Senators Work Toward Sustainability From Within
The Senate Printshop has focused more on CD burning and transmitting information electronically and less on printing pages for the 2008 legislative session.
Instead of flipping through loose-leaf binders, Sen. David Ige accesses documents with his laptop during session.
State senators have begun exemplifying their sustainability theme this session by reducing the amount of paper they use. Just days after session began, the Senate clerk’s office released statistics indicating that senators had already used 2.6 million less pages than the previous year.
The Senate used nearly 4.5 million pieces of paper during the whole 2007 session, or, in other words, approximately 525 mature trees. This year, the Senate Printshop printed an average of 3655 less pages for each of the 1264 bills that were introduced.
According to Senate Clerk Carol Taniguchi, the paperless effort significantly reduces consumption and waste, but the Senate is also aiming for monetary savings in the coming sessions by reducing its supply use.
Sen. David Ige has spearheaded the paperless effort, and as a result, all of the documents pertaining to the Health Committee that Ige chairs are now online instead of in loose-leaf binders.
The Ways and Means Committe, which processes the largest number of bills of any Senate committee, has also gone paperless as part of the pilot project.
Many other Senate committees have shown significant interest in going paperless and Taniguchi said that if all goes well this session, every Senate committee might possibly be paperless as soon as 2009.
Senators each received a wireless-enabled laptop computer for the 2008 session to provide access to documents and testimony electronically.
Online Senate hearing notices include links to resolutions, committee reports, testimony and the bills themselves. All public testimony submitted to Senate committees is scanned and posted online.
In addition, all documents are now available to the public through e-mails, searches and Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds. For more information, comments or questions, contact sclerk2@capitol.hawaii.gov or visit the Public Access Room on the fourth floor of the Capitol.