Hawaii lawmakers to vote on over 200 bills this week

Hawaii legislators are poised to take their final votes Wednesday on more than 200 bills, including measures that would fund an undercover unit to crack down on illegal fireworks, prevent Oahu’s next landfill from being built above an aquifer, ban the sale of assault rifles starting Jan. 1, and impose a minimum, 30-day jail sentence for drivers repeatedly cited for “excessive” speeding.

Other bills would increase the tax on hotel rooms and cruise ships to help the state respond to climate change and prevent wildfires; increase the cigarette tax by 2 cents; and provide funding to expand high school surf leagues in the birth place of surfing.

If approved by the full House and Senate Wednesday, the bills would go to Gov. Josh Green, who has already signed 27 new laws this year, including further tightening firearms requirements across the islands, which already have some of the strictest firearms laws in the country.

Another 36 bills also were sent to Green and await his decision.

Significant bills failed to make it out of House and Senate conference committees on Friday, including the latest attempt to create some form of gambling in Hawaii by allowing state tax collections from online sports betting.

Only Hawaii and Utah ban all forms of gambling.

House and Senate negotiators also were unable to reach agreement on a bill to provide another $600 million to the state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands to develop more homesteads for beneficiaries.

The 259 bills that survived last-minute negotiations and now move on to their final votes before the full House and Senate Wednesday include the final versions of:

• Senate Bill 401, which would ban the transfer, sale and importation of assault rifles, assault shotguns and .50 caliber firearms beginning Jan. 1. Licensed dealers and county police chiefs would be exempt.

• House Bill 969 would prohibit the construction, modification or expansion of any waste or disposal facility on Oahu near or above a “significant aquifer,” as determined by the state Department of Health. It also would prohibit a new landfill within a half-mile buffer zone of a school, hospital or residential area.

Both the state Health Department and the city’s Department of Environmental Services opposed the bill, with the city arguing that the tighter restrictions would force it to expand the current Waimanalo Gulch Sanitary Landfill in Leeward Oahu that’s scheduled to close March 2, 2028.

• SB 1030 would specify that the crime of election fraud intimidation would include carrying a firearm or “dangerous instrument” within 200 feet of a voting site.

• SB 1396, the hotel and cruise ship tax bill, offers no specific recommendation for how much Hawaii’s transient accommodations tax would increase to generate millions annually to help the state adapt to climate change and prevent wildfires. Each 1% increase in the room tax for hotel nights has been projected to generate another $80 million annually, with another $24 million coming from passenger stays aboard cruise ships.

• SB 1300 would expand free school meals to students of families who qualify for reduced-price lunch. Their family income could not be over 300% of the federal poverty level.

• HB 806 would provide $500,000 to the state Department of Law Enforcement to conduct sting operations on Oahu to catch fireworks violators following the New Year’s Eve tragedy at an Aliamanu home that killed six people, wounded dozens of others and led to multiple arrests.

The bill also would lead to an explosives and firearms laboratory on Oahu.

• HB 550 would allow law enforcement to use drone images to establish probable cause for arrests under the Fireworks Control Law to help in investigations and prosecutions.

• And HB 1483 would update definitions and penalties for fireworks offenses, including tougher penalties if anyone “suffers substantial bodily injury, serious bodily injury, or death as a result of the fireworks offenses.”

Residents have long complained about the increased use of pyrotechnics in their neighborhoods.

But calls for tougher enforcement took on greater urgency this legislative session in the aftermath of the New Year’s Eve catastrophe.

Police seized more than 500 pounds of unexploded illegal fireworks from cars belonging to guests attending the party at 4144 Keaka Drive and in the carport of the home.

• SB 97 would make it a misdemeanor for any driver who gets cited for “excessive speeding” three times or more within five years and calls for a minimum jail sentence of 30 days.

State law defines excessive speeding as exceeding speed limits by 30 mph or more and 80 mph anywhere in the state.

• HB 1001 would deposit about half of the state’s $807.5 million share of $4 billion in Maui wildfire settlement claims into a trust fund, followed by the balance the following fiscal year.

The fund from all six defendants would settle claims from the Aug. 8, 2023, wildfires, with payments spread over four years.

• HB 133 would provide the state Department of Education with $685,870 in each of the next two fiscal years to expand high school surf leagues. The Board of Education sanctioned surf teams in 2016 but only one of five athletic leagues sponsor surfing.

• HB 441 would increase the state tax on cigarettes to 18 cents from 16 cents on Jan. 1. It was introduced to help fund programs at the University of Hawaii Cancer Center, which has helped reduce cancer rates and smoking.

As smoking has decreased, Cancer Center programs have suffered decreased funding from the cigarette tax.

UH officials continue to push back against a Senate change that would dedicate all of the increased tax for debt service of capital expenditures and building maintenance at the Cancer Center.

• SB 583 would allow naming rights advertising on the Hawai‘i Convention Center and the planned replacement of Aloha Stadium in a state that prohibits outdoor advertising.

• SB 30 would make it illegal to ride a moped without a helmet and prohibit anyone under the age of 16 from driving a moped.

• SB 344 would require skateboard users under the age of 18 to wear a helmet while riding on public property.

• SB 1051 would designate every September as Hawaiian History Month.

• HB 957 would designate the first Friday in May as “Laulau Day.”

• SB 1373 would automatically revoke and deny applications for professional licenses for registered sex offenders.

• SB 281 would define the offense of “torture” and make it a Class A felony.

• HB 1098 would specify that it would be the crime of second-degree, felony assault for injuring any “administrator, specialist, social worker, case manager, or aide employed by the department of human services to investigate or provide services in response to reports of child abuse or neglect, or to investigate or provide services in response to reports of abuse or neglect of a vulnerable adult.”

State law already makes it the crime of second-degree assault for attacking specific groups of people doing their jobs including sports officials, home health care workers, firefighters and lifeguards, mental health workers, paramedics, state Department of Education employees and corrections workers.

On April 10, Green signed another bill into law — now known as Act 8 — to add members of the Hawaii National Guard to the list.

• SB 601 would require law enforcement to post notice that a warranted or warrantless search has been conducted on a property.

Law enforcement would also have to “develop a policy for securing the entrances to a house, store, or other building designated as a place to be searched after a search is completed.”

• SB 601 would allow law enforcement to break “any doors, gates, other bars to the entrance, closets, and other closed places during a search when reasonable and other means of entering the space are not reasonable.”

• SB 694 would prohibit minors from being held in “jails, lockups or prisons for adults, except temporarily under certain circumstances.”

• HB 667 would require the Department of Transportation and counties to scan any cat or dog carcass found on a road for a microchip to identify the animals’ owners to notify them that their pet had died.

• SB 1221 would require counties to regulate retention and detention ponds and survey existing retention and detention ponds and report their findings to the Legislature. The bill was part of a package of bills introduced this year on behalf the new Hawai‘i Water Safety Coalition.

The retention and detention pond safety bill followed the death of Charlotte “Sharkey” Schaefers, who drowned Feb. 28, 2004, in a poorly maintained Navy housing retention detention pond that was designed to reduce the risk of homes getting flooded in a storm and had been swollen with stormwater. Schaefers jumped into the pond to save a 3-year-old child who couldn’t swim.

Her mother, Honolulu Star-Advertiser reporter Allison Schaefers, helped write the Hawai‘i Water Safety Plan and advocated for passage of the bills this legislative session.

• SB 825 would help renters stay in their homes by extending the period to issue a notice to terminate a rental agreement from five business days to 10 calendar days. It also would require landlords or their agents to engage in mediation with the tenants and require landlords and their agents to delay filing an action for summary possession if a tenant schedules mediation.

The bill follows largely successful landlord-tenant mediations put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic to reduce large-scale evictions after thousands of people suddenly lost their jobs or had their incomes significantly reduced.

• HB 874 would require parents and guardians of minors who work in Hawaii’s entertainment industry to create trust funds in their names, to be managed by a third party, until the child turns 18.

The bill would apply only to minors making $5,000 for an individual project or $20,000 in a calendar year and would require 15% of the earnings to be deposited directly by their employer. Anyone who misuses the funds could face civil penalties and criminal prosecution.