KAILUA-KONA — They don’t all make it — not by a long shot.
A piece of legislation can die for any number of reasons. Sometimes, it’s a good idea whose time has not yet come. Concepts that are popular on the Big Island can face indifference at the Capitol when other statewide issues are being kicked around. Conflicting testimony can also doom a bill as lawmakers sift quickly through the mass of proposals to find the kernels they think can be made workable.
Or as House Committee on Judiciary Chairman Karl Rhoads told West Hawaii Today last year — “you just can’t hear (every bill).”
That said, the following Big Island-related bills are either dead on arrival, or need life support, fast:
Legislation whose co-sponsors include Kona Rep. Nicole Lowen and Kohala Rep. Cindy Evans would have required the state to establish five community subsistence fishing areas around the state by 2020. The Senate Committee on Water, Land and Agriculture deferred House Bill 2023 two weeks ago, effectively killing the bill.
Lowen said community groups want to move ahead with creating the subsistence areas, but some hunters and fishermen opposed the curtailing of public fishing access that would likely result from the local management. Department of Land and Natural Resources Chairwoman Suzanne Case said in written testimony that the process takes time to assure there is community buy-in.
Labeling protections that Kona coffee growers have requested for decades went down the tubes without a discussion this year. Senate Bill 2519, co-sponsored by Puna Sen. Russell Ruderman, died in late January, never getting a hearing at the first two committees to which it was assigned. Similar legislation introduced on the House side last year carried over to this session but failed to gain any traction in the new session.
The bill would have required labels to display regional origin and percent by weight of blended coffees. The bill would also have prohibited the use of the Kona label on blends that are less than 51 percent actual Kona-grown bean.
Big Island lawmakers continuously introduce such legislation without success. It’s an old fight, and for some Kona growers, a bitter one.
“The Ag committees are owned by the blenders,” said Bruce Corker, president of the Kona Coffee Farmers Association. “We can’t fight the Honolulu establishment. We have to find other ways to get this done.”
Growers have staunchly maintained that blends — often carrying no more than 10 percent real Kona coffee but using the region’s name on their package — damage the industry’s reputation by passing off a watered-down product as the real thing. But the legislation has been opposed historically by blenders and purveyors who say they are actually boosting the brand by giving wider play to coffee that would be unaffordable in its pure form.
Another coffee bill was quashed early on — this one requesting that the University of Hawaii establish protocols for a working group to study the economic impacts of changing coffee labeling laws.
Also, DOA is a Senate bill that would have placed a luxury tax on residential developments costing more that $20 million, using the money to pay for homeless housing initiatives. SB 2464, introduced by Kona Sen. Josh Green and supported by Ruderman among a half dozen co-sponsors, never received a hearing.
The bill would have levied a 3 to 5 percent tax to fund such homeless housing initiatives as Housing First, a program that dismantles barriers by placing those who need housing in living quarters without first having to complete drug and alcohol treatment. The initiative has seen some success curbing the homelessness problem on Oahu.
“Most bold proposals that would make a big difference die at the Legislature,” Green said. “We need $60 million a year to fund Housing First and solve the problem.”
Another bill sponsored by Green and Ruderman, SB 2463, would have raised the state minimum wage to $16 an hour by 2020. It also perished in its first two committees.
“California and New York have passed $15 an hour minimum wage,” Green said. “I was the only one to propose that for Hawaii. Someone has to start thinking big. My theory: increase real wages and decrease all barriers to housing. Much of homelessness would be addressed.”
