Bill Text: HI SB2875 | 2012 | Regular Session | Amended

NOTE: There are more recent revisions of this legislation. Read Latest Draft

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Bill Title: Submerged Lands; Department of Transportation; Exemption

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 1-0)

Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2012-02-16 - (S) Report adopted; Passed Second Reading, as amended (SD 1) and referred to JDL. [SB2875 Detail]

Download: Hawaii-2012-SB2875-Amended.html

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STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2242

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    S.B. No. 2875

       S.D. 1

 

 

 

Honorable Shan S. Tsutsui

President of the Senate

Twenty-Sixth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2012

State of Hawaii

 

Sir:

 

     Your Committees on Water, Land, and Housing and Transportation and International Affairs, to which was referred S.B. No. 2875 entitled:

 

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO TRANSPORTATION,"

 

beg leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to exempt all work involving submerged lands used for state commercial harbor purposes from permitting and site plan approval requirements for lands in a conservation district.

 

     Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Transportation, Land Use Research Foundation of Hawaii, and Hawaii Harbor Users Group.  Your Committees received testimony in opposition to this measure from the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and Historic Hawaii Foundation.  Your Committees received comments on this measure from the Chamber of Commerce of Hawaii and Building Industry Association of Hawaii.

 

     Your Committees find that the cargo system for Hawaii is dependent on the state commercial harbors system.  Currently, ninety-eight percent of Hawaii's imported goods pass through the state's commercial harbors system.  Thus, there can be significant detrimental impacts to the delivery of goods if harbor facilities are not maintained or capital improvement projects are not completed in a timely manner due to permit delays.

 

     Your Committees further find that environmental protection oversight of state commercial harbors is already sufficiently provided through several authorities including the state environmental impact statements law and permit requirements by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the Clean Water Act.  Additional permitting and site plan approval requirements are unnecessary given these existing safeguards.

 

     Your Committees understand the importance of timely and efficiently implementing harbor projects and do not want to create two different standards for government harbors and all other harbors.

 

     Accordingly, your Committees have amended this measure by exempting work involving submerged lands used for any harbor purposes from the permitting and site plan approval requirements for lands in a conservation district.

 

     As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Water, Land, and Housing and Transportation and International Affairs that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2875, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2875, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Judiciary and Labor.

 

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Water, Land, and Housing and Transportation and International Affairs,

 

____________________________ J. KALANI ENGLISH, Chair		____________________________ DONOVAN M. DELA CRUZ, Chair