STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2515

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE: S.B. No. 3376

S.D. 1

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Thirty-First State Legislature

Regular Session of 2022

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Water and Land and Health, to which was referred S.B. No. 3376 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO MOSQUITO CONTROL,"

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose and intent of this measure is to appropriate funds for the establishment of one full-time equivalent planner position related to mosquito control in the Department of Land and Natural Resources.

Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Land and Natural Resources, Department of Health, Center for Biological Diversity, The Nature Conservancy, and one individual. Your Committees received comments on this measure from the Department of Budget and Finance.

Your Committees find that non-native mosquitoes pose significant multi-sector threats to the State, including negative impacts on human health, conservation, tourism, and economics. Residents and visitors in the State face health threats resulting from the transmission of mosquito-borne diseases, which have also led to devastating impacts on Hawaii's native bird populations, including being the leading driver in the ongoing extinction risk of most of Hawaii's remaining endemic honeycreepers.

Your Committees also heard the concerns of the Department of Land and Natural Resources and Department of Health, which have jointly collaborated on landscape mosquito control relating to public health in the past. Landscape mosquito control has been ongoing and remains urgently needed across the State to counter threats to both native species and humans, necessitating action for a program to combat Aedes mosquitoes.

Your Committees have amended this measure by:

(1) Replacing the full-time equivalent planner position with a program specialist position within the Department of Land and Natural Resources;

(2) Amending section 1 to reflect its amended purpose;

(3) Inserting an effective date of July 1, 2050, to encourage further discussion; and

(4) 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 Water and Land and Health that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 3376, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 3376, S.D. 1, 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 Health,

________________________________ JARRETT KEOHOKALOLE, Chair

________________________________ LORRAINE R. INOUYE, Chair