STAND. COM. REP. NO. 348

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    S.B. No. 470

       S.D. 1

 

 

 

Honorable Donna Mercado Kim

President of the Senate

Twenty-Eighth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2015

State of Hawaii

 

Madam:

 

     Your Committees on Water and Land and Hawaiian Affairs, to which was referred S.B. No. 470 entitled:

 

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO KAHO‘OLAWE ISLAND RESERVE,"

 

beg leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to clarify that any equipment, article, instrument, aircraft, vehicle, vessel, business record, or natural resource used or taken in violation of the rules applicable to the Kahoolawe Island Reserve may be seized and subject to forfeiture.

 

     Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Kahoolawe Island Reserve Commission, and fourteen individuals.  Your Committees received testimony in opposition to this measure from the Ocean Tourism Coalition, Windward Sea Yacht Charters, and Aqua Lung Pacific.  Your Committees received comments on this measure from the Department of the Attorney General and three individuals.

 

     Your Committees find that Kahoolawe, a kinolau of Kanaloa, remains a piko of Hawaiian culture yet still retains visible scars from decades of previous mismanagement.  Kahoolawe was critical to the Hawaiian cultural renaissance and continues to serve as an integral education center for traditional navigation, hula, natural resource management, and other cultural traditions and disciplines.

 

     Your Committees further find that while numerous laws and rules have been adopted to respect, restore, and protect Kahoolawe and its natural and cultural resources, the relative isolation of the island substantially inhibits the enforcement of these laws and rules.  Asset forfeiture, as a civil enforcement mechanism, may therefore be a critical tool to address and deter violations of these important laws and rules.

 

     Your Committees, upon consultation with the Department of the Attorney General, have amended this measure by:

 

     (1)  Clarifying that property or natural resources used or taken in violation of chapter 6K, Hawaii Revised Statutes, or rules adopted by the Department of Land and Natural Resources or the Kahoolawe Island Reserve Commission may be subject to seizure and disposal in accordance with the procedures under current law if the offense occurs within the fast lands of the Reserve or by persons or on vessels located in the area extending seaward one nautical mile of the shoreline of Kahoolawe Island;

 

     (2)  Directing the Department of Land and Natural Resources to adopt administrative rules identifying the types of rule violations that may warrant asset forfeiture;

 

     (3)  Deleting the unnecessary enumeration of the offenses, subject to forfeiture since offenses can be set out in administrative rules;

 

     (4)  Deleting the unnecessary amendment to section 6K-6, Hawaii Revised Statutes, relating to rulemaking authority of the Kahoolawe Island Reserve Commission, since it is duplicative of other provisions in the measure;

 

     (5)  Inserting an effective date of July 1, 2050, to encourage further discussion; and

 

     (6)  Making technical, nonsubstantive amendments for the purposes of clarity and consistency.

 

     As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Water and Land and Hawaiian Affairs that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 470, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 470, 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 and Land and Hawaiian Affairs,

 

____________________________

MAILE S.L. SHIMABUKURO, Chair

 

____________________________

LAURA H. THIELEN, Chair