House Bill 2751 started out as a motherhood-and-apple-pie measure. It was intended to help the mom-and-pop gas stations comply with imminent federal requirements by setting up a fund to provide them with below-market-rate loans for retrofitting their underground storage tanks … Continued
Environmentalists Must Seek Strength In Unity In interviews with Environment Hawai’i, legislators often described the environmental lobby as ineffective. It’s only natural to respond defensively to this, especially if you happen to have been a member of that lobby. After … 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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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