Bill Text: HI SB2369 | 2012 | Regular Session | Amended

Hawaii Senate Bill 2369 (Prior Session Legislation)

Bill Title: Native Hawaiian Land Plants; Department of Land and Natural Resources; Public Landscaping; Highways; Roads

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 4-0)

Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2012-02-17 - (S) Report adopted; Passed Second Reading, as amended (SD 1) and referred to WAM. [SB2369 Detail]

Download: Hawaii-2012-SB2369-Amended.html

STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2305

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE: S.B. No. 2369

S.D. 1

Honorable Shan S. Tsutsui

President of the Senate

Twenty-Sixth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2012

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committees on Water, Land, and Housing and Public Safety, Government Operations, and Military Affairs, to which was referred S.B. No. 2369 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO PUBLIC LANDSCAPING,"

beg leave to report as follows:

The purpose and intent of this measure is to require all public landscaping, highway beautification, and road projects developed to incorporate native Hawaiian plants and, when possible, to use plants on the island on which the species originated.

Your Committees received testimony in support of this measure from City and County of Honolulu Department of Design and Construction, Sierra Club, Aloha Arborist Association, Conservation Council for Hawaii, Coordinating Group on Alien Pest Species, and sixteen private individuals. Your Committees received testimony in opposition of this measure from the City and County of Honolulu Department of Budget and Finance, Irrigation Hawaii Limited, and four private citizens. Your Committees received comments on this measure from the Department of Land and Natural Resources, Landscape Industry Council of Hawaii, The Outdoor Circle, Rubber Stamp Plantation, Vetiver Systems Hawaii, and a private individual.

Your Committees find that Hawaii is known as the endangered species capital of the world with hundreds of plants and animals listed as endangered species or threatened species. As an island state, Hawaii possesses a unique beauty due to its native land plants, but we are losing species at an unprecedented rate. Your Committees find that it is important to continue the growth of these rare plants that are a part of our environment and culture and which are not found in other regions of the world.

Your Committees further recognize that during these harsh economic times, it is important to ensure the greatest value for taxpayer dollars. Accordingly, your Committees have amended this measure by:

(1) Prohibiting the collection and redistribution of wild plants for use in any project;

(2) Deleting the signage requirements;

(3) Requiring the Department of Land and Natural Resources to develop a list of appropriate plants to use for each island;

(4) Creating an exemption from the use of plants on the list when there is a lack of available cultivated native Hawaiian plants; and

(5) Deleting the public landscaping project percentage requirement for native Hawaiian land plants.

As affirmed by the records of votes of the members of your Committees on Water, Land, and Housing and Public Safety, Government Operations, and Military Affairs that are attached to this report, your Committees are in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2369, as amended herein, and recommend that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2369, S.D. 1, and be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committees on Water, Land, and Housing and Public Safety, Government Operations, and Military Affairs,

____________________________

WILL ESPERO, Chair

____________________________

DONOVAN M. DELA CRUZ, Chair