Bill Text: HI HB2092 | 2010 | Regular Session | Amended

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Bill Title: State Fire Council; Reduced Ignition Propensity Cigarettes

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 10-0)

Status: (Engrossed - Dead) 2010-03-19 - (S) Report adopted; Passed Second Reading, as amended (SD 1) and referred to WAM. [HB2092 Detail]

Download: Hawaii-2010-HB2092-Amended.html

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STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2784

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    H.B. No. 2092

       H.D. 1

       S.D. 1

 

 

 

Honorable Colleen Hanabusa

President of the Senate

Twenty-Fifth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2010

State of Hawaii

 

Madam:

 

     Your Committees on Commerce and Consumer Protection and Public Safety and Military Affairs, to which was referred H.B. No. 2092, H.D. 1, entitled:

 

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO PUBLIC SAFETY,"

 

beg leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose of this measure is to establish the Reduced Ignition Propensity Cigarettes Program Special Fund and to authorize the establishment of staff positions for the State Fire Council in order for the Council to accomplish its duties and responsibilities stemming from the reduced ignition propensity cigarettes law already in effect.

 

     Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Coalition for a Tobacco-Free Hawaii.  Testimony in opposition to this measure was submitted by the Department of Budget and Finance.  Your Committees received testimony in support of the intent of this measure with amendments from the State Fire Council, the Honolulu Fire Department, the County of Hawaii Fire Department, and the County of Maui Department of Fire and Public Safety.  Written testimony presented to the Committees may be reviewed on the Legislature's website.

 

     Your Committees find that establishing the Reduced Ignition Propensity Cigarettes Program Special Fund will help to ensure thorough and appropriate implementation and enforcement of the reduced ignition propensity cigarettes law by the State Fire Council.

 

     Since September 2009, a total of $259,500 has been collected for the State Fire Council's use.  These moneys are used to fund the various administrative functions of the State Fire Council.  These functions include adopting administrative rules for program implementation, establishing compliance inspections, approving forms and enforcement procedures and guidelines, receiving, verifying, and approving certification for approximately six hundred different brands of cigarettes, compiling a list of the approved brands and confirming it with the Department of the Attorney General for state tax stamp compliance, posting the list of approved brands on a state website, reviewing and approving any alternative test methods or fire standard compliance markings submitted by a cigarette manufacturer, and submitting compliance tests to an accredited lab to verify that performance standards have been met.  Currently, the State Fire Council has only one part time staff employee who is tasked with not only the administrative workload from the reduced ignition propensity cigarette law but with other State Fire Council responsibilities as well.  The $259,000 collected in fees to date, averaging out to $86,000 collected per year, would be sufficient to cover the salary and benefits for one full time staff member to attend to the workload stemming from the reduced ignition propensity cigarette law, as summarized above.

 

     As received by your Committees, this measure requires unencumbered and unexpended moneys in the Reduced Ignition Propensity Cigarettes Program Special Fund to lapse to the general fund on a yearly basis.  However, the fees financing the fund are only collected every three years.  Accordingly, if lapsing occurs on a yearly basis, during the second and third years of the three year funding cycle, the fund will not have sufficient capital to cover operational costs and to continue paying the salary and benefits of the full time workers needed to carry out the fund's administrative functions.

 

     Therefore, your Committees have amended this measure by:

 

     (1)  Requiring Reduced Ignition Propensity Cigarettes Program Special Fund moneys to lapse to the general fund at the close of June 30 every third year, starting June 30, 2013, as opposed to every year;

 

     (2)  Exempting $150,000 from lapsing from the Reduced Ignition Propensity Cigarettes Program Special Fund to the general fund to ensure coverage of operational costs until the Special Fund is re-funded;

 

     (3)  Appropriating $150,000 for fiscal year 2010-2011 for the positions established by this measure; and

 

     (4)  Making technical, nonsubstantive changes for the purpose of clarity and accuracy.

 

     As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Commerce and Consumer Protection and Public Safety and Military Affairs that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 2092, H.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 2092, H.D. 1, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.

 

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Commerce and Consumer Protection and Public Safety and Military Affairs,

 

____________________________ WILL ESPERO, Chair		____________________________ ROSALYN H. BAKER, Chair