Gov. Josh Green has asked the state Legislature to approve three methods to fund state action to address environmental stressors that include overtourism, global warming and rising seas.
w The first, via Senate Bill 1395, has been deferred (deep-sixed) by the House Water and Land Committee. It would “sweep,” or divert, all interest earned from the state’s rainy day fund — about $60 million annually — to the general fund, and as amended, required the governor to request funding for specific projects to address climate change impacts each year. This solid proposal provides a direct and accessible source of funding for urgent needs, and should not be allowed to disappear from this year’s legislative slate. It’s now the responsibility of legislative leadership to include this provision in a living bill concerning environmental funding, and to ensure it becomes law.
w A second strategy, laid out in Senate Bill 439, would authorize the state Board of Land and Natural Resources to impose user fees on nonresidents visiting select state parks and trails. This approach is already widely used at popular natural attractions including Hanauma Bay, and, as a parking charge, at the Pali Lookout, and can be directed to needs at sites where the fee is charged. Legislators: Recognize the outsized value offered by Hawaii’s natural resources, and pass this bill.
w Legislators who favor the state’s best interests must also vote to approve Senate Bill 1396. This third and most-debated strategy adds to the state’s transient accommodations tax (TAT), applied to daily hotel room costs paid by users, including short-term rental visitors — and in its latest iteration, adds cruise ships to the target base, with a rate adjusted to reflect time in Hawaii ports. A slight increase to the TAT is urgently needed and fully justified by state needs, and should be enacted.
As currently amended, SB 1396 adds an unspecified additional percentage to the TAT. The governor originally advocated for a 1.7% increase — but acknowledging the political weight carried by industry sentiment, now advocates for a 1% increase. That’s hardly matched to Hawaii’s needs, when a family paying $3,000 — $600 per night for a five-night stay — would contribute just $30 to the climate mitigation fund — but it’s a start.
Acknowledging pushback claiming that visitors will be overburdened by a higher room tax, the governor told the Star-Advertiser, “People will still come. People are still coming, in giant droves. I’m meeting the hotel industry halfway.”
Indeed: Hoteliers can’t legitimately fret over visitors’ high costs while raising room rates by 29% between 2020 and 2024 — with Maui leading the way. This makes protests against an accommodations tax of just $15 for a five-night stay in a “budget,” limited-services hotel of $300 per night seem self-serving.
Environmental conservation and remediation are sorely needed, now, for sensitive environmental areas, including drought-plagued former ag lands, and coastal lands — some sinking more quickly than expected, according to a recent University of Hawaii study. Revenue to support mitigations should be seen for what it is: a required, continuous cost of maintenance. And make no mistake, the “need” applies to visitors, tourism-dependent businesses and all who make their homes here — as shown by the widespread and devastating consequences of the 2023 wildfires in West Maui, exacerbated by drought and storm patterns related to global warming.
As stated in SB 1396, “Investing in Hawaii’s environment is, in itself, economic development.” The state’s environmental needs total $500 million annually, Green says. The trio of measures now before the Legislature would raise less than half that, but it would be an acceptable start.
“Gov. Josh Green has asked the state Legislature to approve three methods to fund state action to address environmental stressors that include overtourism, global warming and rising seas.”
Perfect Josh…cut an income source for our residents & the state tax coffers, while increasing expenditures on non-problems and which, even if they were real, the state has zero capacity to change. Nothing like trying to change geologic process that have been occurring literally for billions of years. Ah, but not to worry super Josh will change that…he loves to relieve himself while facing into the wind.
RSW