Senate Standing Committee on Commerce and Consumer Protection

Good morning and welcome to this Tuesday, April 1, 2025, 9:30am Joint Committee decision making agenda between the State Senate Committee on Commerce and Consumer Protection and the Senate Committee on Judiciary. We're in conference room 016 and we will be making recommendations and voting on measures that have been heard previously in their respective subject matter committees.

The first measure on the agenda is House Bill 228 HD1SD1 relating to license plates. The recommendation on this measure, after receiving the prior concurrence of the subject matter chair, is to pass with amendments making. We will define the terms cover and shield which are located on page two, lines 4 and 5 of the bill Members.

CPN Members, any discussion? Okay. Seeing on Vice Chair passing with amendments.

[Roll call]

Thank you. Same recommendation for JC Members on HB 228. Questions or concerns? If not, Senator Gabbard.

[Roll call]

Thank you very much. The next measure is HB125HD1 relating to firearms. The recommendation on this measure is to pass unamended. Any discussion? Okay, seeing none.

I thank you. Of the CPN Members present, are there any voting with reservations or objections?

Reservations for Senator McKelvey and no vote for Senator Awa. Measure is adopted.

Thank you. I think we're going to delay the vote until we have our full complement. So we'll sit in the calendar and see if we have the full complement and otherwise we'll have to delay it further.

Okay, thank you. The next measure on the agenda is House Bill 1194 HD2SD1 relating to midwives.

The recommendation on this measure, after conferring with the CO chair and receiving prior concurrence from the HHS chair, is to pass with amendments adopting the proposed recommendations submitted by the DCCA and defecting the effective date of this measure to July 12050 Members. Any discussion? Senator McKelvey.

Thank you. This bill's proved quite controversial. I appreciate the changes. However, my community is demanding more conversation on this measure with me in particular. So I'm going with reservations for now to express the fact that there are a lot of concerns still about the measure.

Thank you. Any other questions or comments, Senator Awa?

Yeah. Well, this is a bill for midwifery. From what I, from what I gather, a lot of midwives don't want this. This is too much regulation. We should allow them to practice their tradition.

So I'll be voting though. So noted. Thank you. I'd also like to note for the Members and for everyone watching, we received a lot of testimony on this measure and there's. There have been. There's been a lot of testimony as it's moved through the process.

What our clerks picked up over the last 48 hours is there appear to be a number of different organizations that are bundling testimony on behalf of individuals who wanted to participate in the process. And so as a result, we have tried to remove duplicate pieces of testimony from individuals whose testimony has been bundled by multiple organizations.

We've submitted all that testimony the best we could online today. If any Member of the public or anyone who has attended this hearing is unable to locate their testimony in our packet due to an inadvertent omission as we tried to deduplicate, we will leave our testimony portal open until the close of business.

You can email our Committee directly and we will post your testimony. If you can submit it, resubmit it to us before the end of day. Again, if we inadvertently omitted the testimony while trying to remove duplicates, because there were a number of those. So I just wanted to make that comment before we move to the vote.

If there are no other questions or concerns, then we will be passing with amendments.

[Roll call]

Thank you. Okay. For JDC Members, this is another one. We'll wait until end of calendar to see if we get the full compliment, but the recommendation will be the same.

Thank you. The next measure is House Bill 348 HD1 SD1 relating to single use plastics. The recommendation on this measure is to pass unamended Members. Any questions or comments? Okay. Seeing none, passing unamended chair votes.

I thank you. Of the Members present, are there any voting with reservations or objections? Hearing none. Measure's adopted.

Thank you. Same recommendation for JDC Members as is. Questions or concerns? If not Senator Gabbard.

Okay. Are the Members present? Are there any. No votes or reservations?

Thank you and I'll yield to the Co-Chair for the last measure.

Thank you. Next up is HB874. This establishes it for minor and theatrical employment with a gross income of at least 5,000 on a project or $20,000 on a calendar year. Apparent or legal guardian of the minor is required to establish a trust account for the minor.

Recommendation here is to accept the Attorney General's recommendation to delete the rulemaking to delete the rulemaking authority in subsection on page three, line 17 through 1919. Because they're already. Well, the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations. This isn't really their Kuleana. And there are private rights of action already, so. Okay. Okay. Questions or concerns? If not, Senator Gabbard for the vote on HB874HD3SD1.

Recommendations to pass with amendments of the Members. President, are there any. No votes or reservations? Hearing none. The measure passes.

Thank you. CPM Committee, same recommendation. Passing with amendments. Any discussion? If not chair votes.

I thank you. Of the Members present. Any voting with reservations or objections? Hearing none. Measure is adopted.

Okay. Before we adjourn. So we're going to. I'm going to just sit here for a minute and so cpc, cpn, if you'd like to adjourn, that's fine. We're going to stay for a few minutes to see if we can get our last Member and then go from there.

Okay, so noted. We will adjourn the CPN agenda.

Okay, there are two measures that CPM has already voted on that JDC is not. And that first one is HB 125. This requires retail sellers or transfers of firearms. Provides purchasers with notice regarding the law on firearm storage and expansion requirements for the secure storage of firearms. And it has a clean date.

So just so you know, our concerns or questions. If not, Senator Gabbard for the vote on HB125HD1. I'm saying. Hang on a second.

Can you just repeat your recommendations?

I'm sorry. It's unamended.

[Roll call]

Okay, next up, the other one that we did not vote on the CP CPN did vote on already is HB 1194 relating to midwifery. The recommended change from CPN that we will also adopt is. We'll delete section.

It's the GCCA amendment basically will delete subsection of HRS 457J6A7 in its entirety because this exemption broadly allows individuals to practice midwifery without a license so long as they are invited by the patient and provide services without compensation.

And we'll delete page 23, line 14 through 17, create a new subsection B under hrs 4577 J6 beginning on page 32, line 14 to read.

It is not a violation of this chapter for a person invited by a patient to be present at a birth occurring at a location other than a birth facility, provided that the person shall not use the title midwife, licensed midwife, or engaged in the practice of midwifery unless licensed under this chapter.

And we also changed the defective date, but it still will have a defective date. Questions or concerns. Senator Awa.

So if, if, just question. Woman's giving birth, somebody is there not as a midwife label or anything like that, but helps do they commit a crime?

A crime? I don't know. Is that criminal? The subject matter chair in this situation.

Okay, so the intent was that they do not commit a crime. And my understanding is by putting it in a different section, it remains that they have not committed a crime.

It has always been my position that if they show up, not receive compensation, invited by the patient, and they're not using the title midwife or pretending or saying that they're a midwife, that they have not committed the crime.

Okay. So as long as they're not getting paid as were invited.

Invited. And they're not saying that they are a midwife.

Okay.

So if you're in doula. Okay. Birth attendant. Okay. So long as they're not getting.

And the bill also carves out all. The stuff on Hawaiian constitution Ohana.

You know, usually spouses want to be part of it. Right. Should be okay, thanks.

Yeah. I'm still a.

I don't want to. I don't want to criminalize people who are, who want to attend the birth and are invited and not have a, not have compensation.

The new language does say or engage in the practice of midwifery, but it still wouldn't be a crime. I mean, that was your question, was. It was a crime.

As long as they don't use the.

Word midwife, as long as they don't have a title, we're not breaking the law. Yeah.

I mean, I don't. Yeah, but the. Or engage in the practice of midwifery is broader than that.

Yeah. If they're engaging in the practice, they're breaking the law.

Yeah. So. No. Well, you know what? This is going to go to conference, so we'll talk more about that one.

I won't be there.

No. Well, the defective date. But you know, you know my intent and I have basically announced that out which was Senate position for a very long time, was that basically if you attend a birth outside of a birth facility, invited by the patient and not receive compensation and not call yourself a midwife, you're not a criminal.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

And I'll make sure of that. In conference because I want to.

The last reading.

Yeah. Okay.

Thank you.

Okay.

Thanks for explaining.

[Roll call]

Okay. Thank you very much. That concludes this agenda. We haven't. No, we have another one at 10. But. Okay. But Senator gave. And I have another one at 10, so it'll be a little later than that at ways and means. 1011 and a little after 10. Okay. We're concluded.