STAND. COM. REP. NO. 638

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE: S.B. No. 18

S.D. 1

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Thirty-Third State Legislature

Regular Session of 2025

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Water and Land and Hawaiian Affairs, to which was referred S.B. No. 18 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO HISTORIC PRESERVATION,"

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose and intent of this measure is to appropriate funds to the State Historic Preservation Division of the Department of Land and Natural Resources to:

(1) Expedite the development of a comprehensive inventory of historic properties and burial sites located in the State; and

(2) Conduct relevant archaeological surveys necessary to compile the inventory.

Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Land and Natural Resources and Historic Hawaiʻi Foundation.

Your Committees find that comprehensive statewide inventories of historic properties and burial sites are critical to managing and protecting these properties and sites in the State. Your Committees further find that the absence of comprehensive statewide inventories delays project planning because developers, planners, and state and county agencies lack key information on the locations of historic properties and burial sites. Your Committees also find that compiling comprehensive statewide inventories would expedite the project review process by providing the necessary information about the presence of significant historic properties so that the projects may be sited in a way to avoid, minimize, and mitigate effects on those properties. Accordingly, this measure appropriates funds to the State Historic Preservation Division of the Department of Land and Natural Resources to develop a comprehensive inventory of historic properties and burial sites throughout the State.

Your Committees have 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 records of votes of the members of your Committees on Water and Land and Hawaiian Affairs that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 18, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 18, 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 Hawaiian Affairs,

________________________________ HERBERT M. RICHARDS, III, Chair

________________________________ LORRAINE R. INOUYE, Chair