What the Legislature Didn't Do: Environmental Bills That Died

posted in: April 2000 | 0

These are a handful of bills that, for better or worse, would have affected Hawai`i’s environment but which did make it to crossover. Crossover occurs when bills that have passed one chamber are sent to the other for consideration. In most cases, the bills passed the environmental committees in their respective chambers, but were never heard by the other committees to which the bills were referred.

Environmental Literacy

Senator Bob Nakata and Representative Hermina Morita, both chairs of environmental committees in their respective branches of the legislature, hoped to turn Hawai`i’s children into “environmentally literate citizens” by establishing an environmental education council. Both legislators introduced companion bills-Senate Bill 2255 and House Bill 2009 — that would have placed such a council within the state Office of Environmental Quality Control.

“An environmentally literate citizen must have certain skills and knowledge,” the House bill states. These include a basic understanding of ecological principles, an awareness of environmental issues, an appreciation of an individual’s impact on the environment, and skills “necessary to address environmental issues,” it continues.

Hawai`i has no comprehensive plan to educate its students on environmental matters, states the report on the Senate bill from the Senate Committee on Labor and the Environment (LRE), which Nakata chairs.

The environmental education council that the bills proposed would have overseen the implementation of a strategic plan for environmental education.

“Although the Office of Environmental Quality Control conducts environmental education programs,” the report states, “it does so on a peripheral level absent a strategic plan. Your committee believes that educating tomorrow’s decision makers is the key to preserving Hawai`i’s endangered species and natural resources. Accordingly, environmental education deserves a primary focus, and establishing an environmental education council with members from the highest level will provide that focus.”

At the LRE committee meeting on January 27, the Office of Environmental Quality Control testified against the measure, saying that it already oversees environmental education and that creating a new, separate environmental education council would be redundant. The Sierra Club Hawai`i Chapter and the Hawai`i Environmental Education Association supported the measure.

Despite the OEQC’s objections, the Senate committee passed the measure. Senator Nakata, Marshall Ige, Suzanne Chun Oakland, and Carol Fukunaga voted in favor of the bill; Sam Slom voted against; and Avery Chumbley, Les Ihara and Brian Kanno were excused.

While the bill was referred to the Ways and Means Committee, it was never heard, and, consequently, did not make crossover. The house version of this bill was not heard by any of the committees to which it was referred.

Pesticides on Playgrounds Bill

While the bills for an environmental education council would have influenced young minds, bills introduced by Rep. Brian Schatz and Sen. Nakata would have protected their bodies. Because of their smaller size and still-developing bodies, children are more vulnerable to the harmful effects of pesticide exposure than are adults. To reduce children’s exposure to pesticides, Schatz and Nakata sought to prevent the application of any pesticide on a public school property or playground unless the applicator posts signs at least 48 hours before and after application of the pesticide.

Both the House and Senate committees that heard the bill voted to hold the bill.

No New Incentive for Proper Battery Disposal

“On a recent visit to a vacant lot in urban O`ahu by a group of planners from American Samoa and their leader from the University of Hawai`i Sea Grant, five abandoned lead acid batteries were found. There were a number of school children from a nearby elementary school using the vacant lot to play in. This scenario is repeated in many vacant lots throughout the islands,” wrote Peter Rappa and Jacquelin Miller of the University of Hawai`i’s Environmental Center in testimony supporting a bill relating to lead acid batteries.

“Even at low levels, lead poisoning can reduce a child’s IQ, impair hearing and stunt growth,” according to a February 24, 2000 report in the authoritative newsletter Rachel’s Environment & Health Weekly.

Last year, Rep. Hermina Morita introduced a bill to place surcharges on lead batteries and car tires to help pay for their disposal. Improper disposal of both items is a big problem in Hawai`i. The bill was held in 1999, but the notion behind it was revived this session in two separate bills – one dealing with tires, the other with batteries.

As the bill was initially proposed, people buying new batteries would have to pay $10 more for them if they didn’t bring in old ones for disposal. This was intended to encourage proper disposal of lead acid batteries, and the surcharge was to go into the general fund.

The state Department of Health supported the measure but asked that the money go to the DOH’s Environmental Response Fund instead of the general fund. The Sierra Club, the Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, and the Environmental Center also testified in favor of the bill, while the Hawai`i Automobile Dealers’ Association testified against it

The House Energy and Environmental Protection Committee amended the bill by “deleting its substance and inserting provisions that established a battery bounty program to be developed and administered by the Department of Health. The program will pay non-profit groups for used batteries delivered to collection sites. The funds from the Environmental Response Revolving Fund will be used to pay for the used batteries.”

The bill was referred to the Finance Committee, but was not heard.

Plastic Recycling

Introduced in the 1999 Legislative Session by Senator Les Ihara, SB 647 required plastic importers to pay an advance disposal fee for plastic containers and litter items brought into the state. Last year, volunteers from the state’s “Get the Drift and Bag It” beach cleanup collected 217,000 pieces of debris, more than half of which were plastic. Under Ihara’s bill, importers would pay a fee of 2 cents per plastic container and one tenth of a cent for plastic litter items. They would also be required to register with the state and maintain records showing where their plastics came from.

The money collected would fund county plastic recovery programs so long as the county receiving funds adopted an integrated solid waste management plan approved by the state Department of Health.

“The advance deposit fee on plastics is a tiny cost to each individual when weighed against the cost-savings to government and volunteers who clean plastic each year,” states a report from the Committee on Labor and the Environment, which heard and passed the bill on January 27, 2000.

The UH Environmental Center noted in testimony that “there are beneficial uses for recycled plastic and there is at least one firm on Maui that is making products from collected plastic.”

Others testifying in the bill’s favor were Save Our Bays and Beaches, Aloha Plastic Recycling, Inc., and the Surfrider Foundation. Those opposed included the Department of Public Works and Waste Management of the County of Maui, Anheuser-Busch Companies, Life of the Land, and the Hawai`i Food Industry Association.

Sen. Marshall Ige and Sen. Slom voted against the bill.

The bill was referred to Ways and Means Committee on February 11, but was not heard in time for cross over.

Waste Disposal Surcharge Won’t Increase

Hawai`i’s surcharge on waste disposal will remain the second lowest in the nation after this legislative session because two bills seeking to raise the surcharge failed to get past the money committees of both the House and the Senate.

SB 2868 and HB 2527, introduced by Norman Mizuguchi and Calvin Say, respectively, would have increased the current disposal surcharge of 35 cents per ton to 60 cents per ton.

“In light of the 160 percent increase in permit applications and 1,200 increase in complaints, [the Committee on Labor and Environment (LRE)] believes that the increase is necessary to raise additional funds to support permitting, monitoring, enforcement, and alternative waste management,” according to a committee report.

The bills passed the Senate LRE and House EEP committees, but were heard in neither the Senate Ways and Means Committee nor the House Finance Committee.

No New Study for Village Park

A bill introduced by representatives Mark Moses, Nestor Garcia, and supported by Emily Auwae, Galen Fox, Chris Halford, Bertha Leong, Ron Menor, David Pendleton, and Brian Schatz to study Village Park was not heard by any committees to which it was referred at the start of the Legislature’s 2000 session. HB 2398 would have required the Department of Health to conduct a “scientifically valid study of current and former residents of Village Park and Royal Kunia on O`ahu to determine if their health has been or may be affected by exposure to agricultural chemicals in the air, soil and drinking water, or by living on or near former agricultural lands.”

Village Park residents have long believed that many of the town’s health problems are linked to pesticide contamination of the area’s soil and water. Last year, the Legislature appropriated funds to the DOH to test samples of Village Park soil for pesticides contamination. The DOH found that the soil was not contaminated, but many Village Park residents remain skeptical.

Hunting Bills Go Nowhere

A common complaint among local hunters is that access to hunting grounds and opportunities to hunt are diminishing because of state efforts to protect native or endangered species.

Two hunting bills introduced last year and carried over to this legislative session — House Bill 1278 and Senate Bill 858– never got off the ground. One would have made the wild pig an indigenous species in the eyes of the law and forced the state to protect it as such. The other would have placed hunting at the top of the state’s game management practices to stop what some believed are cruel methods of eradicating feral pigs.

HB 1278, introduced by Rep. Dwight Takamine, would have required the state Department of Land and Natural Resources to recognize the “positive aspects” of wild game mammals in the environment and to “adopt rules for cultural, subsistence, and recreational hunting.”

Furthermore, the bill asked the DLNR to create management plans based on “sound scientific research” and input from longtime hunters. This grows out of frequent complaints from hunters is that the science that government officials use to shape land and species management policies is biased against introduced species and ignores the “scientific” knowledge of hunters.

The state would also have been prohibited from eradicating “already-evolved game mammals for the current population and for the future benefits these animals might provide in the future (sic).” No usable meat from the carcasses of these mammals could be left in the field. Finally, the DLNR would have had to recognize that the wild pig (Sus scrofa) has Hawaiian cultural and religious significance, and may be “possibly even indigenous origin of the first such pig in the state.” Subsequently, the DLNR should manage the wild pig “as an indigenous animal for the people of Hawai`i consistent with other management practices.”

Last year, HB 1278 past first reading and was referred to the House committees on Culture and the Arts, Water and Land Use, and Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs. No committee heard it in the 1999 session, so the bill was carried over to the 2000 regular session, where it also languished.

Senator Suzanne Chun Oakland’s Bill 858 was introduced last year, was carried over, but also went nowhere. The bill would have made using unattended snares, poisons, or traps a misdemeanor.

“Snares, poisons, and unattended traps are sometimes used by state agencies and private individuals and groups for the control of game animal populations, especially under circumstances in which those populations are suspected or known to interfere with endangered species management,” the bill states. “Death of the trapped or poisoned animal is often slow and painful, from shock, dehydration, starvation, and infection. The legislature finds that the use of those modalities to control game animal populations is exceptionally cruel.

“Moreover, because those control methods are not specific management tools, animal species other than those intended may also be maimed or killed. The legislature finds that at present, other more humane and effective population control alternatives are not fully utilized,” the bill states.

The primary control alternative this bill addresses is public hunting. Under this bill, the DLNR would be allowed to use snares, poisons or traps only “after public hunting has demonstrable failed to achieve the desired animal control.”

Rep. Dennis Arakaki introduced a similar bill this year that passed first reading and was referred to Water and Land Use and Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs, but was never heard.

— Teresa Dawson

The Legislature On-Line:

All the following information may be obtained at [url=http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov.,]www.capitol.hawaii.gov.,[/url] the Hawai’i State Legislatures website:

*Text, status, and committee reports of bills and resolutions
*Archived information on bills and resos from the 1999 session
*Information of broadcast schedules of hearings, news releases, directories, and guides
*Information on House and Senate members, committees, leadership, and rules
*Links to 16 governments and public information websites, including those for the state’s congressional delegation, the governor, and public-acess cable television stations.

Volume 10, Number 10 April 2000