B. No. 2196, Regular Session of 2014; 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 Agriculture and Energy and Environment that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2435, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2435, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Agriculture and Energy and Environment,

____________________________ MIKE GABBARD, Chair

____________________________ CLARENCE K. NISHIHARA, Chair