STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2666

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE: S.B. No. 2082

S.D. 1

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Thirtieth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2020

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Agriculture and Environment and Higher Education, to which was referred S.B. No. 2082 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO INVASIVE PLANT SPECIES CONTROL,"

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose and intent of this measure is to appropriate funds for the University of Hawaii College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources to develop or identify a substitute for invasive plant species.

Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Land and Natural Resources, Department of Agriculture, University of Hawai‘i System, Hawai‘i Farm Bureau, and two individuals.

Your Committees find that most invasive plant species are introduced as nursery or landscape plants, which are prolific seed producers. Landscapers use many of these invasive plants to beautify resort landscapes, unfortunately, there is a lack of appropriate substitutes for many of the invasive plants. Your Committees further find that scientists at the University of Hawai‘i College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources (CTAHR) have developed techniques to produce seedless plants, which are vegetatively propagated. Important nursery plants, once sterilized, can be grown and used for landscaping without any possibility that these plants will reproduce and become invasive. Your Committees conclude that finding a substitute for invasive plant species is in the interest of the State.

Your Committees acknowledge the current list of polyploids that CTAHR is currently researching, as referenced in CTAHR's testimony, and find that research should continue with focus on those plants. Accordingly, your Committees have amended this measure by:

(1) Authorizing a general fund appropriation of $97,000 for fiscal year 2020-2021 for CTAHR to develop or identify a substitute for invasive plant species, to include current research on sterile, non-seed-producing forms of polyploids and exclude highly invasive plant species that are listed on the department of agriculture's noxious weed list, and plants with a high score on the University of Hawaii's weed risk assessment; and

(2) 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 Agriculture and Environment and Higher Education that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2082, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2082, S.D. 1, and be referred to your Committee on Ways and Means.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Agriculture and Environment and Higher Education,

________________________________ DONNA MERCADO KIM, Chair

________________________________ MIKE GABBARD, Chair