STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2429

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    S.B. No. 3049

       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 Health and Energy and Environment, to which was referred S.B. No. 3049 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO RADIATION LEVELS,"

beg leave to report as follows:

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to:

     (1)  Require the Department of Health to implement a pilot program to monitor radiation levels in certain items over the next five years and post periodic reports on its website;

     (2)  Appropriate funds for equipment acquisition, staff training, and website development relating to the radiation monitoring pilot project; and

     (3)  Require the Department of Health to submit a report of its findings and recommendations to the Legislature no later than twenty days prior to the convening of the Regular Session of 2019.

     Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Kohala Center of the Hawaii Island School Garden Network, Puna Pono Alliance, Malu ‘Aina, Witt Counseling Service, and several individuals.

     Your Committees find that the nuclear event in Fukushima, Japan, on March 11, 2011, continues to be an ongoing event that causes concern about levels of radiation in the Pacific.  Your Committees further find that monitoring radiation levels in the Hawaiian islands is necessary to measure the levels of impact that the Fukushima nuclear disaster may have had on the environment, public health, and food supply.

     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 Health and Energy and Environment that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 3049, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 3049, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.

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

____________________________ MIKE GABBARD, Chair

____________________________ JOSH GREEN, Chair