House Standing Committee on Economic Development & Technology

Welcome to the Committee on Economic Development and Technology. Today is Friday, March 14th, 2025 and the time is 10:04 and we are here at Conference Room 423 at the State Capitol. Before we start at the top of our agenda, I want to remind everybody of our disclosures.

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Thank you everyone for being here. We're going to start off with our testifiers on SB 1343. At the moment, we have two in support. Anyone in the room wishing to testify on this measure? Anyone in zoom with no. zero, we do have someone. Please come up.

My name is Jonathan Schick. I'm the chair of the Small Business Regulatory Review Board. Come before you to testify on this measure in support of amending our quorum requirements. Because with the.

I've been on the board for six years now, the chair for the last year, and it has been difficult to fill all of the seats on our board.

So being able to amend our quorum requirement to make it based on the active seats as opposed to the total number of board Members will allow us to more effectively conduct our business and be able to be a more productive and more resourceful board. So thank you. And again, I'm in support of this measure.

Thank you. Thank you, Jonathan, for your service, as well as apologize for not mentioning you. It's not marked here on my testifier sheet. Any others wishing to testify? Also in zoom with none wishing to testify. Any Members wishing to make comments or questions with none. We're going to move on to Our next item, SB 1578.

Our first testifier is in person. DBEDT in support.

Good morning, chair, vice chair, members of the committee, Dane Wicker, Deputy of DBEDT. And we stand on our written testimony in support of this measure. Available for questions.

Thank you. Moving on to our next testifier with comments from the Attorney General in Zoom. Oh, in person.

Good morning. Deputy Attorney General Randall Nishiyama. We've submitted our written comments and are available for questions. We'd like to point out that we suggest that the preamble to House Bill 1025, House Draft 1, be inserted into this bill. That preamble lists the history of the east west center and its relationship to the state. Thank you.

Thank you. Is there any others wishing to testify?

If I may.

And in Zoom. Please proceed.

Aloha. Hope you can see and hear me. Okay. My name is Austin Martin. I'm with the Libertarian Party of Hawaii and I wanted to testify against this bill. I believe this presents a very broad opportunity for, shall we say, foul play, improper behavior. There are issues with setting up programs like this.

I mean, this is talking about creating basically bilateral satellite offices that won't be really well regulated or managed. As far as I can tell, there are issues with this and most of all, it's not important. It's kind of a waste of our time.

We need to be making our industries here at home more resilient, not trying to stretch out and involve more foreign money, more foreign influence into Hawaii.

Not that I'm against, you know, having lots of people here and making it possible for people from all walks of life to come join us, but we don't have to go and try to invest and create even more competition for land ownership against our locals with the government.

So I- I really- I really oppose this bill and I'm hoping that you guys will reconsider this one and not pass it. I yield.

Thank you for your testimony. Any others wishing to testify in person? Any in Zoom? With no other testifiers, any members wishing to ask any questions? With no questions, we're going to move on to our next Item. We have SB 1641. First testifier is in Zoom. Actually in person. The AG with comments. Not this time. Got it.

We have DBEDT, the state of Hawaii Creative Industries in support in person.

Thank you. Deputy Director. Georja Skinner, Head of Creative Industries DBEDT. We stand on our testimony in support of the intent and offered some friendly amendments to clarify the differences between film industry, which is a vibrant industry, and our emerging industries, which are more in the media cluster. Happy to answer any questions as well. Thank you.

Thank you. We have Honolulu Film Office with comments. Thank you. We have IATSE with comments.

Aloha chair, vice chair, members of the committee. Tuia'ana Scanlan, president of IATSE Local 665, IATSE International Trustee. We stand on our written testimony providing comments. There are just a couple things that I want to highlight in that we appreciate the need for a transparent oversight body. The commission is a great idea.

We do have concerns, though, over potential conflict of interest and First Amendment issues that if the state, which is already a stakeholder, with the amount of funds that the individual productions contribute to our economy. If the state becomes a state holder, first of all, there's no such thing as an assistant producer.

But if the state is an assistant producer, producers have approval over the content that goes into a film. What happens if someone is at the helm that is not as friendly or is more inflammatory or wants to say things that may not fit within actual decorum?

And what happens if that person at the helm is also part of the approval process for who gets funding? If you don't put in this part of this element of the story that I like, then you won't get the funding.

And in essence, that makes it so that you are curtailing what content can be produced based on who gets funding. And so those are the concerns we have with this bill. We stand in our written testimony providing comments. Thank you.

Thank you. Moving on to our next testifier, Pride at Work in Hawaii. In support. Zoom. We have Mr. Gueso in support. Hold on. Give it to. What's your staff's name? Yes.

Good morning chair, vice chair, members of the committee. My name is Michael Gueso and I'm a Member of the Hawaii Teamsters 996. I'd like to offer my support for this bill with the following amendments.

Excuse me. I want to make sure you continue your testify. I'm just going to take a recess. Real quick. Recess. Thank you. We are back. And Mr. Gueso, please continue with your testimony.

Thank you. Thank you so much. Before I get started, I'd just like to thank you, Chair Ilagan, just for scheduling this bill to be heard. We had a bill like this that came up in 2023 that wasn't even put on the schedule in this same department, same committee. Actually, it was a different chair.

But I just wanted to thank you just for allowing this bill to be heard. This by far is the most important bill when it comes to our film industry. The tax incentives and everything is great, but establishing a film commission is long overdue. I don't know why Hawaii never established one. And if you look at the.

There's been very a lot of instances where there's been conflict of interest.

And as you guys can all see in this report right here, you know, for the Maui Film Commissioner at the time, Tracy Bennett, you know, he took a role on this feature film, which is, you know, and this article right here is from Civil Beat, you know, that involves, you know, ethics violations and all kinds of stuff.

So Tracy Bennett is no longer with the Maui Film Office. He resigned January 18th to 28th I believe in last year. Now he's a film producer. Now he's a film producer. And which brings me to my point. What my colleague Tui said from IATSE. As far as I echo the same concerns as him.

If you move to the last page, it's basic from AFCI, Association from Film Commissioners International. This is the global authority when it comes to anything film commission. These guys will help you get, get your it started. And this is I believe in 60 different countries or whatever it says here.

Every single one of our people from our film office is registered in AFCI. This is, this is the authority right here. And I'm going to. In fact, Donnie Dawson, she's on the board of the directors. I don't know if Donnie is part of this. Maybe that's another question that can be answered too.

I mean a lot of us would like to know what her position is nowadays. I don't see her around. I don't see her. Nobody sees her at all, hears from her. But directly in the AFCI conflict of interests. Okay. And this is one of the amendments that we wanted to put in there.

There shall be no conflict of interest. This is word for word off of the AFCI. There should be no conflict of interest either actual or apparent between the duties of the film commission and the film commissioner.

The film commissioner cannot be engaged as an employee in an entity that would have a significant financial benefit from any incoming production that takes place in the territory positions a film commissioner cannot hold or have significant financial benefit stakeholder partner in.

The first thing they list is role of a producer, which that echoes what IATSE just brought up earlier because, as it stands right now, the 12 suggested board members seats, one of them on there says a local film producer. And we have just as much concerns as IATSE, maybe even more. That's the first thing they list.

Work at a production company, vendor or service business that cater to production industry or other services. Technical advisor, working actor in the production industry. Additionally, a film commission cannot be over overseen by a labor union or for business or a commercial entity.

So that, and like I said that above mentioned amendment that that is specifically for number seven on the line where it says one member that that's a Hawaii based producer with significant production credits. That's in regards to that one. The second amendment we'd like to add is requesting in regards to the projected 12 committee members.

Number eight, I'd like to replace that. I'd like to remove that producer credit as a major conflict of interest. You know, not only that, our concerns, I mean that's in the global AFCI conflict of interest, number one. And right now they have two positions for local labor. Teamsters, IATSE, SAG.

We make up at least 90% of the workforce on any film set, any commercial, any, you know, so I'd like to add that seat to the. To make it three members representing labor workforce in the film industry, specifically Teamsters, IATSI and SAG to have a seat at this commission. Thank you so much for your guys time.

Again, thank you for hearing this bill. My name is Michael Gueso, Hawaii Teamsters. I'll answer any questions you guys may have. Thank you.

Thank you for your testimony. Moving on to our next testifier, we have Mr. Olderr in Zoom in support.

Hello, chair and vice chair and members of the committee. Thank you for hosting this bill. My name is Michael Olderr. I am an aspiring filmmaker based here in Hawaii and I want to voice my support for this bill. I think. Well, I think the previous testifiers have put it better than I could.

With their comments aside, I believe that this will help bring more film work and more revenue into the state. And this is the perfect time to do it since in the film.

In the film space, the monopolies that places like Los Angeles and New York had on the film industry are slowly declining and going to and work is being found in other cities. So I think this is a good time to introduce a commission. Thank you for having me. That's all I have to testify for.

Thank you. Is there any other members wishing to testify? Please proceed.

If I may.

Hold on. The member is in Zoom. We have someone in person.

Good morning. Deputy Attorney General Kevin Tongg. Sorry for being late. We submitted comments because we have concerns that the new section 201C does not contain legally sufficient grant standards as required by the Constitution. So we attached draft standards for this committee to work off of.

We also have concerns that the new section 201-G doesn't meet the requirements to establish a special fund and we recommend adding a purpose section to include those required provisions. I'm available for questions.

Thank you. Is there any others in person? Let's start with Zoom.

Aloha, guys. Austin Martin here with the Libertarian Party of Hawaii. I want to thank the other testifiers today for their thoughtful remarks on this. Unfortunately, my position is a little more ideological and I'd like to share it because I think this is important. The film industry is is really important and offers a lot of opportunity for Hawaiians.

And so I understand the desire to responsibly grow and, and kind of shape this industry. But the problem is, is that if we use the government to do it, then we pick the market winners and losers. That's going to be more likely to hamper the industry than help it. We'll pick some winners.

And the First Amendment concerns are present. Those were raised pretty well. I'd say any, any amount of government involvement in this industry presents a risk to the industry itself. And I'm speaking as a filmmaker myself and someone who works with producers on the regular.

I think that if we allow the free market a little bit more room in this area, that we would actually see an organic. An organic explosion in this sector because it doesn't require government funds to be a profitable industry.

So I really, I really would like to kind of just take a step back on this whole thing and look at is it possible to support our film industry in a way that doesn't put the government squarely in the middle of the equation? And obviously there's some problems with this bill that needs to be worked out.

But from a fundamental purpose, I would like to see more free market solutions. And when the government enters the market, there's no incentive for other foundations and other, other groups that would have a lot to offer to step in and do so. So that would be my position on this.

And again, I want to thank everyone again for their testimony. I definitely appreciate that. And I'm available for any, any questions. Have a great day.

Thank you. Is there any others in person?

Good morning chair, vice chair, members of the committee. Dane Wicker, Deputy Director from DBEDT. We stand on our testimony in support. And I just want to offer, if there's any questions, gladly to respond. Thank you.

Thank you. I hope that we have your written testimony. I will. Okay, thank you. Is there any others wishing to testify in person? Any in Zoom? With no further testifiers, any comments members? All right, I have some. I have some questions.

All right. So, this Bill needs a lot of work, and we are going to work on fixing the things that needs to be fixed. We have some questions and we're going to do it live on air. So, first, let's talk to the Film Commission. Georja, could you please come up?

So, some of the thoughts regarding this Bill is it's a bit confusion—confusing—to have this Commission and then a board and the commissioners and all of that. So, the first overall change that we're considering is to change it into an authority. So, then you have the Commission as the Board Members.

So, under the authority, you would have the commissioners. So, that way it's more—the flow is much better. And I believe Mr. Guaiso—I'm saying his name totally wrong. How do you say it? Guesso. Oh, there you go. Now I feel like I'm fluent. Guesso. So, Mr. Guesso also said that the authority.

So, he even just naturally, just referenced it just in his speech. And I think that is a clear name—instead of the State of Hawaii Film Commission, it would be the Hawaii Film Authority.

Would agree. It very much aligns with the Hawaii Tourism Authority, if you will, in the same trajectory as they were spun off as an agency within...to a tourism authority.

Right. So, then, we have some ideas of what the authority can do and what the board—or not the board, but the Commission—would do. And really it falls into procedures, governance, and so forth. The thing that I really want to dive into is the authorities' work. And some areas of this Bill is very limiting.

To limit only one part, which we all love, is the cultural production. We want to expand it not just for cultural production, but all production, whether indie or big films, and so forth. What's your thoughts about that?

Well, I think that the whole notion of supporting a mature industry like this, that really needs to evolve to a different level. There's a lot of components proposed in the measure that align with that. Your suggestions make sense.

And in addition to our clarifying language regarding separating out media, which would remain in the existing Hawaii Film and Creative Industries Fund, I do think that it's necessary for us. We need to ignite more opportunities for locally developed stories, projects of all kinds, particularly in the film and television area.

So, for example, a lot of people are doing training, whether they go to UHACM or whether they're doing it with community organizations like Ohina, Hawaii Women in Film, for example, and Pick and many others. We need to really get underneath that part of our community.

And that is the mission of the existing Hawaii Film and Creative Industries Fund. For this purpose, I think that that needs to be further defined and maybe expanded and do understand the concerns of our labor unions regarding the producing part of it. Many other countries do do that.

So, just wanted to support the idea that we can be more specific and give you additional language, if you'd like, on the specificity of a new fund and what it would do. But then also noting the AG's comments.

We do want to prioritize cultural production. We want to prioritize hiring locally and having our films here produced and run by local talent, so that we do want to make sure that's prioritized. Moving on to the next area is the Commission Members.

Is there a particular reason why 12 was the number instead of an odd number like 13 or 11?

You know, I think that having an odd number is really common practice. Yeah, a common practice, but I think in this sense, it was really looking at the core of that. So, that recommendation certainly could be explored. Absolutely.

So, what was the reasoning for the makeup of the Members?

So, when you have an authority, what you want at the table, similar to tourism authority, is people from the industry that can also guide decision making. We have a smaller approach, a more regional approach, to how we're marketing and developing business and supporting our local talent.

So, it is an important mix when you have people that are of all various walks of life. But that does open the door for some kind of challenges, as we recognize from what we heard in the hearing today.

So, it is important, I think, that we're all up for how can this work and how do we work together to make it work?

So, when I'm a newbie in film, so I had to learn all the different lingo. One of the lingos is above the line and below the line. I think, just so the public can understand, what is above the line and what is below the line?

Before—after—I make my comment. I think we should definitely have Members that are above the line. We should have Members below the line. We should have investors, because those are the ones who's gonna be funding the production.

We should also have regulatory administrative personnel in that to be able to address state government and as well as the levels of government, which is the county, state. So, those different individuals make up a Commission that I believe oversees every aspect of film, and that needs to be taken into consideration.

But please tell us what is above the line and what is below the line.

Thank you. And I agree with your statements. I think that we can all work together to make that be included in an HD 1. So, above the line is your creative people. The creatives that either develop and write. In television, it's showrunners, producers, directors, and actors, of course. And those positions are really creatively driving the show.

But the show can't get made unless you have a strong crew base and talented people, which is why production has been so vibrant in the state, because of the reputation of our labor unions that do work on the bigger projects and the way that they support the smaller upcoming projects as well.

Obviously, working on them from time to time when there is no major production, which is what's happening now. So, below the line are your more what we call craft guilds, with the IATSC leading most of those and then of course in teamsters, not just drivers, but location managers, casting agents, and others.

So, these are the people that actually do the work. If you look at a construction of a home, it's the same thing. We're manufacturing a creative IP product.

Thank you. And my final comment will reference the Special Fund. What's the intention of creating a Special Fund? As the AG mentioned, it does not meet the criteria. So, what is your idea of this Special Fund?

Yeah, I can tell you just from the experience of the 201113, and the purpose of that was to take revenues from. So, to meet the sustainability requirement of a Special Fund to be able to take revenues from our studio rentals as well as the 0.2% from the Hawaii Film Tax Credit.

What that does and what it also addresses is that many times throughout our legislative discussions over the years, there was a concern as to what is the industry doing to give back. Well, they, they are in many ways, but this is a, an, avenue for that.

So, the Special Fund is really something that needs to have a sustainability factor. We've never really asked for an appropriation. We would like, for example, for the Existing Fund to be able to grow that in a way with a Fund Officer and someone to be tasked with just development.

That would be a contractor versus someone who does that for a living, right? But I think the purpose of what the AG's comments are is that it needs to be also further defined.

There's just some migrated language in there and I think we could work together on—with—the AG's Office to help make it more solid, per your comments.

So, there's some conflicts that is being stated in my mind. When you're referencing the Special Fund, you're saying you want to derive some revenue from the tax credit. But we're trying to do a tax credit to offset the cost for the film industry.

So, why are we now trying to tax the film industry when we have these subsidies to try to exempt the film industry?

Yeah, it was, I think a legislative decision. It's a 0.2%. It amounts to about $60,000 a year. It's not very much. And the productions are willing to contribute to it because they know it goes back into the community to develop more locally originated projects.

So, are you saying that we're already taxing them?

Yeah, it was put into law. I believe it took effect in 2023.

And how much is in the pot right now?

For the Special Fund currently, about 480,000 in the trust account which was solely for the Kailoa Stages. And we had been establishing that—that was established back in 2019, I believe, or a little bit earlier than that.

And that Fund has just revenues from Kalioa Stages, which is a much larger facility than Diamond Head and that averages about 300,000 a year. So, we felt we had a good, strong base in the existing 201113 to be able to do that.

I think all we're seeking to do in this is replicate the same kind of thing but very specific for film. And when we do that, we're going to take out the 0.2%—excuse me, we were asking to keep the 0.2% in our proposed amendments and be able, because we're going to shift or the idea was to take the revenues from Diamond Head, as well as Kaliloa, and put them into this new film-only Special Fund.

So, does that mean you're adding on top of that? So, you have your existing. So, you're with the base, with the base that you have, is that going to be enough for the authority that's being created?

Well, my understanding is the base that we have stays with CID and DBEDT under media-only, as enumerated in the testimony. Film productions, television productions, which can include the cultural productions is something that's new and would need some appropriation.

Yeah, so that's okay. It sounds like DBEDT wants to...

Some clarity on that. But going back to your question about creating an authority, so, we see if film is to be one of our primary industries, we need to treat it like that, like the Tourism Authority, the Technology Development Corp. create its own authority, which answers to a board, just like our sister agencies.

Everything that transitions out under from creative industries division is basically status quo. The positions go over and it's the same source. We're not asking for any additional revenues to sustain the operations. The four positions or five positions we go over. The second thing, there's already established a Film and Creative Media Special Fund.

So, Creative Industries will stay as a division with its staff under DBEDT, and to sustain the Film Authority, the Film Commission, it would have to create its own Special Fund. And in that Special Fund, what's currently going into it is the revenues, as Georja mentioned, from Kalailoa, not Diamond Head.

Diamond Head goes to the General Fund, as well as the requirement from the Legislature that those who get the tax credit give a community give back. Right now, they have the decision where it goes. If it can come into the Film Fund, along with the revenues we generate, we can seed the local startup productions.

So, currently, and this is the first year, Creative Industries Division has set up an RFP process with a portion of that 400,000 to seed some of our local entrepreneurs who are going to get in film. And we see that as an incentive into helping to grow our local film base.

Thank you for the clarification. So, where is the funding from the production going to right now?

They have a decision on that. Georja can speak to that.

It's currently going into the existing Hawaii Film and Creative Industries Fund at about 60 to 68,000 per year. Of course, we've only had two years so far.

60 to 68,000. And that's the benefit from the production that last year or are we talking about the—go ahead.

I'm going to clarify. So, productions that take place this year will have their Hawaii production reports due by no later than March, end of March, next year, 2026. So, the productions from 2023 to 2024 are the monies that are currently in the Special Fund.

And it is—there are two elements within the 23517 that do address both workforce development and the Special Fund. And so, the 0.2% again, is only not on the total spend, it's on what they get as a rebate. And we have consulted with the industry, and they have seen no issue with it, so I understand your statement of taxing.

You know, we're trying to make our incentive work, especially now when people are out of work.

Yeah. And the reason why I'm making that statement is why are we giving that tax, that tax collection from taxpayers to the film and then the film is giving it back to us and this back and forth when we shouldn't even start with that, if we're trying to do this back and forth.

Understand.

So, it sounds like right now, your Department is being funded by the Diamond Head facility. Oh, it's by us, the state?

Okay, then.

No.

The current fund revenues from Kalailoa, from our work at Entrepreneur Sandbox, which we rent out, also our creative space there and four small startups facilitate offices at foreign trade zone.

So, that is the extent in the law Diamond Head is excluded because it does affect the General Fund and when it is fully operational it's 4 to—400 to 500,000 a year.

So, we purposely excluded it when the law was passed because we felt that it would adversely impact the Special Fund and you would really need to consult with BNF on a longer-term basis for the state plan.

And that's where I was going to go to because if we were to enact this, that means that Kalailoa would go into the authority. And where are you going to fill the funding for your Department?

Yeah, thank you for that. So, I think the main concern there is obviously the timing of how that works. We would need additional funding, and we have not asked formally for a appropriation in any of the years that it has been.

So, we need to figure that out because it's pretty much robbing Peter to pay Paul and we need to make sure the funding to sustain the authority and also to sustain your Department, which is going to be the authority, this—we just have to make sure that the funding aligns.

Understood. I think there's, as many have said, a little bit more work to do on this and we'd appreciate it.

Just a little bit.

Okay. A modicum large amount of work, but no, I think it's important. And as Deputy said, you know, this is really strategically aligned with the vision of the Department too.

So, I like the idea of the authority. I think it is, it's gone through many iterations, as you know, and different titles. So, I think this is the next logical step is to work together with both House and Senate to make that happen.

Thank you. Alright, members, do you have any questions? We're going to move on to our next bill. We have SB 1038 and our first testifier is the State of Hawaii DCCA Insurance Division.

Good morning, Chair Ilagan, Vice Chair Hussey and members of the committee. Jerry Bump, Acting Insurance Commissioner. This bill includes now an exemption in 487N or is adding an exemption to say that licensees under the insurance data security law don't need to comply with this.

That creates a problem though because in the insurance data security law the notice requirements specifically point to 487N. So if you put an exemption saying that you can't, it creates some confusion for the potential licensees. So we're just asking to remove that. Thank you.

Thank you. And congratulations on your new position. Moving on to our next testifier, we have DCCA Office of Consumer Protection with comments.

Good morning. Chair Ilagan, Vice Chair Hussey, members of the committee, Mana Moriarty, Executive Director, Office of Consumer Protection. We have offered an HD one and apologies for the late testimony. It contains several amendments and the amendments include a housekeeping amendment. Really?

To delete and I'm sorry, I realize you just came out of a long hearing on the last measure, but I'm going to dive right in, if that's all right.

Don't worry. We understand some of your concerns and we do have some amendments.

Excellent. As I said, the amendment to the definition of identifier, removing that definition is essentially housekeeping at this point.

Let's just say I'm accepting all your amendments.

Thank you. I'll be available if you'd like me to answer any questions. Thank you.

Thank you.

Moving on to our next testifier in Zoom, we have the Hawaii Bankers Association with comments. Oh in person.

Good morning, chair, vice chair, members of the committee, Mihoko Ito on behalf of the Hawaii Bankers Association, we do appreciate that some of our amendments were adopted on the Senate side, but we do still have concerns about the Social Security number and the reduction of those.

So currently, as the bill reads, the last four numbers of the Social Security number, if they are disclosed just by themselves, without the first five, that would constitute a breach. And we're concerned that that's way too narrow, that it would make public and private rules inconsistent.

So I'm sure that you'll hear from the Hawaii Financial Services Association about a possible fix to that. We've suggested one also, but it's a broader fix, so we just ask for consideration of either or amendment. Thank you.

Thank you. We have the Hawaii Financial Services Association in Zoom. Oh, yes, Mr. Dang.

Good morning, chair, vice chair and members. Marvin Dang, the lobbyist attorney for the Hawaii Financial Services Association. We--

In opposition?

Yes, we oppose the bill and we have a proposed amendment. I should state that we've had this dog and pony show for the past six years. This bill has been.

Was first introduced in 2020 and similar to this and it's been reintroduced and we have basically the same testifier. Here's the problem. As Mihoko from the Hawaii Bankers Association indicated, generally, not generally, all Social Security numbers have nine digits. The usual practice when you redact is to redact the first five down to four.

We have a number of state statutes that I cite on page two, including the Bureau of Conveyances. If you're familiar with the Bureau of Conveyances, one thing that is in four of the statutes is this.

If there's a judgment against an individual, accompanying the judgment on a cover sheet, you need to put in the last four digits of the individual's Social Security number. And what is recorded in the Bureau of Conveyances is public record. And that's been the situation for years and years.

Even predating the first introduction of this bill, one of the testifiers coming up will state, well, you know, you can re engineer the redacted Social Security number and figure out what the entire nine digits would be.

Well, you know, that first came up six years ago and to date we have had not seen any facts, even anecdotes about why it's a problem when you have thousands and thousands of judgments recorded publicly at the Bureau of Conveyances.

And logically you would think that if you're going to change the way the redaction is going to be and the way that the bill has it is you would redact down to the last three. So you would only show the last three.

You know, there's been no bills introduced to correct that situation over the past six years and not even by request. So our position is yes, maybe hypothetically it could be an issue. But let's not change the 15 statutes, change the way that redaction has occurred over the years down to the last four, not change the court rules.

Let's keep the status quo. And unless we're going to have a comprehensive change to all of these different statutes which is not in the bill, let's focus in on other aspects of this bill. So on the last page of my testimony, I have the proposed amendment.

If you're going to amend the bill, and it would be amending page three, line six of the Bill so it would read an individual Social Security number either in its entirety or more than the last four digits, I'll be happy to answer any questions you might have. Mahalo.

Thank you. Moving on to our next testifier, we have Consumer Data Industry Association in opposition.

Good morning, chair, vice chair, members, Ryan Toyomura on behalf of the Consumer Data Industry Association opposing the bill, similar to the previous two testifiers, we do have concerns regarding the breadth and scope of the particular language in the bill itself.

And so we, while we recognize that the prior senate draft did address some of the exceptions related to redacted information, there are still those concerns that are outstanding. So we respectfully ask the committee to hold the bill. Thank You.

Thank you. Moving on to our next testifier. Mr. McCanley, in support or. Ma' am. Sorry.

Thank you. Chairman, vice chair and members of the committee. My name is Kelly McCandless, and yes, I've testified on this bill before, largely because I wrote most of this bill. I was a member of the 21st century Privacy law Task Force that was established by this legislature. I was the only private individual that was a member.

And the reason is because I have seven certifications in data privacy, cybersecurity and IT project management. So I know this bill, and I understand what it means to the companies. But there are three parts that I'd like to correct the testimony and record on because they're just not true.

First off, they're saying that in some of the testimonies, that because this bill says that there'll be an identifier and there should be sensitive or specified data elements, that. That's unprecedented. No, it's not.

New York has the exact same division of two different enumerated lists, one that says anything relating to a natural person, which means that's similar to our identifier, and then any sensitive data elements, which is the same thing as our specified data elements. So New York has the exact same bifurcation.

In addition, there are a number of states that have much more general place for the identifier.

For instance, if you go into Maine's law, it says that it is if any of the above data amounts were not connected to an individual's name, but the information, if compromised, would be sufficient to permit a person to fraudulently assume and attempt to assume the identity. So it doesn't even require the name.

It requires any kind of identifier, even though it doesn't use the term term identifier. In addition to Maine having that language, Texas, Washington, and New Jersey also have that language, and there's a reason for it. This may look somewhat familiar to most of you.

Hey, that's me.

Exactly. It's on the state legislature website. Right now,

we cover if your name and your Social Security number is compromised. But how long do you think it would take if your email address and your Social Security number was compromised? How long would it take them to figure out your name? Blink of an eye.

If your phone number is compromised and your Social Security number, how long would it take them to figure out your name? A blink of an eye. So the bottom line is the risk is the same. So let's talk about reasonableness here. Can it be reasonably implemented? They're saying, oh, it would be so inconvenient.

It wouldn't for the simple reason this is a data breach notification law. All it says is if the information is exposed, tell the person. It doesn't say they have to change to less than four digits.

It just says if you're going to use the four digits, tell them so they can protect themselves by doing things like freezing their Social Security number at the various agencies that do credit reporting. So it doesn't say they have to do anything at all other than with aloha. If you're going to compromise somebody's information, tell them.

And that's just treating people with respect. And that's all this law does currently. And it just makes it a little more robust. So all of the saying, oh, it would be so inconvenient, we'd have to change the templates for our letters. Well, if they can, that's great.

If they can't, then just tell people that you're compromising their data. Let them have the option at least to be able to go to the credit reporting agencies and freeze their credit or do something appropriate. So that's the key. They've talked specifically about identifiers, so I've addressed that. They've talked about Social Security number.

They say, oh, there are nine digits. Well, we all know sitting at this table that in Hawaii, if you're an adult, you're a 575 or a 576.

All of you, all of us, that we are the only state in the entire US that only has two values for the first three numbers in Social Security, you're going, oh, but you're still protected by six, right? No. Just like the first three are geographically assigned for adults, the middle two are done by year.

So let's say you've posted on your Facebook a birthday cake. I've had my 40th birthday. And people wish you happy birthday on Facebook. Well, guess what? Now I can tell what the middle two digits are because I know what year you were born.

And some years as many, you know, as few as nine middle two digits were used. Sometimes it's more like 11 or 12. But still, that's not a random number. I can associate it to your year.

So if I can associate the first three digits to your to Hawaii, I can associate the next two digits to the year you were born. Excuse me? The year you were given your Social Security number. Now it's done in hospitals. It used to be done during about high school time.

But if I know the year you were, you got your Social Security number. I can associate it what's protecting your Social Security number? Four digits. They're randomly generated but the last four digits and we're exposing them.

Now I understand protecting them may be inconvenient but if you're a member to your parents age, they used to have their Social Security numbers printed on checks. Companies used to use that as you know, the employee identifier for your workplace, things like that.

But a federal law was passed saying to that they couldn't be using Social Security number for all these different uses. And guess what? People survived.

So this law because one, it doesn't force anybody to do anything except tell people if their data is compromised it gives them the option to do the right thing and to recognize oh it's not nine random digits, it's four random digits. So just please keep that in mind. And the bottom line is identity theft rates are growing.

They were non existent 30 years ago, 20 years ago, 10 years ago. Every year we see an increase in identity thefts. So protecting the people of Hawaii is worthwhile. And then I'd like to make one last point and then I'll sit down and be quiet.

And that is two of the groups that have testified were specifically the TechNet and the State Privacy and Security Coalition. If you look at these, they have the same members. Who are their members? Amazon, Google, Meta, Facebook, Yahoo, MasterCard. And they have. Those are all members of both of those organizations.

There is a huge overlap between the memberships and even more so guess what? TechNet is a member of the Privacy and Security correlation. So they're incestuous on top of it. So part of it is we have the concept of everybody should get a say. But why does Mark Zuckerberg get two? Because he belongs to two associations.

So please at least be aware when you're looking at testimony. Whose testimony? Do they have skin in the game? As in are they going to be curtailed from data sales potentially. Or at least telling people that they sell their data by this law because if they're selling Social Security numbers that's kind of a big deal.

So anyway, that's why I want to testify. If I know you're looking to amend the identifier concept but I'd like you to please reconsider because quite frankly, if your name and Social Security number is at risk- is a risk, why is there no risk for your email address and Social Security number?

Now it could be if you wanted to do it and still limit it, you could at least say name. Whether it appears in a name field or an email address or a User ID and then at least a name's name. So get the same protections.

That'd be something that'd be a middle of the road if you're looking for that. But please, protect the consumers of Hawaii.

They need you to do it for them because they can't do it by themselves because first off, they, they don't know that their medical information, their medical identifiers, they don't know that all these other things have been breached because we don't tell them. So please, if you've got questions, I'm available for that.

And I appreciate the chance to testify on this bill. Thank you.

Thank you. Every time I see that picture, I smile.

I could show it all day.

Include my mobile too, because I actually give that out. So the last testifier was you, ma' am. So is there anyone here wishing to testify? Any in Zoom?

If I may?

Oh, yes, you may.

Aloha. Austin Martin here with the Libertarian Party of Hawaii, standing in strong support of the intent of this bill. Really appreciate that it's being heard and I think it's a really important issue. There's not a lot of money on the let's protect people's privacy side of the equation.

And so that often translates to a lack of representation because it's a, it's not, it's not common knowledge, as was pointed out. And so thank you to our testifiers today. It seems like the- the- the decision is clear and what people would want to be done with their data, especially with government data.

And this is not some private, industry, privately generated number that they're coming up with. This is government property that affects our lives and can obligate us. And what. I'm libertarian, so I'm like, opposed to everything, including Social Security numbers in general. But like, we have to protect people from- from liability.

And there's a duty to disclose when liability is created by a counterparty in any kind of contractual relationship requiring of this of them is just reasonable. And I think that this is a really excellent, excellent way to kind of help protect Hawaii. So I'm really thrilled to be here today to say please pass that aloha.

Thank you.

I yield.

I will make a note that there are. There used to be just one support, but now there are two and there are four in opposition and four comments. Is there any further testifier in Zoom with no testifier in person and in Zoom, members, any questions? Comments? Alright, I have some.

So first I would like to talk to the financial institutes, Hawaii Financial Services Association. Mr. Dang.

Yes.

So you mentioned in your statement that we need to keep the status quo and as another testifier mentioned that we have, we are in changing times, rapid times.

I mean, it's pretty clear that there are threats and information is quickly used against us. So I had a question about the practice of financial services. How was the four numbers of your Social Security, why was that practice initiated? And why is that practice still till this day, the practice?

Is there any effort in a working group or a study or any of your association have looked into a different identifier than your Social Security to be used? May you shed some light on that?

I don't know about the national history. And it is national in the sense that redaction down to the last four digits or masking the first five is not a Hawaii thing. It is a nationwide way of doing things. And it's not just the financial institutions, it's the courts, it's other sectors of businesses.

In terms of using other types of identifications, certainly, you know, I would suggest this. The main thing is to be consistent. So if you have at least 15 statutes in Hawaii which allow for redacting and showing, redacting down and showing for.

And if our state Bureau of Conveyances has been doing this because there's a statute that mandates it, let's be consistent. Don't have a provision in here which creates a new standard for- for perhaps the private sector. But at the same time, the state has all of these 15 statutes to sanction to permit the last four to be- to be shown.

We need to look at it holistically. We need to look at it consistently. And that's all we've been saying for the past five successions. Let's do it in a comprehensive manner and not just force- force it upon, you know, one sector.

Certainly a working group I suppose, could be useful to take a look at this and other ways perhaps for identifying. But does that answer your question?

Yeah. It sounds like there hasn't been any attempt to go from that current method of identifying an individual. Maybe in the future there could be some sort of work done into transitioning to a different form, but that's up to you and your organization to look into that. At this moment, I am more.

More into wanting to be notified if even my last four is breached. So I had one more question is if this were to become law, how would you notify? Maybe just. Do you currently own. Do you own the.

I guess what I'm trying to say is you're representing this association, but do you also have a private practice that deals with personal information?

Yes.

Could you speak on how you would notify.

So my law firm would certainly, if we had a situation where we had an individual's Social Security number and more than the last four were hacked and you know, then we would have to comply with section 2 of this statute and section 2 states specifically all of the requirements for- for notice.

And that would be if more than 4. For the members of the Hawaii Financial Services Association, which are generally financial institutions, but not members of the Hawaii Bankers Association, there's a alternate way that they would comply because of a guidance and that's referenced in Section 2.

So when this law was enacted in 2007, financial institutions are deemed in compliance with Section 2 because they're governed by a guidance. Guidance promulgated by the FDIC, the Office of Controller of the Currency and others. So there's many different. There's different ways financial institutions generally have to comply with the guidance and their own procedures.

Businesses such as mine Law of Law Office, we have to comply with section two.

You truly are an attorney, Mr. Dang. I am assuming that you are going to notify individual in your law practice by phone, by email, by mail. That's what I am assuming. If you there were a breach, correct me if I'm wrong there.

In Section 2 487 N2, it details specifically what needs to be done. There has to be a notice that would go out. That has to be clear and conspicuous. It details what has to be in the notice. It details what substitute notices there would be.

You don't have to share this, but.

But it's more than just a phone call.

Okay. I'm glad that you will provide more than a phone call. I do have a question for Ms. McCandless.

By the way. I did have one last point.

Wait, what's your point to what question.

Now, government--

What question?

The last in terms of how I would do it when we comply with N2 for, you know, let's say the Bureau of Conveyance situations. When we record things at the Bureau of Conveyances, the. Or you know, when it becomes public because of recording.

I'm not aware that the Bureau of Conveyances notifies everybody who's involved. Hey--

Mr. Dang.

Passport digits are public. But anyway, that's the last comment I have with regard to this, but thank you, Chair.

Thank you, ma' am.

Yes, sir.

So you've been working on this working group for quite a while.

The working group is no longer meeting, unfortunately. But we did meet through 2019 and 2020, which resulted in this law being proposed for the first time in 2020.

Did you help craft the legislation here?

Yes.

To be honest with you, it's a bit messy.

Six years ago. It wasn't messy. Part of the issue is that it's been amended each year. And then Senator Lee, in the hopes of getting this finally passed, has been proposing each year we what was amended from the year before. So we've got six years.

So we have some cleanup. But I want to know where this identifier is rooted from. Was that a word that was talked about in the working group?

It was talked about. We went through this and we all signed off on the final version that was used and submitted in 2020.

So that lingo was mentioned.

But it's an arbitrary thing.

Okay, so personal information will suffice?

Well, personal information. And as long as we have basically two enumerated lists, Absolutely. Yes.

Okay. Yes. There's another one, a specified element. Was that also mentioned in the working group?

That was because we basically ratified the whole bill, so. But did we talk about those three words in particular and say, could we use a different three words or only two words?

Yeah, personal information.

We didn't consider if something else. So if personal information is better for you, Absolutely. Change it.

Okay. The other thing is there are some broad exemption and there are some narrow exemption. I think the broad exemption covers the narrow exemption. Is that accurate or am I.

By the broad exemption, do you mean the HIPAA exemption that's done for medical data?

Yes.

So the exemption that you were referencing and that was referenced by the predecessor specifically is notification means. There are also alternate notification means here in our law, and that is you can do things like an ad in the newspaper. So there are mechanisms that are in there.

And for instance, when, UH, had a breach of 40,000 Social Security numbers, guess what? They managed through it and they did it legally. So I don't think that what we have in the bill currently for required notification is onerous.

There are things like the predecessor said, the Grammy, Chipile and HIPPA, they can use the notification methods for those laws instead, which is fine. At least people are getting told. But. So I think that we're fine there.

Yeah, I think it covers. I think the broad exemption does cover the limited exemptions. All right, well, thank you for your answers.

One additional point that I'd like to make.

On what question?

Specifically on. They're talking about how onerous notification and things like that in alternate and in.

I don't think that was my question. Thank you.

Sorry. Thank you so much, sir.

Any Members? All right, we're going to move on to our last Item. We have SB 1043. Our first testifier is going to be the Department of Taxation with comments.

Aloha, chair, Vice Chair, Members of the. Committee, Garrison Kurth for the Department of Taxation. We'll stand on our written testimony providing comments, and I'm available for questions.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We have the Iron Workers Stabilization Fund in support.

Chair, Vice Chair, Members of the Committee. My name is Cody Sula with the Ironworker Stabilization Fund. We're in strong support of SB 1043 relating to taxation. We did some written testimony. We're going to send in the written testimony. Just wanted to provide a few highlights to our testimony and why we actually helped support this bill.

We believe that this bill would help everybody in the State of Hawaii, all of the taxpayers. We've always had the conversation on how can we bring down the cost of living in Hawaii. And this bill clearly points out how to bring down the cost of living in Hawaii. All right.

We created this bill, we called it originally the workers Tax Package Bill because we believe that everything that was in the original version, which we did put in our written testimony that we support would help the working people. Because quite frankly, we're losing all of our working class people.

They're going to the mainland because of the cost of living. Even with good jobs, they're going. So we want to just support this bill because we believe that it's the right step in the right direction to bring some relief to the taxpayers, to the people.

You know, we know you guys make a lot of decisions about the budget and everything else. You guys can always count on the taxpayers to pay their tax, use the money. Now the taxpayers are depending on you guys to bring some relief to them. Thank you.

Thank you. The Libertarian Party of Hawaii in Zoom in support.

Aloha. Thank you for having me. Sorry. Here, guys. Let me get myself stabilized. Austin Martin, Party Chair of Libertarian Party of Hawaii. I'm here in strong support of getting rid of grocery taxes and non prescription drugs. That's a great idea. Let's do it. Let's get rid of those taxes. That is, that is absolutely enlightened and good policy.

Let's not tax regressively. Let's try to make things more voluntary and less taxation of essential needs. Really appreciate you guys for hearing this bill and I hope you vote in favor of it. Let's bring these taxes down and let's give the people of Hawaii a chance. Let's put some cash back in our pockets. Much love.

Thank you. Moving on to Hawaii Food Industry Association in support.

Thank you. Chair came down in person just for this. Totally worth it. We stand on our testimony and strong support. As you know, in Hawaii, one in three people struggles with food insecurity. And on Hawaii Island, where you're from, it's 40%.

And I hope we can all agree that that is really unacceptable and we should do everything in our power to Change that. There is a lot of evidence studies in our testimony that show that there's a direct correlation between taxing groceries and food insecurity, especially for low income individuals.

This bill would save the average family between 700 and $800 a year, which is a significant amount of money. And we believe that this bill could be paid for more than paid for by permitting reforms that are currently moving through the House and the Senate.

SB 66 just passed out of Committee in the House and we estimated that if that is implemented correctly, could potentially generate billions of dollars in tax revenue for the state. You know, this bill would also generate a lot of economic activity. So it may not even have a negative downward impact.

There was a Auditor's report done in Georgia after they passed their no tax on food bill. And, and it actually, that bill resulted in billions of dollars of increased economic activity, increased tax dollars, increased jobs. So removing these really bad taxes on low income people actually spurs economic growth and grows the tax base.

So this is good policy and we hope you support it. Thank you.

Thank you. We have the Tax Foundation of Hawaii with comments and Zoom.

Good morning, chair, Vice Chair, Members of the Committee, Tom Yamachika from Tax Foundation of Hawaii. We have written comments. We'll stand on those. We just. This is a, this is a very different bill from the bill as originally introduced.

The bill as originally introduced, we called it Candy Crush because it had some sweet things but would squash the economy. This one we just have some very benign comments on. I'd be happy to answer any questions. Thank you for the opportunity.

Thank you. Moving on to Mr. Bautista in person, in support.

Yes. Good morning, Chair, Vice Chair and Members of the Committee. My name is Dwayne Bautista and I support this bill like we did earlier and I just, I'm very thankful that we're hearing it again and it's moving forward and with positive already.

My friend said it would save roughly about 700 something dollars a year for a family of four. So my managing director has this model that we live by. What he says is we throwing away the dollars and we saving the pennies.

This already, we saving the dollars and we're making a small positive impact and I'm thankful that we're going to push forward and I hope you support and we keep moving this bill because that's what we want to do. We want to save the dollars and eventually we save everything else. But thank you so much.

I appreciate the time along. Thank you.

We have 20 in support, zero opposition with three comments. Any other testifiers? Proceed.

Good Morning. Chair, Vice Chair and Committee Members. My name is Cliff Leboy. I'm with the Iron Workers Union Stabilization Fund under the direction of T. George Paris. I'm also here to give a little report on the Hawaii Building and Construction Trade Council. Hawaii Building and Construction Trade Council consists of 17 unions.

We've had meetings after meetings, after meetings with the unions to get them to come aboard. They are all on board supporting this bill. If you want to know who they are, the electricians, elevators, plasters, insulators, bricklayers, plumbers, sheet metals, IBEW boilermakers, ironworkers, painters, glazers, floor lasers, drywall roofers and operating engineer. We're talking about 35,000 Members.

If I could bring them all in this room today, we would have them all here supporting this bill. We ask you, you've heard the statements from the previous people. You know this bill works. It's not a Candy Crush Bill. Like the man in back of me said, he probably lives at Hawaii Little Ridge.

This is to help the people. We got at least 600,000 people that's going to be happy if this bill passes in the State of Hawaii. Easy, right off the top. So we actually to support this bill. Please don't kill it. And you guys have a nice weekend. Thank you for your time, Mr. Chair.

You good? Thank you. I'm good. All right, is there any others wishing to testify in person? Any in Zoom? No testimony in person in Zoom. Any Members wishing to make comments questions with no comments questions. We have concluded our testimony section. I will require a recess. Thank you. Recess.

We are now back from recess and we are going to start at the top of the agenda for decision making. Our first item is SB 1343. The chair's recommendation is going to amend to replace the phrase currently serving on the board with appointed and confirmed to serve on the board. Just to make it clear.

Also amend to add the language but no less than 5 and remove the provided that clause that way. It's pretty simple language to understand the same intent of the the same intent of the Bill.

I want to just make a comment that we understand that boards have a hard time filling in their Members and this board requires 11 Members. A quorum would be typically six. And really what we're doing doing now with their existing Members is nine. And we are dropping it from a mandatory quorum from 6 to 5.

I believe that is very reasonable and we want to make sure that this board continues and functions for all the small businesses here in the state. Any questions, comments, Members? Vice Chair, please take the vote.

Okay. SP13 I'm sorry. SP1343SD1 the recommendations to pass with amendments and noting the excused absence of Representative Holt will be noticed as excused for the remainder of this hearing. Vice Chair and Chair Vote I Any votes in opposition? Any votes with reservation? Chair, your recommendation is adopted.

Thank you. Moving on to our next Item, which is SB 15 which is SB 1578. We will be the chairs recommendation is going to the chairs recommendation is going to be to amend to add in Intergovernmental affairs into Section 4 on page 13. We will also change the defective effective date from the House. Defective effective date.

We will do that for pretty much most if not all the bills. There are technical amendments needed for clarity and consistency and style.

I know there were some amendments for the preamble to be changed and we will be changing that preamble to ensure the benefit of the west on the East west center and to ensure that historical information is added as well. Is there any comments, questions? Vice Chair, please take the vote.

Okay. SP1578ST2 recommendation is to pass with amendments. Chair and Vice Chair vote Aye. Representative Tam Aye. Representative Templo Representative Todd Aye. Representative Matsumoto share the Recommendations adopted for.

SB 1641 SD2 as I mentioned before, it has little work that needs to be done. So we will be deferring this Bill till next week. Wednesday, March 19th, 2025 at 10:00am we hope to gather as much information from the testifiers to make this authority as robust, comprehensive and also improving the film industry as best as we can.

I encourage everyone here and those who are listening to reach out to our office to help craft that. Moving on to SB 1038 SD1. But before I take that and go into decision making, we're going to take a recess. Recess.

SA.

We are back from recess and we are going to the measure of SB 1038 SD1 and the chair's recommendation. We are going to accept DCCA's testimony from the Office of Consumer Protection and we plan to remove those terms and include all the paragraphs.

We're planning to remove the term identifier and include all the paragraphs into the personal information definition. This will clarify the confusion and combine the identifier term with personal information, making it more clear.

We will also this does include into the DCCA's Office of Consumer Protection, but we also want to note that we will accept the DCCA Insurance Commissioner's testimony by removing that section. We will also amend to combine any reference on emails that has personal information as a data breach.

We believe we could combine that section into the personal information as well. We also will strike the language on specifying Data on page 4, line 912 and we will delay implementation to 9 months rather than a year. We want to encourage the Department to make these implementations faster than what they're recommending.

We also want to change the defective effective date to the House defective effective date. We also want to add some technical amendments needed for clarity, consistency and style.

We also want to add into the Committee notes for the so inside the Committee notes we want to note possible personal information such as local data, online identifiers such as IP addresses, cookies, as well as factors relating to an individual's physical, genetic, mental, economic or social identity.

We also want to include in the Committee notes to look into the amendments suggested on revealing more than five digits and going back to the personal information. I just want to be clear that it's local location data and those are the recommendations. Any questions? Members Vice Chair, please take the vote.

Okay. SP1038SD1 recommendations to pass with the amendments and Committee notes that the Chair identified. Chair and Vice Chair vote aye. Any votes in opposition? Any votes with reservation? Chair the recommendation is adopted.

Thank you. Moving on to Our next item, SB 1043 SD2. The chair's recommendation is to add the amendment to remove the tax exemption for groceries and and half of the get for medicine over the counter and the financial impact shall be capped at 10 million.

The reason for this amendment is we understand the financial situation we are in this year and we know that if we exempt the tax out of groceries that's going to cost us upward of 200 to 300300 million into affecting our budget and we already have received from the Council of Revenue some not favorable projections that is upward to 140 million to 200 the following year.

And these are additional subtractions into our budget that we have to figure out at this time. I know this Bill requires suggests that we should raise the get to offset these costs. But I am not feeling confident that raising the get is needed at this moment. So that is not happening.

But I want to encourage us to take a step forward whether it's going to be a very small step forward and as Testifier mentioned, candy crush. Maybe this is a nerd because it's really small and this nerd will impact our budget.

But that impact is 10 million and I hope that this small impact can help trigger and build a momentum of being able to and we want to include this into the preamble is we want to include the intent of this Bill, which is to exempt groceries, exempt medicine over the counter.

We want to also do a lot of things that helps lower the cost of living for Hawaii. And finally, I want to state that what we did last year with increasing our standard deduction will help lower our cost of living.

And I hope with this Bill, it will help that small step of also reducing the cost of living. So that's my comment. And if there's any questions from the Members, if not Vice Chair, please take the vote.

SB 1043 SG2 recommendations to pass with amendments. Chair and Vice Chair vote aye. Any votes in opposition? Any votes with reservations? Hearing None. Chair the recommendations is adopted.

Thank you. That our meeting is now adjourned.

SA.