State lawmakers already have announced their intentions to introduce nearly 500 bills ahead of today’s start of the legislative session, but only one so far addresses the high-profile issue of how to respond to the deaths of five people during New Year’s celebrations, including a 3-year-old boy.
Legislators have come under intense pressure to do more to reduce the barrage of pyrotechnics that go off sometimes all day New Year’s Eve and into the early hours of New Year’s Day in many neighborhoods across the islands.
It’s an issue that Gov. Josh Green and state Attorney General Anne Lopez plan to address this legislative session through bills aimed at improving enforcement, increasing penalties and simplifying legal definitions.
As of Tuesday, however, only one bill had been positioned for introduction: Senate Bill 302 would make it illegal to fire off consumer fireworks without a “cultural use permit.”
Under SB 302 it would be illegal “to offer, display for sale, sell, or furnish consumer fireworks to any person except for cultural use by permit.”
It also would be illegal to sell fireworks more than five days before “a permitted cultural use.”
More fireworks-related bills are likely being prepared for introduction because the issue of how to clamp down on illegal fireworks involves technical and legal considerations, said political analyst Neal Milner.
“The way the Legislature and governor are talking now, it’s overwhelmingly the biggest issue facing them,” Milner said.
Important issues that arise toward the end of the year — and before the start of the legislative session — typically receive extra attention in the early days of the following session, Milner said.
“That’s what fireworks have become — big time,” he said.
Each legislative session, 2,000 to 3,000 bills are introduced, and about 250 become law.
Among the 498 “prefiled” bills so far at the start of this year’s session, several are perennial, like SB 130, which would require any government agency to charge hikers for up to half the cost to rescue them from a banned or illegal trail like Oahu’s Stairway to Heaven and Sacred Falls trails that are popular but illegal.
Other bills again are intended to tighten lobbying activity and provide public funding for political campaigns.
But none compares to the urgency to do more to control the influx of illegal pyrotechnics, Milner said.
“Other than fireworks, there isn’t even one that’s a close second,” he said.
At 12:01 a.m. New Year’s Day, a “cake bomb” loaded with illegal aerial fireworks detonated near a crowd of partygoers on Keaka Drive in Salt Lake, killing Carmelita Benigno, 61, Nelie Ibarra, 58, and Jennifer Van, 23.
Cassius Ramos-Benigno, 3, died of his injuries Jan. 6, and other victims remain hospitalized.
Jayson Ramos, 20, also died Dec. 31 from a separate fireworks blast on Lukela Lane in Kalihi.
Legislators and Green are likely being barraged with complaints of “’Why can’t somebody do something?’ Milner said. “But how do you translate that into laws? That’s tricky because they require legal definitions and the issue of how much money you’re willing to pay for enforcement. And how does it get enforced?”
Many of the nuances and details are likely to get buried under an avalanche of frustration, Milner said.
“The testimony is all going to be, ‘You’ve got to do something about this,’” he said.
No preliminary bills had been “prefiled” as of Tuesday to, once again, consider legalizing adult recreational cannabis use and any form of gambling.
But Milner expects both issues to come up again, as they do every year.
SB 319, however, would decriminalize cannabis distribution by increasing the amounts to trigger penalties.
Bills aimed at controlling feral chickens are regularly introduced, but none have been drafted yet. SB 315 would allow a permitting process to kill feral pigs on privately owned land.
Other bills awaiting introduction into the House and Senate would:
w Require the state Department of Education to provide free breakfasts and lunches to all public school students through SB 43 and House Bill 87.
w Mandate that elementary, middle and high school classes start no earlier than 8:30 a.m. under SB 63.
w Require the Executive Office on Early Learning to establish an Imagination Library of Hawaii Program to provide one free book each month to children from birth through 5 years of age through HB 107.
w Establish the Teacher Home Assistance Program to provide housing vouchers to eligible teachers under HB 89.
w Expand eligibility for scholarships under the Hawaii Community College Promise Program to all qualified students under SB 171.
w Ask voters to approve an amendment to the state Constitution that would raise the retirement age of state judges to 75 from 70 under SB 175.
w Require the state Department of Accounting and General Services to install and maintain automated external defibrillators in all state buildings, including all public schools. HB 51 also would require DAGS to provide training on how to use defibrillators.
w Authorize the state Department of Law Enforcement to establish traffic cameras and issue citations by mail for traffic violations. Intentionally destroying or damaging a traffic camera would be a Class C felony under SB 96.
w Require graduates of the University of Hawaii’s John A. Burns School of Medicine who have paid in-state tuition to serve as a physician in the state for at least two years following their medical residency or fellowship. Under SB 101 the requirement would go into effect with the class of 2029.
w Make each Aug. 8 “Hawaii Disaster Drill Day” and require the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency to work with all state departments and agencies to conduct drills and perform other activities through SB 141. The date coincides with the Aug. 8, 2023, Maui wildfires, which killed 102 people.
w Create a Lava Zone Insurance Fund through HB 20 for portions of Hawaii island’s Puna district where no new lava insurance premiums can be purchased. The issue of the availability and cost of homeowner’s insurance has taken on more urgency since the Maui wildfires and the ongoing wildfires in the Los Angeles area.
w Require certain owners and occupants of properties located in hazardous fire areas to maintain “effective” firebreaks 30 feet around their property and adopt other fire prevention practices under HB 113.
w Increase the deposit and refund value for beverage containers to 10 cents from 5 cents under the deposit beverage container program through HB 109.
w Bar some foreign parties from owning an interest in Hawaii agricultural lands. SB 1 also would create an Office of Agricultural Intelligence within the Department of Agriculture to investigate any suspicions of foreign ownership. The Attorney General’s Office would be responsible for enforcement.
