STAND. COM. REP. NO 188

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    S.B. No. 704

       S.D. 1

Honorable Donna Mercado Kim

President of the Senate

Twenty-Eighth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2015

State of Hawaii

Madam:

     Your Committees on Transportation and Energy and Environment, to which was referred S.B. No. 704 entitled:

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

beg leave to report as follows:

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to clarify the electric vehicle parking fee exemption for metered and non-metered state or county parking stalls.

     Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism and Ulupono Initiative. Your Committees received comments on this measure from the Department of Transportation.

     Your Committees find that developing an electric vehicle infrastructure is a first and essential step toward the transformation of transportation in Hawaii.  With developing technology, along with a push by national and international automakers to expedite the production and supply of electric vehicles, Hawaii must be ready to embrace a new generation of highway transportation.

     Your Committees have amended this measure by:

     (1)  Requiring a ratio of one electric vehicle parking stall to be reserved per one hundred stalls in places of public accommodations;

     (2)  Designating the appropriate county authority having jurisdiction over planning and permitting to enforce electric vehicle parking requirements at places of public accommodations; and

     (3)  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 Energy and Environment that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 704, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 704, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.

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

____________________________ MIKE GABBARD, Chair

____________________________ CLARENCE K. NISHIHARA, Chair