STAND. COM. REP. NO. 349

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE: S.B. No. 1264

S.D. 1

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Thirty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2023

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Water and Land, to which was referred S.B. No. 1264 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO COMMERCIAL FISHING,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose and intent of this measure is to authorize the Department of Land and Natural Resources to establish limited entry commercial fisheries where appropriate or necessary to ensure certain commercial fisheries throughout the State remain healthy and sustainable while balancing the important economic role of commercial fisheries in the State.

Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Land and Natural Resources; Hawaii Fishermen's Alliance for Conservation and Tradition, Inc.; and eight individuals. Your Committee received comments on this measure from one individual.

Your Committee finds that certain commercially harvested fishery resources have become depleted and can no longer sustain unlimited commercial harvest. Limited commercial entry is a management method in which an agency or governing body limits the number of participants or vessels participating in a certain fishery as a means of reducing commercial fishing pressure on a particular fish species or group of fish species while still allowing some commercial take. Therefore, this measure authorizes the Department of Land and Natural Resources to establish limited entry commercial fisheries where appropriate or necessary to ensure certain commercial fisheries throughout the State remain healthy and sustainable while balancing the important economic role of commercial fisheries in the State.

Your Committee has amended this measure by:

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

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

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Water and Land that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 1264, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 1264, S.D. 1, and be referred to your Committees on Commerce and Consumer Protection and Ways and Means.

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

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LORRAINE R. INOUYE, Chair