Bill Text: HI SB2435 | 2024 | Regular Session | Amended

Hawaii Senate Bill 2435

Bill Title: Relating To The Department Of Hawaiian Home Lands.

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 5-0)

Status: (Introduced) 2024-02-05 - Report adopted; Passed Second Reading, as amended (SD 1) and referred to JDC/WAM. [SB2435 Detail]

Download: Hawaii-2024-SB2435-Amended.html

THE SENATE	S.B. NO.	2435
THIRTY-SECOND LEGISLATURE, 2024		S.D. 1
STATE OF HAWAII

A BILL FOR AN ACT

RELATING TO THE DEPARTMENT OF HAWAIIAN HOME LANDS.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF HAWAII:

SECTION 1. The legislature finds that according to a survey conducted by the department of Hawaiian home lands in 2022, more than twenty-eight thousand native Hawaiian beneficiaries are currently on the homestead lease waiting list. The legislature further finds that when beneficiaries on the homestead lease waiting list pass away prior to receiving a lease award, the beneficiary also loses the ability to have their heirs succeed to a lease.

Accordingly, the purpose of this Act is to allow the department of Hawaiian home lands to administer an undivided interest lease award program for beneficiaries on the waiting list who are elderly or terminally ill and provide those beneficiaries, upon becoming lessees, with an option to designate a qualified successor who is of at least twenty-five per cent Hawaiian blood quantum.

SECTION 2. (a) At the sole discretion of the Hawaiian homes commission, the department may administer an undivided interest lease award program for native Hawaiians who are:

(1) Sixty years old or older; or

(2) Terminally ill;

provided that the lessee may, upon receipt of the lease award, designate a successor who is of at least twenty-five per cent Hawaiian blood quantum.

(b) For the purposes of this section, "terminally ill" means having an illness or condition that cannot be cured and is likely to lead to the beneficiary's death.

(c) The department of Hawaiian home lands shall adopt rules pursuant to chapter 91, Hawaii Revised Statutes, to administer this Act within two years of the effective date of this Act.

SECTION 3. This Act shall take effect on either the date of the Secretary of the Interior's notification letter to the Congressional Committee Chairmen that this Act meets none of the criteria in title 43 Code of Federal Regulations section 48.20 necessitating congressional approval, or on the date that the United States Congress' approval becomes law.

Report Title:

DHHL; Beneficiaries; Lease Awards; Successors

Description:

Authorizes the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands to administer an undivided interest Lease Award Program for beneficiaries on the homestead lease waiting list who are sixty years old or older or terminally ill, under certain conditions. Requires the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands to adopt rules by a certain date. Takes effect on either the date of the Secretary of the Interior's notification that congressional approval of this Act is unnecessary, or on the date of consent by the United States Congress. (SD1)

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