STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2954

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE: S.C.R. No. 21

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Twenty-Ninth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2018

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Public Safety, Intergovernmental, and Military Affairs, to which was referred S.C.R. No. 21 entitled:

"SENATE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION ENDORSING AND ADOPTING, AND URGING THE SEVERAL COUNTIES TO ENDORSE AND USE, THE UNITED NATIONS SEVENTEEN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS AS COMPONENTS OF A FRAMEWORK FOR ADDRESSING AND ASSESSING HAWAII'S EFFORTS TOWARD SOCIAL JUSTICE AND SUSTAINABILITY,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose and intent of this measure is to:

(1) Engage, endorse, accept, and adopt the United Nations seventeen sustainable development goals as components of a framework for addressing and assessing Hawaii's efforts toward social justice and sustainability; and

(2) Urge the county councils to endorse and use the United Nations seventeen sustainable development goals as measurements for each county's efforts regarding people, peace, and the planet.

Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Oahu County Committee on Legislative Priorities of the Democratic Party of Hawaii, Hawaii Institute for Human Rights, and one individual.

Your Committee finds that in September 2015, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the historic 2030 Development Agenda, Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, a comprehensive, creative, and courageous plan of action to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity, that includes seventeen sustainable development goals and one hundred sixty-nine associated targets. The seventeen sustainable development goals are a set of universal goals produced to meet the most urgent environmental, political, and economic challenges of the world and build upon and replace the millennium development goals that started a global effort in 2000 to tackle the indignity of poverty.

Your Committee further finds that a priority of the Senate for the Regular Session of 2018 is to adopt the United Nations' sustainable development goals at the state level and urges the county councils to similarly endorse and use the sustainable development goals at the county level.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Public Safety, Intergovernmental, and Military Affairs that is attached to this report, your Committee concurs with the intent and purpose of S.C.R. No. 21 and recommends that it be referred to your Committee on Ways and Means.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Public Safety, Intergovernmental, and Military Affairs,

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CLARENCE K. NISHIHARA, Chair