STAND. COM. REP. NO. 1114

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE: S.B. No. 738

S.D. 2

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Thirty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2023

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Judiciary and Ways and Means, to which was referred S.B. No. 738, S.D. 1, entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO THE DEPARTMENT OF HAWAIIAN HOME LANDS,"

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose and intent of this measure is to:

(1) Authorize the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands to administer a lease award program for beneficiaries on the homestead lease waiting list who are sixty years old or older or terminally ill, under certain conditions;

(2) Authorize the qualified successor of a beneficiary who passed away while on the homestead lease waiting list to file a claim for a lease award within four years of this measure's effective date; and

(3) Require the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands to adopt rules for the administration of this measure within one year of its effective date.

Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from Hydroponics Alternatives, LLC and seven individuals. Your Committees received comments on this measure from the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands.

Your Committees find that beneficiaries may spend their entire lives on the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands' homestead lease waiting list without receiving a lease award. While a beneficiary's eligible descendants may claim a beneficiary's lease award upon the beneficiary's passing, many descendants are deemed ineligible to do so under existing law, and beneficiaries are unable to designate a successor. To address the intergenerational waiting times to receive a homestead lease award, this measure authorizes the Department to administer an additional program through which certain beneficiaries who are elderly or terminally ill may receive lease awards and allow these beneficiaries to each designate a qualified successor.

Your Committees have amended this measure by:

(1) Inserting an effective date of March 22, 2075, to encourage further discussion; 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 Judiciary and Ways and Means that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 738, S.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Third Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 738, S.D. 2.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Judiciary and Ways and Means,

________________________________ DONOVAN M. DELA CRUZ, Chair

________________________________ KARL RHOADS, Chair