STAND. COM. REP. NO.917-02

Honolulu, Hawaii

, 2002

RE: S.B. No. 2900

H.D. 1

 

 

 

Honorable Calvin K.Y. Say

Speaker, House of Representatives

Twenty-First State Legislature

Regular Session of 2002

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Energy and Environmental Protection and Water and Land Use, to which was referred S.B. No. 2900 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT MAKING AN APPROPRIATION FOR THE EMERGENCY ENVIRONMENTAL WORKFORCE,"

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this bill is to appropriate funds to continue the efforts of the Emergency Environmental Workforce (Workforce) established under Act 4, Third Special Session of 2001.

The Mayor of the County of Maui, Department of Land and Natural Resources, Department of Health, Research Corporation of the University of Hawaii, the project Coordinator for the Workforce, the Coordinating Group on Alien Pest Species, Maui Invasive Species Committee, Sierra Club Hawaii Chapter, and Hawaii's Thousand Friends testified in support of this measure.

Your Committees find that this bill is a unique approach to environmental protection provided at a substantial cost savings to the State. The continuation of the preventative efforts of the Workforce to eliminate alien pest species will mitigate future costs that would be expended by the State if these invasive species proliferate. Furthermore, the Workforce has played a crucial role in stopping the spread of Dengue fever through clean-up, education, and awareness projects throughout the State. The Workforce is also gainfully employing personnel that would otherwise be paid unemployment benefits at a potentially greater cost to the State without any productivity. The economic impacts felt as a result of agricultural crops lost to invasive insects, revenue lost from the visitor industry, lost worker productivity and increased health care expenses due to the Dengue fever outbreak, and the threat of invasive plant species in our watershed areas are substantial. This bill will help to facilitate proactive solutions to these impacts.

The Department of Health and the Department of Land and Natural Resources also testified that it is their desire to make a concerted effort to locate federal funding for the continuation of the program. However, this is difficult without a State match.

Your Committees have amended this measure by making technical, nonsubstantive amendments for purposes of style, clarity, and consistency.

As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Energy and Environmental Protection and Water and Land Use that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2900, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2900, H.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Finance.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Energy and Environmental Protection and Water and Land Use,

 

____________________________

EZRA KANOHO, Chair

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HERMINA M. MORITA, Chair