STAND. COM. REP. NO. 1613

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE: S.C.R. No. 150

S.D. 1

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Thirty-Third State Legislature

Regular Session of 2025

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Transportation and Culture and the Arts, to which was referred S.C.R. No. 150 entitled:

"SENATE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION REQUESTING THE DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION TO CONVENE A WORKING GROUP TO DEVELOP AND RECOMMEND FEDERAL, STATE, AND COUNTY PROGRAMS SUBSIDIZING THE TRANSPORT OF WATERBORNE CARGO,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose and intent of this measure is to request the Department of Transportation to convene a working group to develop and recommend federal, state, and county programs subsidizing the transport of waterborne cargo.

Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Transportation, Young Brothers Hawaii, and Hawaii Food Industry Association.

Your Committee finds that a Water Carrier Working Group, established by the Legislature in 2020, concluded that communities are largely reliant on the import of goods, with more than eighty percent of goods reaching customers having been imported. Your Committee further finds that unlike other communities in the continental United States that have alternative means of transporting goods by freight and rail, the geography of the State necessitates the employment of water carriers to transport goods. The Water Carrier Working Group report recommended that the funding required to subsidize general cargo transport be sourced from existing or newly created federal, state, and county government programs. Therefore, this measure requests the Department of Transportation to convene a working group to develop and recommend federal, state, and county subsidies for the transport of waterborne cargo which will help make the State more food secure and resilient, and promote local food production and other forms of local manufacturing, by making interisland shipping more cost effective.

Your Committee has amended this measure by making a technical, nonsubstantive amendment for the purposes of clarity and consistency.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Transportation and Culture and the Arts that is attached to this report, your Committee concurs with the intent and purpose of S.C.R. No. 150, as amended herein, and recommends its adoption in the form attached hereto as S.C.R. No. 150, S.D. 1.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Transportation and Culture and the Arts,

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CHRIS LEE, Chair