STAND. COM. REP. NO. 1264

Honolulu, Hawaii

, 2005

RE: H.B. No. 852

H.D. 2

S.D. 1

 

 

Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-Third State Legislature

Regular Session of 2005

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Water, Land, and Agriculture and Business and Economic Development, to which was referred H.B. No. 852, H.D. 2, entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO PERMIT APPROVALS,"

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to exempt Public Utilities Commission proceedings from automatic permit approval provisions.

This measure also specifies that the lack of quorum by an issuing agency shall not:

(1) Initially be applicable to the automatic permit approval provisions; and

(2) Give cause for further extension unless agreed upon by all parties.

Testimony in support of this measure was submitted by the Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, the Public Utilities Commission (PUC), and the Land Use Research Foundation of Hawaii.

Your Committees find that the automatic permit approval law was intended to expedite the permit approval process so that an unreasonable delay in determining whether a permit should issue would not cause an applicant to suffer unnecessarily. Under the current law, the PUC has the authority to regulate public utilities, motor carriers, and water carriers pursuant to chapters 269, 271, and 271G, Hawaii Revised Statutes. As a result, the PUC is tasked with reviewing numerous applications for permits that often involve extremely technical and complex issues.

Your Committees determine that requiring the PUC to be subject to the automatic permit approval law poses the risk of hasty, ill-advised permit approval in areas that might otherwise require extensive review and analysis by experts in various fields. In support of this conclusion, your Committees recognize that, in 2000, the Legislative Reference Bureau (LRB) published a report entitled "Hawaii's Automatic Permit Approval Law," wherein the LRB opined that the PUC should be exempt from the automatic permit approval law citing numerous reasons.

Additionally, your Committees recognize that the automatic permit approval law has been instrumental in reducing the delay in the issuance of permits without causing undue hardships on the government or the public. Delays are most commonly caused by a failure to obtain a quorum for voting, and this measure attempts to balance the interests of timeliness and fairness by allowing for the issue of a lack of quorum to be addressed prior to automatic permit approval.

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

As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Water, Land, and Agriculture and Business and Economic Development that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 852, H.D. 2, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 852, H.D. 2, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Water, Land, and Agriculture and Business and Economic Development,

____________________________

WILL ESPERO, Chair

____________________________

RUSSELL S. KOKUBUN, Chair