STAND. COM. REP. NO. 548

Honolulu, Hawaii

, 2021

RE: H.B. No. 1346

H.D. 1

Honorable Scott K. Saiki

Speaker, House of Representatives

Thirty-First State Legislature

Regular Session of 2021

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Water & Land, to which was referred H.B. No. 1346 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO FOOD SUSTAINABILITY,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to require the Department of Agriculture, in coordination with the appropriate departmental agency, to prepare and periodically update a functional plan for seafood sustainability that expands the State's priority on food by including wild seafood as a viable food source.

Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Hawaii Seafood Council; Hawai‘i Fishermen's Alliance for Conservation and Tradition, Inc.; Fishing Tales with Mike Sakamoto; and one individual. Your Committee received comments on this measure from the Department of Agriculture and Office of Planning.

Your Committee finds that food security and self-sufficiency are issues of growing importance in the State. By requiring that wild seafood be included as a viable food source in the State's agricultural functional plan, the Department of Agriculture can begin to research and coordinate efforts to regulate this valuable resource.

Your Committee has amended this measure by:

(1) Specifying that the Department of Agriculture work in coordination with the Office of Planning to prepare and periodically update the agricultural functional plan;

(2) Specifying that the agricultural functional plan includes agricultural economic updates, in which one is seafood sustainability;

(3) Extending the deadline to report the agricultural functional plan to twenty days prior to the 2023 Regular Session;

(4) Changing the effective date to January 1, 2050, to encourage further discussion; and

(5) Making technical, nonsubstantive amendments for the purposes of clarity, consistency, and style.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Water & Land that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 1346, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 1346, H.D. 1, and be referred to your Committee on Finance.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Water & Land,

____________________________

DAVID A. TARNAS, Chair