STAND. COM. REP. NO. 237

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    S.B. No. 1055

       S.D. 1

 

 

 

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Thirty-First State Legislature

Regular Session of 2021

State of Hawaii

 

Sir:

 

     Your Committees on Agriculture and Environment and Transportation, to which was referred S.B. No. 1055 entitled:

 

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENTS,"

 

beg leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to exempt development projects involving discretionary approvals from the need to prepare an environmental assessment or an environmental impact statement if the only trigger is a relatively minor infrastructure improvement, such as a water line or sewer line connection or driveway improvements to a highway or public right-of-way.

 

     Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from the Department of Business, Economic Development, and Tourism; Department of Transportation; Office of Planning; City and County of Honolulu Department of Planning and Permitting; and one individual.  Your Committees received testimony in opposition to this measure from Life of the Land, Makahanaloa Fishing Association, Wailoa River and Reeds Bay Boating and Users Association, Earthjustice Mid-Pacific Office, and seventeen individuals. Your Committees received comments on this measure from the Office of Environmental Quality.

 

     Your Committees find that this measure seeks to streamline the environmental review process by deleting the reference to discretionary consents and allowing for infrastructure exemptions for all development projects.  Additionally, your Committees find that discretionary permits are already required to undergo public hearings, so this measure will save the time and costs associated with preparation of an environmental assessment or environmental impact statement.  Thus, the streamlined process would reduce the time to process applications major projects.

 

     However, your Committees have heard testifiers' concerns that this measure would also terminate a longstanding and accepted practice of comprehensively analyzing major development projects in their entirety when the triggering component of the project are uses of an adjoining public right-of-way, such as necessary improvements to an intersection at a public highway or modification of sewage or drainage infrastructure.  Additionally, this measure may improperly segment actions when there is a "primary action" component on private lands that triggers the use of chapter 343, Hawaii Revised Statutes, along with a "secondary action" component involving infrastructure in a public right-of-way that triggers review, but would be exempt from chapter 343, Hawaii Revised Statutes.  Judicial and administrative rules that govern the environmental review process currently prohibit the segmenting of projects into multiple components that are not considered comprehensively.

 

     Your Committees have amended this measure by:

 

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

 

     (2)  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 Agriculture and Environment and Transportation that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 1055, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 1055, S.D. 1, and be referred to your Committee on Judiciary.

 

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Agriculture and Environment and Transportation,

 

________________________________

CHRIS LEE, Chair

 

________________________________

MIKE GABBARD, Chair