News Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 5th, 2005
CONTACT: Jeff Mikulina 226-4987

Environment makes gains at legislature
Bills sent to Governor's desk would help protect wild coastline, increase clean energy use, provide additional recycling centers, prohibit golf courses on farmland, and reduce coastal light pollution

STATE CAPITOL — The Sierra Club, Hawai`i Chapter is given good marks to the 2005 legislature for their commitment to protecting wild coastal lands, increasing funding for natural areas, and addressing other environmental concerns. On Tuesday both the House and Senate gave final approval to measures that will help protect wild coastline, increase clean energy use, provide additional recycling centers, prohibit golf courses on farmland, and reduce coastal light pollution among other policy changes.

"On balance, Hawaii's environment made significant gains at the state capitol this session," said Jeff Mikulina, Director of the Sierra Club, Hawai`i Chapter. "It is now up to Governor Lingle to show her support for a healthy environment and ratify these measures."

The Sierra Club believes that the major achievement of the 2005 legislature is the passage of the Legacy Lands Act (HB 1308 CD1), a measure to create a dedicated funding source for purchasing wild coastline, watersheds, and special places. The measure also provides additional needed funding for the Natural Area Reserves Fund and affordable housing via the rental housing trust fund by introducing a graduated increase in the tax on high-end and speculative real estate transfers.

Specifically, HB 1308 CD1 creates a mechanism to fund the "Land Conservation Fund" within the Department of Land and Natural Resources—a fund that has been dormant for nearly three decades—by earmarking 10% of the conveyance tax revenues. The measure also increases the conveyance tax to 20 cents per $100 in value for real property transactions over $600,000 and to 30 cents per $100 for properties over $1 million. The conveyance rate for properties under $600,000—which comprised 93% of conveyances in 2004—remains at 10 cents per $100 in value. The measure adds an additional rate formula for those purchasing second homes or investment properties, charging 15 cents for properties up to $600,000, 25 cents for those over $600,000 and 35 cents for those topping $1 million. The conveyance tax yielded just over $16 million in 2004, and the formulae contemplated in HB 1308 would likely double the revenue generated by the conveyance tax.

"This is the most important environmental legislation to come out of the state capitol in years," said Mikulina. "The dedicated fund for land conservation means that we will be leaving a legacy of special places and wild coastlines for generations to come."

"For nearly a decade the Sierra Club has sought a dedicated source of funding to protect Hawaii's wild coastline and special places," said Lance Holter, Conservation Chair of the Sierra Club, Hawai`i Chapter. "We appreciate that lawmakers have acknowledged the clear connection between protecting our environment and supporting our economy. Simply put, Hawaii's natural capital is the most important asset we have."

The proposed boost in conveyance revenue will also increase funding for Hawaii's Natural Area Reserve Fund—a fund that receives 25% of the total conveyance tax. Further, the bill will finally allow the state Natural Area Reserve System (NARS) to qualify for funding from the Natural Area Reserve Fund. While the NARS—reserves of the best Hawaiian ecosystems on publicly-owned land—struggles for its roughly $1 million budget appropriation annually, resource experts estimate that at least $5 million annually is needed to maintain the integrity of the NARS for our children and future generations. HB 1308 may provide additional funds to meet that need.

The Sierra Club believes that the strong coalition of supporters for the Legacy Lands Act helped keep the momentum alive for the initiative at the capitol. Groups such as the Trust for Public Land, the Nature Conservancy, Conservation Council for Hawai`i, Office of Hawaiian Affairs, farm groups and others all lobbied on behalf of the measure.

Another major land use bill (HB 109 CD1) that was forwarded by the legislature would prohibit future golf courses from being located on agricultural lands, instead allowing them to be built on lands classified as "rural." A proposed conference draft of the measure floated last week would have allowed the contentious Hokulia project in South Kona to proceed despite court rulings that have stopped the project. Lawmakers later removed the language.

"We had serious concerns that the legislature would insert itself in the on-going Hokulia litigation," said Mikulina. "Instead, the legislature wisely chose to prohibit the approval of any more golf courses in the agricultural district."

Additionally, lawmakers passed a measure (HB 1640 CD1) that attempts to fulfill the state constitution's requirement that the state identify "important agricultural lands." The final bill, however, contained an 11th-hour amendment—inserted at the behest of large landowners—which prohibits the state from designating more than 50% of any landowner's farmland as "important" unless they request it be designated as such. The Sierra Club believes that the final bill falls far short of what was envisioned by the state constitution and will fail to provide adequate protection for Hawaii's important farmlands.

For the second year in a row lawmakers passed a measure to reduce coastal light pollution (HB 895 CD1). Unlike last year's attempt (which was vetoed by Lingle), the measure forwarded Tuesday specifically prohibits large floodlights and spotlights that are for decorative or aesthetic purposes from shining out into the ocean. Such artificial lights have been documented as causing the death of hatching sea turtles, fledgling shearwaters, nocturnal flying sea birds and migratory birds. Lights needed for harbors, airports, and other government operations will be allowed under the bill, as well as lights from hotels as long as they don't cast light beyond 30 feet from the shoreline.

Although the price of oil was solidly over $50 per barrel during the legislative session, major clean energy initiatives to reduce Hawaii's oil dependence received a cool reception at the legislature. A number of smaller measures to increase renewable energy use did pass, however. One such bill, HB 1017 CD1, would ensure that condominium and townhome owners would not be restricted from installing solar energy by unfair association bylaws, covenants, or conditions. The bill was partly the result of an individual in Ewa, O`ahu, who was threatened with a lawsuit after he installed a solar water heater on the garage of his condo. Another bill (SB 1003 CD1) expands Hawaii's net energy metering law—the law that enables residents to reduce their electricity bill by effectively "selling" renewable energy to the grid—by allowing the Public Utilities Commission to increase the amount of net metered renewable energy allowed on the utility grid. The bill also allows net metered customers to carry over their excess clean energy credits from month to month up to one year. Renewable energy industry leaders believe the bill will give a tremendous boost to photovoltaic—or solar electric—residential sales.

On the transportation side, lawmakers passed a measure (SB 1427 CD1) to require that the state incrementally increase the percentage of alternative fuel vehicles—light duty cars and trucks that are either electric, fuel cell, or hybrid powered vehicles—over the next decade. At least twenty percent of newly purchased light-duty vehicles acquired by each state agency will be alternative fuel vehicles by 2007 and forty percent by 2009, should the bill be signed. Organizations supporting the measure believed that the state should be a role model for residents and businesses with their vehicles and the state's purchasing power will help drive demand for such vehicles locally.

State lawmakers rebuffed attempts to repeal Hawaii's new bottle recycling law and instead passed a series of bills to improve the program. House Bill 1015 SD1 allows cans and plastic bottles that have been crushed to be redeemed and SB 680 HD1 requires the state to facilitate the sharing of bar code information for reverse vending machines. To address the need for more convenient and accessible redemption centers statewide, the legislature passed a bill (SB 212 CD1) to use $6 million of the bottle law deposit fund to encourage retail stores and organizations to operate reverse vending machines by providing rebates of between $30,000 and $90,000.

In the final hours of conference committee deliberations last week, conferees on HB 1462—a bizarre amalgamation of sexual violence programs and the state hazardous waste law—rejected an attempt to eliminate the need to "clean up" hazardous waste before a landowner would be exempt from future liability for those substances. The Senate Ways and Means Committee inserted the hazardous waste law amendments into the bill (titled "Relating to the State of Hawai`i"). The final bill passed with some minor housekeeping amendments to the state hazardous waste law—as well as a section on sexual violence programs.

One lowlight of the session, according to the Sierra Club, was the passage of a measure aimed at regulating cruise ship wastes. The measure attempted to codify the "memorandum of understanding" that the State has with an association of cruise ship lines, but the final bill, HB 422 CD1, only sets standards for certain pollutants in the sewage wastestream. Concerns were raised by cruise industry lawyers over the question of Federal preemption of any state mandate on how sewage from a vessel is treated (regulation of other wastestreams—such as graywater—is not preempted by Federal law). The Sierra Club and others were advocating for a total prohibition of all discharges from cruise ships within state waters, similar to a recent law enacted in California.

"The perception will be that the legislature did something to address cruise ship discharge," said Mikulina, "when in reality the bill not only meekly regulates sewage discharge, it does so in a way that may run afoul with Federal preemption issues."

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Jeffrey Mikulina
Director, Sierra Club, Hawai'i Chapter
tel: 808.538.6616
www.hi.sierraclub.org
mikulina@lava.net