Report Title:

Public Utilities Commission

Description:

Begins process of deregulating commercial trucking industry

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

H.B. NO.

1266

TWENTY-SECOND LEGISLATURE, 2003

 

STATE OF HAWAII

 


 

A BILL FOR AN ACT

 

RELATING TO THE PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION.

 

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

SECTION 1. The purpose of this Act is to begin the process of deregulating the commercial trucking industry in the state of Hawaii.

SECTION 2. Section 269-1, Hawaii Revised Statutes, is amended by amending the definition of "public utility" to read as follows:

"[PART I. PUBLIC UTILITIES, GENERALLY]

§269-1 Definitions. As used in this chapter:

"Carrier of last resort" means a telecommunications carrier designated by the commission to provide universal service in a given local exchange service area determined to be lacking in effective competition.

"Designated local exchange service area" means an area as determined by the commission to be best served by designating a carrier of last resort pursuant to section 269-43.

"Enforcement officer" means any person employed and authorized by the commission to investigate any matter on behalf of the commission. The term also means a motor vehicle safety officer employed and assigned, pursuant to section 271-38, by the department of transportation to enforce sections 271-8, 271-12, 271-13, and 271-29 through assessment of civil penalties as provided in section 271-27(h), (i), and (j).

"Public highways" has the meaning defined by section 264-1, including both state and county highways, but operation upon rails shall not be deemed transportation on public highways.

"Public utility" includes every person who may own, control, operate, or manage as owner, lessee, trustee, receiver, or otherwise, whether under a franchise, charter, license, articles of association, or otherwise, any plant or equipment, or any part thereof, directly or indirectly for public use, for the transportation of passengers [or freight], or the conveyance or transmission of telecommunications messages, or the furnishing of facilities for the transmission of intelligence by electricity by land or water or air within the State, or between points within the State, or for the production, conveyance, transmission, delivery, or furnishing of light, power, heat, cold, water, gas, or oil, or for the storage or warehousing of goods, or the disposal of sewage; provided that the term:

(1) Shall include any person insofar as that person owns or operates a private sewer company or sewer facility;

(2) Shall include telecommunications carrier or telecommunications common carrier;

(3) Shall not include any person insofar as that person owns or operates an aerial transportation enterprise;

(4) Shall not include persons owning or operating taxicabs, as defined in this section;

(5) Shall not include common carriers transporting only freight on the public highways[, unless operating within localities or along routes or between points that the public utilities commission finds to be inadequately serviced without regulation under this chapter];

(6) Shall not include persons engaged in the business of warehousing or storage unless the commission finds that regulation thereof is necessary in the public interest;

(7) Shall not include:

(A) The business of any carrier by water to the extent that the carrier enters into private contracts for towage, salvage, hauling, or carriage between points within the State and the carriage is not pursuant to either an established schedule or an undertaking to perform carriage services on behalf of the public generally; and

(B) The business of any carrier by water, substantially engaged in interstate or foreign commerce, transporting passengers on luxury cruises between points within the State or on luxury round-trip cruises returning to the point of departure;

(8) Shall not include any person who:

(A) Controls, operates, or manages plants or facilities for the production, transmission, or furnishing of power primarily or entirely from nonfossil fuel sources; and

(B) Provides, sells, or transmits all of that power, except such power as is used in its own internal operations, directly to a public utility for transmission to the public;

(9) Shall not include a telecommunications provider only to the extent determined by the commission pursuant to section 269-16.9;

(10) Shall not include any person who controls, operates, or manages plants or facilities developed pursuant to chapter 167 for conveying, distributing, and transmitting water for irrigation and such other purposes that shall be held for public use and purpose; and

(11) Shall not include any person who owns, controls, operates, or manages plants or facilities for the reclamation of wastewater; provided that:

(A) The services of the facility shall be provided pursuant to a service contract between the person and a state or county agency and at least ten per cent of the wastewater processed is used directly by the State or county which has entered into the service contract;

(B) The primary function of the facility shall be the processing of secondary treated wastewater that has been produced by a municipal wastewater treatment facility that is owned by a state or county agency;

(C) The facility shall not make sales of water to residential customers;

(D) The facility may distribute and sell recycled or reclaimed water to entities not covered by a state or county service contract; provided that, in the absence of regulatory oversight and direct competition, the distribution and sale of recycled or reclaimed water shall be voluntary and its pricing fair and reasonable. For purposes of this [subparagraph], "recycled water" and "reclaimed water" mean treated wastewater that by design is intended or used for a beneficial purpose; and

(E) The facility shall not be engaged, either directly or indirectly, in the processing of food wastes.

In the event the application of this chapter is ordered by the commission in any case provided in paragraphs (5), (6), (9), and (10), the business of any public utility that presents evidence of bona fide operation on the date of the commencement of the proceedings resulting in the order shall be presumed to be necessary to public convenience and necessity, but any certificate issued under this proviso shall nevertheless be subject to such terms and conditions as the commission may prescribe, as provided in sections 269-16.9 and 269-20.

"Taxicab" means and includes:

(1) Any motor vehicle used in the movement of passengers on the public highways under the following circumstances, namely, the passenger hires the vehicle on call or at a fixed stand, with or without baggage for transportation, and controls the vehicle to the passenger's destination; and

(2) Any motor vehicle having seating accommodations for eight or less passengers used in the movement of passengers on the public highways between a terminal, i.e., a fixed stand, in the city of Honolulu, and a terminal in a geographical district outside the limits of the city of Honolulu, and vice versa, without picking up passengers other than at the terminals or fixed stands; provided that passengers may be unloaded at any point between terminals; and provided further that this definition relating to motor vehicles operating between terminals shall pertain only to those motor vehicles whose operators or owners were duly licensed (under section 445-222 and any other applicable provision of law or ordinance) and doing business between such terminals on January 1, 1957.

"Telecommunications carrier" or "telecommunications common carrier" means any person that owns, operates, manages, or controls any facility used to furnish telecommunications services for profit to the public, or to classes of users as to be effectively available to the public, engaged in the provision of services, such as voice, data, image, graphics, and video services, that make use of all or part of their transmission facilities, switches, broadcast equipment, signalling, or control devices.

"Telecommunications service" or "telecommunications" means the offering of transmission between or among points specified by a user, of information of the user's choosing, including voice, data, image, graphics, and video without change in the form or content of the information, as sent and received, by means of electromagnetic transmission, or other similarly capable means of transmission, with or without benefit of any closed transmission medium, and does not include cable service as defined in section 440G-3."

SECTION 3. Section 271-5, Hawaii Revised Statutes, is amended to read as follows:

"§271-5 Exemptions, generally. Notwithstanding any other provisions of this chapter, its contents shall not apply to:

(1) Persons transporting their own property where the transportation is in furtherance of a primary business purpose or enterprise of that person, except where the transportation is undertaken by a motor carrier to evade the regulatory purposes of this chapter;

(2) Persons operating motor vehicles when engaged in the transportation of school children and teachers to and from school, and to and from school functions; provided that these persons may engage in providing transportation at special rates for groups of persons belonging to an eleemosynary or benevolent organization or association domiciled in this State where the organization or association sponsors or is conducting a nonregular excursion; provided that whenever the persons engage in the transportation of persons other than those exempted in this paragraph, that portion of their operation shall not be exempt from this chapter. Nothing in this paragraph shall be construed to authorize any person to engage in the transportation of persons, other than the transportation of persons exempted by the terms of this paragraph, without a permit or certificate issued by the commission authorizing such transportation;

(3) Persons operating taxicabs or other motor vehicles utilized in performing a bona fide taxicab service. "Taxicab" includes:

(A) Any motor vehicle used in the movement of passengers on the public highways under the following circumstances, namely the passenger hires the vehicle on call or at a fixed stand, with or without baggage for transportation, and controls the vehicle to the passenger's destination;

(B) Any motor vehicle for hire having seating accommodations for eight or fewer passengers used in the movement of passengers on the public highways that may, as part of a continuous trip, pick up or discharge passengers from various unrelated locations; provided that they shall be regulated by the counties in accordance with section 46-16.5(c); and provided further that this subparagraph shall not apply to any exclusive rights granted by the department of transportation for taxicab services at facilities under the department's control; and

(C) Any motor vehicle having seating accommodations for eight or fewer passengers used in the movement of passengers on the public highways between a terminal, i.e., a fixed stand, in the Honolulu district, as defined in section 4-1 and a terminal in a geographical district outside the limits of the Honolulu district, and vice versa, without picking up passengers other than at the terminals or fixed stands; provided that the passengers may be picked up by telephone call from their homes in the rural area or may be unloaded at any point between the fixed stands or may be delivered to their homes in the rural area;

(4) Persons operating motor vehicles in the transportation of persons pursuant to a franchise from the legislature and whose operations are presently regulated under chapter 269;

(5) Nonprofit agricultural cooperative associations to the extent that they engage in the transportation of their own property or the property of their members;

(6) Persons operating motor vehicles specially constructed for the towing of disabled or wrecked vehicles but not otherwise used in the transportation of property for compensation or hire;

(7) Persons operating motor vehicles in the transportation of mail, newspapers, periodicals, magazines, messages, documents, letters, or blueprints;

(8) Persons operating funeral cars or ambulances;

(9) Persons operating motor vehicles in the transportation of garbage or refuse;

(10) Persons operating the type of passenger carrying motor vehicles known as "sampan buses" within the radius of twenty miles from the city of Hilo, Hawaii;

(11) Persons transporting unprocessed pineapple to a cannery, seed corn to a processing facility, or returning any containers used in such transportation to the fields;

(12) Sugar plantations transporting sugarcane, raw sugar, molasses, sugar by-products, and farming supplies for neighboring farmers pursuant to contracts administered by the United States Department of Agriculture;

(13) Persons engaged in the ranching or meat or feed business who transport cattle to slaughterhouses for hire where such transportation is their sole transportation for hire and where their earnings from the transportation constitute less than fifty per cent of their gross income from their business and the transportation for hire;

(14) Persons transporting unprocessed raw milk to processing plants and returning any containers used in such transportation to dairy farms for reloading;

(15) Persons transporting animal feeds to animal husbandry farmers and farming supplies directly to animal husbandry farmers and returning any containers used in such transportation to these sources of such feeds and supplies for reloading;

(16) Persons engaged in transporting not more than fifteen passengers between their places of abode, or termini near such places, and their places of employment in a single daily round trip where the driver is also on the driver's way to or from the driver's place of employment;

(17) Persons transporting passengers without charge in motor vehicles owned or operated by such person, where such transportation is provided in conjunction with and in furtherance of a related primary business purpose or enterprise of that person, and such transportation is provided only directly to and from the place of business of such person, except that this exemption shall not apply to persons making any contract, agreement, or arrangement to provide, procure, furnish, or arrange for transportation as a travel agent or broker or a person engaged in tour or sightseeing activities, nor shall this exemption apply where the transportation is undertaken by a person to evade the regulatory purposes of this chapter; [and]

(18) Persons conducting the type of county-regulated passenger carrying operation known as "jitney services". For the purposes of this paragraph, "jitney services" means public transportation services utilizing motor vehicles that have seating accommodations for six to twenty-five passengers, operate along specific routes during defined service hours, and levy a flat fare schedule; and

(19) Persons operating a motor vehicle exclusively for the transport of freight or goods within the state or common or contract carriers by motor vehicle engaging exclusively in the transportation of property for compensation."

SECTION 4. (a) The speaker of the house of representatives and the president of the senate shall convene a joint senate-house task force to:

(1) Review all motor carrier statutes and other statutes that will require amendments to conform with or implement the provisions of this Act; and

(2) Analyze the effects of this Act with input from state, federal, and private agencies and propose improvements or additions to this Act.

The task force shall enlist the assistance of the legislative reference bureau for research and drafting of proposed legislation.

(b) The task force shall consist of three representatives and three senators, as selected by the speaker of the house of representatives and the president of the senate, respectively; provided that:

(1) One house member shall be the chair of the house committee on transportation;

(2) One senate member shall be the chair of the senate committee on transportation;

(3) One senator shall represent the minority caucus;

(4) One representative shall represent the minority caucus; and

(5) The speaker of the house and the president of the senate shall each choose one member to act as co-chair.

(c) The task force shall submit an interim report of findings to the legislature no later than twenty days prior to the convening of the regular session of 2004. The task force shall submit its final report of findings and recommendations, including proposed legislation, to the legislature no later than twenty days prior to the convening of the regular session of 2005.

SECTION 5. Statutory material to be repealed is bracketed and stricken. New statutory material is underscored.

SECTION 6. This Act shall take effect upon its approval.

 

INTRODUCED BY:

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