STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2238

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE: S.B. No. 2645

S.D. 1

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Twenty-Ninth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2018

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Agriculture and Environment and Water and Land, to which was referred S.B. No. 2645 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO THE ENVIRONMENT,"

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose and intent of this measure is to require, for any proposed action involving construction for which an environmental impact statement (EIS) has been accepted by an agency but for which construction has not commenced within five years of acceptance of the statement, the developer of the construction project to exercise due diligence and hold community discussion and feedback sessions to share relevant and new information surrounding the project.

Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Hawaiian Civic Club of Honolulu. Your Committees received testimony in opposition to this measure from the Building Industry Association of Hawaii and Chamber of Commerce Hawaii. Your Committees received comments on this measure from the Department of Agriculture.

Your Committees find that many large scale projects that require an EIS take years longer than initially anticipated and go beyond the time period of potential impacts examined in the EIS. Although state law lacks an explicit time frame of validity for an environmental impact statement, section 11-200-26, Hawaii Administrative Rules, requires a supplemental EIS when a project with an approved EIS has changed substantively in size, scope, intensity, use, location, or timing. Your Committees find that while a supplemental EIS may ensure consideration of an action that is essentially different from the action proposed under the original EIS, the drafting, submission, and approval of a supplemental EIS adds costs to projects that are often already expensive. Therefore, your Committees agree that establishment of an explicit time frame of validity for an EIS, in combination with mandatory community involvement during periods of construction delay, will ensure that an EIS does not go stale, without need for triggering a costly supplemental EIS in every situation.

Your Committees have amended this measure by:

(1) Extending the time period that triggers the requirement that a developer of a construction project exercise due diligence and hold community discussion and feedback sessions to share relevant and new information surrounding the project from five years to ten years;

(2) Inserting an effective date of July 1, 2025, to encourage further discussion; and

(3) Making a technical, nonsubstantive amendment for the purposes of clarity and consistency.

As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Agriculture and Environment and Water and Land that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2645, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2645, S.D. 1, and be referred to your Committee on Commerce, Consumer Protection, and Health.

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

________________________________ KARL RHOADS, Chair

________________________________ MIKE GABBARD, Chair