STAND. COM. REP. NO. 3474

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    H.B. No. 2569

       H.D. 2

       S.D. 1

 

 

 

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Twenty-Eighth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2016

State of Hawaii

 

Sir:

 

     Your Committee on Ways and Means, to which was referred H.B. No. 2569, H.D. 2, S.D. 1, entitled:

 

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO ENERGY,"

 

begs leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to provide funding to improve public school classrooms.

 

     Specifically, this measure provides funding for air conditioning, heat abatement, energy efficient lighting, and other energy efficiency measures at Department of Education schools by:

 

(1)  Appropriating $100,000,000 in general funds; and

 

(2)  Authoring the Director of Finance to issue $30,000,000 in general obligation bonds.

 

     Your Committee received written comments in support of this measure from the Department of Education; Department of Business, Economic Development, and Tourism; Board of Education; Hawaii State Teachers Association; and IMUAlliance.

 

     Your Committee received comments on this measure from the Hawaii Green Infrastructure Authority and Hawaiian Electric Company, Inc.

 

     Your Committee finds that the percentile gap between students who learn in an air conditioned and a non-air conditioned environment can reach as high as seventeen per cent on achievement tests.  Your Committee further finds that the funds appropriated by this measure, along with recent reductions in costs for photovoltaic modules, power-saving batteries, and energy efficient lighting, will dramatically assist the Department of Education in meeting the Governor's goal to cool one thousand classrooms within the next two years.

 

     Your Committee wishes to make it clear that it expects the Department of Education to expend the funds appropriated by this measure solely for the installation of and equipment for air conditioning, heat abatement, energy efficient lighting, and other energy efficiency measures at Department of Education classrooms.

 

     Your Committee requests the Department of Education continue to issue reports on its heat abatement program, to continue to share those reports on the department's website, and to include information on the expenditure of the funds appropriated by this measure within those reports.

 

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Ways and Means that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 2569, H.D. 2, S.D. 1, and recommends that it pass Third Reading.

 

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Ways and Means,

 

 

 

________________________________

JILL N. TOKUDA, Chair