STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2465

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    S.B. No. 2515

       S.D. 1

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Twenty-Eighth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2016

State of Hawaii

Sir:

     Your Committee on Transportation and Energy, to which was referred S.B. No. 2515 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO ELECTRIC VEHICLES,"

begs leave to report as follows:

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to impose penalties for an owner of a place of public accommodation with at least one hundred parking spaces available for use by the general public who fails to provide at least one parking space exclusively for electric vehicles and equipped with an electric vehicle charging system.

     Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from Ulupono Initiative.  Your Committee received comments on this measure from the Department of Transportation Services of the City and County of Honolulu.

     Your Committee finds that in Hawaii, the transportation sector requires more energy than the electricity sector.  About twenty percent of the State's primary energy usage is due to ground transportation, such as cars and trucks, which rely almost exclusively on imported fossil fuels for energy.  This measure would create greater demand for electric vehicle charging infrastructure, which makes electric vehicle ownership more appealing by reducing range anxiety, as well as potentially adding battery storage capacity or demand response capacity to the electric grid, or both.

     Your Committee has amended this measure by deleting its contents and inserting the contents of S.B. No. 2774, a substantially similar measure that:

     (1)  Requires, in places of public accommodations, a ratio of one electric vehicle parking stall per one hundred stalls by July 1, 2017, and a ratio of two electric vehicle parking stalls per one hundred stalls by July 1, 2022; and

     (2)  Designates the appropriate county authority having jurisdiction over planning and permitting to enforce these requirements.

     Your Committee has further amended this measure by inserting an effective date of July 1, 2050, to encourage further discussion.

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Transportation and Energy that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2515, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2515, S.D. 1, and be referred to your Committee on Ways and Means.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Transportation and Energy,

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LORRAINE R. INOUYE, Chair