STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2380

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE: S.B. No. 2866

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Twenty-Ninth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2018

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Water and Land and Judiciary, to which was referred S.B. No. 2866 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATED TO AQUATIC RESOURCES,"

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose and intent of this measure is to authorize the Department of Land and Natural Resources to use aquatic in-lieu fee mitigation to restore, create, enhance, or preserve aquatic habitats or resources as compensatory mitigation where a person is required to provide compensatory mitigation prospectively and the use of aquatic in-lieu fee mitigation is approved by the agency requiring mitigation, or for past damages to aquatic habitats or resources.

Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Land and Natural Resources, Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Oahu County Committee on Legislative Priorities of the Democratic Party of Hawai‘i, Hawaiian Civic Club of Honolulu, and six individuals.

Your Committees find that aquatic in-lieu fee mitigation is an effective mechanism to restore, create, enhance, and preserve aquatic habitats or resources to recover the ecological functions, services, and values of aquatic resources that are lost or anticipated to be lost due to adverse impacts to other similar aquatic habitats. Aquatic in-lieu fee mitigation is widely used across the United States to achieve ecologically valuable conservation. This measure will provide the Department of Land and Natural Resources with an innovative mechanism to improve state stewardship of aquatic public trust resources and habitats, increase accountability for aquatic resource damage, and provide higher quality remediation to make damaged resources whole again.

As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Water and Land and Judiciary that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2866 and recommend that it pass Second Reading and be referred to your Committee on Ways and Means.

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

________________________________ BRIAN T. TANIGUCHI, Chair

________________________________ KARL RHOADS, Chair