The federal Environmental Protection Agency has, indeed, postponed deadlines for compliance with financial responsibility requirements for owners of 12 or fewer underground storage tanks. In doing so, it bowed to pressure from members of Congress who stated that EPA’s tank … Continued
Hawai`i, with its many micro-climates and its multiple growing seasons, is a dream site for field testing of genetically engineered organisms. To date, three proposals have been made to conduct such tests; many more can be expected. But the state … Continued
Hawai’i so far does not have the kind of air pollution that triggers federal response (withholding of highway funds; restrictions on new industry and the like). But there are some disturbing indications that air quality will deteriorate in the future … Continued
Strong quarantine enforcement is a critical part in the overall attempt to protect Hawai`i’s endemic species. Passage of Senate Bill 2382, then, has to be ranked as a major accomplishment of the 1990 legislative session. Most of the bill was … Continued
Also known as H.B. 3149, this began as a measure that, by defining non-structural commercial uses of shorelines as not being development, would have exempted such uses from county regulation under the Coastal Zone Management Act (chapter 205A of Hawaii … Continued
House Bill 2217 should have passed easily. It would have opened up to public comment agency decisions that proposed projects have no significant environmental impact – the so-called “Negative Declarations.” At present, public comment is limited to those projects for … Continued
Who knows if the full story of Senate Bill 667 will ever be known? But what happened to the bill in the 1989 legislative session set the stage for many of the problems that occurred this past session. The animosity … Continued
With all the attention recycling has received, you might have thought a bill providing for sensible solid waste management would have made it through to the finish line. Guess again. The bill – H.B. 2181 and its companion in the … Continued
The operation of charter boats along the North Shore of Kaua`i began, by most accounts, in the mid-1970s. Tom Hegarty, a charter boat operator, has said he started carrying passengers for hire in 1975. Clancy Greff, whose nom de mer … Continued