HB2513 HD2 HSCR405-02

 

STAND. COM. REP. NO.405-02

Honolulu, Hawaii

, 2002

RE: H.B. No. 2513

H.D. 2

 

 

 

Honorable Calvin K.Y. Say

Speaker, House of Representatives

Twenty-First State Legislature

Regular Session of 2002

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs, to which was referred H.B. No. 2513, H.D. 1, entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO THE REDUCTION OF CARBON DIOXIDE EMISSIONS,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of the bill is to further environmental protection in Hawaii by establishing in the Department of Health (DOH) a Carbon Dioxide Emissions Reduction Program that provides for, among other things, the assessment of fees based upon an electric utility's total annual emission of carbon dioxide. The program applies to electric utilities owning or operating stationary fossil-fuel-fired generators that provide sixty percent or more of the power generated to the public-utility grid.

The DOH, the Department of Business, Economic Development, and Tourism, the Board of Land and Natural Resources, and the Hawaii Chapter of the Sierra Club testified in support of the bill. The Hawaii Agriculture Research Center and Kauai Electric expressed concerns about the measure. The Hawaiian Electric Company, Maui Electric Company, and Hawaii Electric Light Company opposed the bill.

Your Committee has amended the bill by amending the definition of the term "affected company" to exclude companies whose generators use both fossil and renewable fuels and where the percentage of renewable fuel is at least fifty percent. The measure previously set the percentage of renewable fuel at sixty percent or greater, but such a percentage might inadvertently include in the definition of "affected company" sugar mills that use sugarcane biomass to produce energy for sugar production and to supply power to the public-utility grid. Your Committee does not intend that such sugar mills be covered by this bill.

Your Committee also made technical, nonsubstantive amendments to the measure for purposes of clarity, style, and consistency.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of H.B. No. 2513, H.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommends that it be referred to the Committee on Finance, in the form attached hereto as H.B. No. 2513, H.D. 2.

 

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs,

 

		____________________________ ERIC G. HAMAKAWA, Chair