Senate panel recommends rejecting Ching as head of DLNR

HONOLULU —

A panel of Hawaii lawmakers has recommended that the Senate should reject Gov. David Ige’s nominee to lead the Department of Land and Natural Resources.

Members of the Senate Committee on Water and Land voted 5-2 Thursday to recommend rejecting nominee Carleton Ching. The next step is for the full Senate to vote on the governor’s nomination.

The committee’s decision came after a massive public outcry against Ching from environmental and historic preservation groups who opposed Ching’s nomination because of his background in development. Most recently, Ching worked for Castle & Cooke Hawaii, a major development firm.

Over the course of two days, the committee spent five hours listening to public testimony for and against Ching and then grilled the nominee on his understanding of the department’s mission. In the end, Committee Chairwoman Laura Thielen then suggested that the panel should recommend to the Senate a no vote on the nominee.

“I respect you as a person,” Thielen said. “I would be your first champion for a state czar for transit-oriented development, for taking the state properties along the rail line, for getting the agencies who don’t want to work together to work together…and I think you have tremendous talents and skills.”

But Thielen and others on the committee expressed concern about Ching’s development background and his lack of experience with environmental issues.

“The nominee has several times referred to land as a piece of dirt,” said Sen. Russell Ruderman. “I understand it’s just an expression, but it’s telling.”

The panel criticized Ching’s affiliation with the Land Use Research Foundation, a group that has pushed for fast-tracked development that would bypass public and environmental scrutiny.

Ching maintained that he didn’t always agree with the group’s positions.

“The criticisms have been my past employers and association with different organizations,” Ching told the committee. “I think that provides me a good baseline experience, but it doesn’t define who I am. I’ve learned from them, I’ve gotten paid from them, I’ve been able to raise my family from them, but it doesn’t define who I am…because who I am is a local boy. Born and raised here.”

Ige, in a press conference after the hearing, said Ching had broad support from employees from the department, a group representing Native Hawaiians and cultural practitioners.

“I am very much concerned about the guilt by association, the perspective of the committee that his past association with organizations would really not make him not fit to be able serve,” Ige said. “I was disappointed that the committee focused on those issues, even when the questions were asked and answered, that he did not support the position of these organizations.”

Ching pledged to follow the law and to protect the island’s lands and beaches which are so critical to its brand image.

“From the very beginning, when King Kamehameha put the islands together, it’s (been) about protecting this house….so I will promise to you that I will work in the best interest of the state,” Ching said.