Senate Standing Committee on Agriculture and Environment

Aloha mai kaua. And good afternoon. It's January 24, 2025, and we are convened in room 224 and video conferencing, which includes the audio and video of remote participants that's being streamed live on YouTube. And mahalo for joining us today for the first AEN hearing of the 2025 season, session. Let's see, there's some housekeeping stuff.

In the unlikely event that the hearing is cut short, the committee will reconvene to discuss any outstanding business on Monday, January 27th at 1:01pm in this room, CR 224, during a time slot and a public notice will be posted on the Legislature's website.

And because of our 90 minute time limit for hearings, there will be a 2 minute time limit for all classifiers and we'll have a virtual countdown timer on the zoom screen. And yeah, so we have five bills on the 1pm agenda. So we're going to start with SB 10.

Reusable air filters, prohibits the sale and use of disposable air filters beginning Jan. 1, 2030. Requires the state to establish reusable air filters as the new standard. And let's see who we have up first. Anybody here in person testifying on this bill? No. Okay, so we have three opposed. Douglas Gomes, Brian Ninomoto, and Julie Obrero, all opposed. And so no one here to testify. So no questions. Yes.

Aloha, Chair and Vice Chair of the Agriculture and Environment Senate Committee. Angela Melody Young testifying on behalf of ROAR, CARES. So as it relates to air filters and HRS 196 amendment, it will set new definitions of standards for disposable filters and the reusable kind. So filters are for central heating ventilation systems and can improve health outcomes.

Disposable filters are typically made with fiberglass with a paper frame. Disposable filters are meant for short term temporary use and rotated out every 30 days to 90 days. This act is favorable of reusable filters, which are characterized by durability, positive environmental features, and will set new standards for every filter sold, shipped, and distributed to Hawaii.

So from Hawaii to California, filters and purification systems are being challenged by the law. Electronic induct air cleaners must be tested for ozone emissions and be certified prior to sale. So those are different than purification systems. We can look at California's law, which is a few steps ahead of Hawaii's trend.

In accordance to California Assembly Bill 2279, it adopted an air cleaner regulation to limit ozone pollution. So for this specific amendment in Hawaii law, you should list the specific material that causes the environmental pollution, which is fiberglass, and paper, which cannot be easily recycled. So I would advise to amend it to define paper, define fiberglass, because it results in environmental pollution. Otherwise it's very not specific.

Okay.

Yeah. Okay, thank you.

Anyone else? Any questions? Moving on to the next measure. SB13, relating to the aquaculture Investment Tax Credit for taxable years beginning after December 312025 provides an aquaculture investment tax credit for investments into a qualified aquaculture business. We have Wendy Gaty from adc. Anyone from ADC here?

Senator Mark Kakimoto for ADC staff support.

Support. Thank you. Department of Taxation. Anyone? Comments? Okay. And Sharon Hurd from the Department of Ag.

Testimony and support refers to the Department of Taxation for the administrative side.

Okay, thank you. Anna Ezzy in support. If I call your name and you want to testify, please come forward. Lauren Zirbel from the Hawaii Food Industry Association, in support. Tom Yamachika on Zoom. Tom, Aloha.

Aloha, chair. Members of the Committee, Tom Yamachika for Tax Foundation. We have some concerns with this Bill. We wanted to point out that the definition of qualifier aquaculture business is kind of loose. There's also an inconsistency within the Bill, as we point out in our testimony, about exactly what is creditable.

And we're also very concerned that there are blanks in critical areas of the Bill, which makes the Bill impossible to revenue estimate and otherwise vet in its current form. I'd be happy to answer any questions. Thank you very much.

Thank you. John Ronald Wedenbach from the Hawaii Aquaculture and Aquaponics Associations, in support. Pamela Tumpat from Maui Chamber of Commerce, in support. Ying Huang from Shrimp Improvement Systems Hawaii, in support. Cecilia Viljoen from Kpfhc in support. Liz Akina in support. Anyone else wishing to testify?

Angela Melody Young testifying behalf of Roar Cares and strong support. So my mom has a hydroponics farm at our house in our garden. And I love aquaculture. So in strong support. And it's becoming really trendy with our generation. So aquaculture is a farming trend of raising water organisms in controlled conditions.

And the organisms are inclusive of fish, shellfish, algae, crayfish and aquatic plants. So this is the aquaculture raising of water organisms. Aquaculture can boost the food industry, it can help create healthier habitats, it can help enhance coastal resilience and preserve cultural heritage.

So within this specific act, there is a tax credit for taxable years and incremental structuring for the tax Credit. I think that's a very difficult financial structure as a Member of the public to kind of break down to the public.

So if the state in some kind of way can provide a basic breakdown of like what that means, because I'm having a hard time reading that. That'D. Be really good if we're requiring all citizens of Hawaii to be in compliance with the aquaculture farm standards. Thank you.

Okay, anyone else? Members, any questions? Okay. Moving on to SB 177 relating to aquaculture. Authorizing the Division of Animal Industry of the Department of Ag to adopt, amend and repeal rules to develop an assessment and approval process to import and move aquatic livestock in the state.

Requires the aquaculture program to develop a risk based framework and biocontainment standards for the aquatic livestock assessment and approval process. First up is Wendy Gady or someone from ADC.

Thank you, Chair. Vice Chair. Committee Members, Mark Takemoto from ADC standing in honor testimony.

Thank you, Mark. Sharon Hurd from Department of AG.

Okay.

Chair Gabbard, Vice Chair Richards, Members of the Committee sharing her Department of Agriculture. We do stand on our written testimony and support. I'm here to just highlight that the aquaculture industry is ready for expansion. We know that.

And it does rely just a little bit on the kinds of projects that the aquaculturists want, and we do want them to be economically successful. But the risk based assessment that this Bill provides for is to check the risks that weigh between bringing in species and what the risk to the native species would be.

It's a real tough. It could be a long type of research. And so the appropriation that we request for $1.0 million will assist with that research and provide staff and expertise to help grow the aquaculture industry. Thank you for the time.

Thank you, Chair. Next is Anna Ezzi from Agriculture Research and Policy. In support, Kathy Gogo on zoom. Is Kathy with us?

They're unavailable on Zoom.

Chair okay, that Kathy's opposed. She's with the Animal Rights Hawaii. And Brian Miyamoto from Hawaii Farm Bureau is in support and not able to make it on zoom. Ron Wiedenbach from Hawaii Aquaculture and Aquaponics Association in support. Jamie Masakawa from the Shrimp Improvement Systems Hawaii in support. Cecilia Viljean also in support. Charles Ayes in support.

Anyone else wishing to testify on SB177? Angela.

Aloha. Angela Melody Young. Testifying and strong support of Senate Bill 177 for Aquaculture Livestock assessment and imports into the State of Hawaii. So this amendment to the chapter is about fish coming into the State of Hawaii.

So this chapter is about the rules to obey based on a framework maintained by the Department pursuant to this chapter and Chapter 142, which requires quarantine and depopulation as necessary if the fish from out of state is at risk of in some sort of way influencing the in state.

Fish and aquatic livestock refers to things like fish, crayfish and crustaceans. And so there's a consideration of the methods and strategies and procedures and facilities design for safety equipment of containment of the fish and the livestock.

So to set standards for guidelines of operations for safety and hazardous biological influences that are in a secured facility is going to be very important to helping with explaining the biosafety programs as it is used in laboratories, animal facilities and hospitals which are involved in the containment of importing fish into Hawaii.

And I think it has something to do with the quarantine process as well. So the act asks the office to seek federal funds and with a $1 million appropriation, which is a good balance because it asks for the federal office to provide the funds. But there is no specific asy your time.

Thank you very much for your testimony. Thank you. Anyone else on 177? Any questions? Members question?

Yeah, Director heard thanks for your testimony. The $1.0 million that you're talking about, we have talked for the last couple years on the amplification of aquaculture here. And is that going to be enough to get it done? Because I see great things for the industry.

I know we anticipate that $1.0 million will get us started at least with the research and the permitting. I know that the permitting is the part that is the bottleneck. It is.

And so what we want to do is do a little bit a deeper dive into where the biggest bottleneck is for the species that are being requested to bring in. And the million is going to be for, I don't want to say a feasibility study.

It's more of a consultant type funding so that we can get access to the real, you know, why is this a problem and what is the risk to native Hawaiian species and science based, measurable, realistic type permitting rather than a what if? You know, more like a risk based.

Because the concern about biocontainment, if we have something coming in, it's almost impossible. Okay.

All right, thank you, chair.

Yeah.

Just I want to mention we have Todd Lowe here. If have a deeper type question, we can bring them up from our aquaculture support services if you have another.

Yeah, actually I think this would be appropriate. Sure.

Did you want to add anything to that.

Good afternoon. Todd Lowe, Aquaculture Development Program. I think there's a perspective to this. The idea is to move the permitting to the Animal Industry Division where they already handle the other livestock, as you're aware of. So through the history, fish has been handled by the Plant Quarantine branch.

And we think it'd be better administered by the veterinarians who do it in the same way they would do all the other following USDA guidelines and all the other movement of the livestock.

And this was, this will get this started because, you know, we've talked about the potential for this is massive. This could be really good for everybody.

Right. So this is one piece of that bigger puzzle. Okay. What we see the $1.0 million as is building that risk based framework because we know there's a lot of eyes on the aquatic species. Right. That makes sense.

Okay. All right.

Okay. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you. Moving on. Senate Bill 184, relating to the Deposit Beverage Container Program. Increases the deposit and refund value for beverage containers from $0.05 to $0.10 under the Deposit Beverage Container Program. First up is Ryan Yamane, Director of Department of Human Services. Offers comments. The Environmental Health Administration. DOH offers, please. Okay.

And your name again, please. Let's see. Solid Waste Division Chief Allison Fraley in support. Lauren Zirbel from Hawaii Food Industry Association, opposed. Tom Yamachika from Zoom.

Thank you, Chair and Members. Tom Yamachika from Tax Foundation. We have a couple of concerns about the program in general, and we question why it's an appropriate time to raise the redemption price. We note that in Auditor Report 23-07 from the State Auditor, they had talked about considerable fraud risk to the program and had actually identified instances of fraud.

And they mentioned that the department was at the time going through some fraud mitigation measures, but hadn't finished them as of that time. But we would want to make sure that risk is mitigated before opening the program up to a lot more money. And speaking of money, as we have shown in our testimony, there's a bar chart there. The Deposit Beverage Fund has steadily built up over the years, over the last 10 years, and it has surpassed $50 million in 2020. So we question why doubling the fee is needed at this time. Be happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Tom. David Thorp from the American Beverage Association, opposed. Terry Telfer from Reynolds Recycling.

Chair, Vice Chair, Members of Committee. We stand by our written testimony.

Thank you. Tiffany Dame, opposed. Natalie Iwasa, opposed. BCN in support. Sage Houston in support. Anyone else wishing to testify on SB 184? Please.

Chair, Vice Chair, Members of the Committee, my name is Gavan Abe. I'm the branch administrator at Ho'opono Services for the Blind, testifying on behalf of Director of Human Services Ryan Yamane. We appreciate the intent of the bill and standby written testimony, which highlights the negative, potential negative impact of this on our licensed blind vendors statewide. Available for any questions or comments you might have. Thank you.

Thank you. Members, any questions? Oh, Angela.

Angela Melody Young testifying in strong support of Senate Bill 184. So this has to do with the recycling program for cans and bottles to redeem bottles and cans. So I read a lot of the notes from the prior years and every single year they propose an amendment.

It has to go through this legislative process, and it's very time consuming, and sometimes they get all the way to the end and it gets rejected or denied right or deferred. So to upgrade the law to be inclusive of milk bottles to elevate the redemption for those cans and bottles.

For example, right now they don't accept milk bottles. It only goes up to 60 ounces. So milk bottles are at 128 ounces, and they reject it in their process as of now. So I think the amendment for this policy is good. It's to increase it by a nickel. So whatever we can do to help with this recycling process will help with pollution and then also cleaning up the environment. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else? Members, any questions?

I have a question, Chair. I'm not sure I asked, maybe Department of Health. And I don't know if this is, may not be a question for you, but go ahead.

I'll try.

Do we have an idea of what the redemption rate is right now?

Our most recent redemption rate was calculated for FY24. So ending June 30th of last year, it's at 54%.

54%. Okay. And the one testifier talked about a $50 million amount of money in the account for this and that's been steadily growing despite. Has our redemption rate been increasing slowly as well?

No, it's been on a downward trend for about three years right now.

So which explains why the fund is growing. Okay, thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Okay, moving on to the last measure on today's 1 o'clock agenda. SB250 relating to taxation increase in income tax credit for transportation costs incurred by certain taxpayers who ship agricultural products and inputs between counties. Department of Taxation, thank you. Next is Wendy Gated from adc.

Tommy, Chair.

Mark.

Okay, thank you. Tom Yamachika.

Thank you. Chair, Vice Chair, Members of the Committee, Tom Yamachika from Tax Foundation, Hawaii. The concerns that we have are. Well, one relate to this being a tax credit. Generally we prefer appropriations and subsidies because then you know what you're spending and you know what you're getting for your money.

Whereas with a tax credit there are often a lot of black holes and you have to pay whoever comes in the door and meets the criteria, whether or not that's what you intended. Also, we're concerned about blanks in the Bill, as we mentioned, for one of the other bills in today's agenda.

Blanks in critical areas of the Bill make it impossible to revenue estimate and otherwise vet in its current form. I'd be happy to answer any questions. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Hunter Hevlin from Hawaii Farmers Union on zoom.

Well, Chair, Vice Chair, Committee Members, Hunter Heveland from Hawaii Farmers Union. We send in strong support of this Bill and would just like to highlight a few key aspects of it.

We view it as an important opportunity to expand trade between islands and support producers, food hubs and others who move goods that support agricultural growth across our economy.

Do want to also just add in that in light of a provision on the House side that has been put forward, that being HB 1369, which proposes to remove the General excise tax exemption for the transportation of agricultural commodities between islands, that the cost of doing so may soon rise.

Particularly seeing is that the head of the chair of the Finance Committee is the one who introduced that Bill. So it may have some likelihood to move forward in light of that. We view this measure as a critical one to ensure that producers are able to get their goods to new markets and help expand the agricultural economy.

Look forward to your support in this measure and happy to answer any questions. Thank you.

Thank you, Hunter. Next is Nicole Galassi from the Hawaii Cattlemen's Council.

Aloha, Vice Chair Richards, Members of the Committee, Nicole Galassi, Managing Director of the Hawaii Cattlemen's Council. We sign on our written testimony in support of this Bill because inter island transportation costs have increased 46% in 2020. And there's another proposal to increase interisland transportation costs, again somewhere between 20 and 45%, depending on what you're sending.

Even with the island ag discount, which we really appreciate, it's still a really heavy cost to bear with all these increases. But as an island state, we do need to be able to transport between counties. So thank you for consideration of this Bill. Mahalo.

Thank you, Nicole. Next is Brian Miyamoto from Hawaii Farm Bureau. In support, Larry Jeffs from the Larry Jeffs Farms llc. Also in support, Lauren Zirbol from Hawaii Food Industry Association. In support, Pamela Tumpap from Maui Chamber of Commerce. In support, Teresa Thompson. In support. Anyone else wishing to testify on this measure? Members, any questions?

We'll take a brief recess for some decision making.

Okay. Reconvening the 1 o'clock AEN agenda. We've conferred, and here's some decision making. On SB 10, first measure, relating to air filters. There was no testimony in support on this measure, so we're going to be deferring that measure indefinitely. On SB 13, relating to Aquaculture Investment Tax Credit, the Chair's recommendation be to pass with amendments from DOTAX. And also there are some tech amendments for clarity and defect the date for July 1, 2050. Members, any comments or questions? Vice Chair votes? Chair votes aye.

[Roll Call] Chair, you have four in favor. The motion is adopted.

Thank you, Members. SB 177 on aquaculture. The Chair's recommendation be to pass with the amendments blanking the appropriation and inserting it into the committee report for consideration. Also defecting the date to July 1, 2050. Any discussion, concerns? Chair votes aye. Vice Chair?

[Roll Call] Chair, you have four in favor. Motion is adopted.

And thank you, Members. On SB 184 on the Deposit Beverage Container Program. This one, Members, I'm going to defer decision making until Monday, January 27th at 1:01pm here, room 224, as I'm still gathering some more information on that issue.

Chair. Just comment on that. So I support raising it to 10 cents. And I think states that have had 10 cents for typically have a better return rate. But I think the real problem with the program is it's just so hard to return them. So you buy them at Safeway, but you can't take them back to Safeway. So I have, there is another. I have another bill out there that you may get to you eventually. But just a comment on that one. Thanks.

Oh, yeah. Our Safeway in Kapolei, it's right next to, right next to the Safeway. It's so convenient. See west side.

Well, Chair, may I make a comment?

Of course. Of course.

Okay. Coming from the Big Island, that is one of the big challenges. The recycling is tough because it's not convenient and it's tough. So I struggle with it, though I don't disagree in trying to go forward. We have trouble returning the stuff anyway, so that's not going to change a metric there. And that's where I struggle with that. Thanks, Chair.

Okay. And then on the final measure of the 1 o'clock agenda, SB 250, the income tax credit for transportation costs. The Chair's recommendation will be to pass with amendments from DOTAX and defect the date until July 1, 2050. Any discussion, Members? Chair votes aye. Vice Chair?

[Roll Call] Chair, you have four in favor. Motion is adopted.

Thank you very much, Members. And before I adjourn, I also wanted to, it's not only the first AEN hearing that makes today special, it is also the birthday of of our Judiciary Chair. Excuse me, esteemed Judiciary Chair, Senator Karl Rhoads. He turned 62 today, and he's still a kid. Yeah. So congratulations, Karl. And with that, we'll adjourn.

Aloha mai kaua. And good afternoon. Thank you all for joining the joint Agriculture, Environment, and Hawaiian Affairs hearing. It's January 24, 2025, and we're convening room 224 and video conferencing, which includes the audio and video of remote participants, is being streamed live on YouTube.

In the unlikely event that the hearing gets cut short, the committee will reconvene to discuss any outstanding business on Monday, January 27th at 1:01pm in this room, CR 224, during AEN's time slot. And a public notice will be posted on the Legislature's website.

And because of our 90 minute time limit for hearings, there will be a 2 minute time limit for testifiers and we'll have a virtual countdown timer on the zoom screen. We have one item on the agenda and it's SB240 relating to the right to farm.

Amending the definition of farming operation by including customary and traditional subsistence farming conducted by Native Hawaiian cultural practitioners and excluding concentrated animal feeding operations and business entities with unclear or non transparent ownership or beneficiary structures.

Establishes additional criteria for farming operations to meet in order to be protected against nuisance claims and clarifies the purpose and intent of the Hawaii Right to Farm Act. First up is the Department of Ag.

Chairs, vice chairs and Members of both committees. Sharon Hurd, Department of Agriculture, thank you for this opportunity to comment on SB240. The Department recognizes, acknowledges and recognizes the importance of customary need of Hawaiian rights gathering and comments that we are open to exploring mechanisms to protect these practices under Chapter 165. The Department has concerns.

However, we do appreciate the intent of the bill and provide comments. The Department has concerns about the individual amendments and their collective effect on the purpose of Chapter 165, which is to reduce the loss to the State of its Agricultural Resources by limiting the circumstances under which farming operations may be deemed to be a nuisance.

That's from Chapter 165- 1. The Department offers comments and recommendations on each of the proposed amendments to Chapter 165 and presented them in our written testimony in order of their appearance in the bill. And we stand by that.

I'm going to just conclude that our our ask on this bill or our conclusion is that we would support a study to investigate what would be the appropriate content of the good agricultural practices for statewide application and how many of the GAMPS would be necessary to cover most of Hawaii's commercial agricultural operations.

Otherwise, the Department is very concerned about the fragmented approach proposed in this measure that runs counter to the purpose and intent of the Hawaii Right to Farm Act. It should be noted that at this time there are no GAMPS, the generally accepted agricultural and management practices for the state.

There's no definition for the state and presumably the definitions will be part of the discussion. Thank you.

Next is Kathy Gogol Gogel with the Animal Rights Hawaii. Is she here in Zoom?

She's not available on Zoom.

Thank you. Offering comments Scott Enright from the Villa Rose, Waialua Eggs.

Chairs, vice Chairs, Committee Members. Good afternoon, Scott Enright. Scott Enright for Villa Rose and its subsidiary Wailua Eggs in opposition of the way this bill is currently constructed. So it's the removal of the protections of the right to farm from animal agriculture that gets done at scale, which is CAFOs.

In my testimony I mentioned not all CAFOs are created equal. The capo that Wailua Eggs has is 21st century technology that we haven't seen in this state before. They do it all the right way.

There are smaller operations that don't become capos that are worse offenders in terms of pollution and noise and nuisance because they don't have the capital. This operation has the capital and they want to expand.

And so seeing at a time when we can't find eggs on the shelf, we're going to tell them we're going to remove protections from them. It hinders moving forward with the capitalization of expansion.

And if I could just quickly, I also have a client, Metal Gold and Botello Enterprises, the last dairy in the state and they would like to expand. And when they expand, they possibly will move up to a CAFO. They're not currently a CAFO, but they would like that capability going forward.

And so I ask that the Committee consider amending the language of this bill. Thank you.

Thank you, Scott. Hunter Hevlin from Hawaii Farmers Union.

Well, hi, Chair, vice Chairs and Committee Members, Hunter Hevlin here on behalf of Hawaii Farmers Union.

We're testifying in strong support of this measure, viewed as a critical opportunity to first integrate traditional customary practices under the protections afforded by the Right to Farm Act, which I would highlight were originally intended to ensure that agricultural activities would not become in conflict with urban encroachment, was not designed to govern land use shifts.

And I think anybody who's seen the, the encroachment of our agriculture of urban and residential uses into our agricultural lands, this law is not, is not really intended to address that.

What it is intended to address are the way that agricultural operations nationally and this bill is informed in part by a national study of every state and all the legal proceedings that came as a result of right to farm laws which we are notionally led to believe are to protect small farmers from nuisance claims.

But in practice, large and industrial agricultural operations have been the ones involved in lawsuits and winning from these lawsuits at the cost of local agricultural operations, family farms and rural communities. So we view this as a protection for those communities to have more self determination.

And we would charge that any modern CAFO should ideally support, you know, better regulatory structures to ensure that the communities that they're a part of have the protections that they view as being necessary. Happy to answer any questions and mahalo for the opportunity to testify.

Thank you, Hunter. Brian Miyamoto from the Hawaii Farm Bureau. Opposed Nicole Colassi from the Hawaii Cattlemen's Council.

Nicole, thank you. Chairs, vice Chairs, Members of both committees. I'm Nicole Galassi, Managing Director of the Hawaii Cattlemen's Council. We respectfully oppose this measure because we should be allowing the option for all types of agriculture when done in a way that is safe for animals, community and the environment.

We support the inclusion of the customary and traditional subsistence farming, but we do advise against the exclusion of concentrated animal feeding operations as not all who meet the definition of CAFO are detrimental. Animal feeding operations can be a viable way for us to provide food for the community when the applicable regulations are enforced.

So keeping these options open but ensuring the regulations are enforced can be a good way for us to help reach local food production goals. Thank you for the opportunity to testify. Mahalo.

Thanks, Nicole. Next Ann Frederick from the Hawaii alliance for Progressive Action and support. Danny Kupchoi from Hawaii Crop Improvement Association is opposed. Gene Harrington from Biotech opposed. Nathaniel Oswald, President of Hawaii Farm Bureau, Molokai Chapter opposed. Jay Ashman, individual opposed. Jacqueline Ambrose in support. B.A. McClintock in support. Anyone else wishing to testify on this measure? Zoom.

Any Zoomers?

Yes, Jay Ashman is available on Zoom.

Okay, thank you. Can you hear me? Yes, thank you very much. Chair, I'd like to speak on behalf of the Hawaii Farm Bureau. Brian Miyamoto sends his apologies. He was not able to make this hearing. Could I do that?

Thank you. The Hawaii Farm Bureau does respectfully oppose Senate Bill 240. It changes the intent of the Hawaii right to farm. It changes the definition of farming operation to exclude certain types of farming and those with certain types of business ownership or beneficiary structures. It mandates public disclosure of ownership and beneficiary structures.

Yes.

It requires farms to already be established before any surrounding Non Ag activities exist and allows each county to determine the type of farms protected by the right to farm law. And includes in the definition of farming operations the customary and traditional subsistence farming conducted by Native Hawaiians.

But while Hawaii is struggling to meet its local food production for self sufficiency for many, many reasons, which you're well aware of, this Bill seems very inappropriate at this time. We do, as Nicole Galassi said, we need all types and sizes of farms. We want to expand our production. And we have a big problem.

The younger generation isn't interested in going into farming for a living once they realize all the obstacles there are and there are better job opportunities out there that are easier and they don't require the kind of investment risk that farming takes. We also have a problem with aging out. Our farmers are over 60 years old.

This does not bode well for sustainability. The express purpose of the current law, the right to farm, is to make sure that those who farm for a living, that's commercial farmers would not be shut down or sued out of business because their normal farm operations may be considered a nuisance.

Things like dust, noise, smells that may bother others. But the bill conflates.

Ms. Ashman, your time's up. Thank you very much for your testimony. Thank you. Anyone else wishing to testify on this measure? Angela.

Angela Melody Young, ROAR Cares. Strong support. So instead of saying that it's not right, for example, farm operations does not include concentrated animal feeding operations and business entities with unclear or non transparent ownership or beneficiary structures.

I propose an amendment under number seven to list the businesses which are legitimate in its structuring because the goal is to protect foreign businesses to help them elevate their business operations to navigate away from nuisance lawsuits. So examples of legitimate eligible farm businesses are inclusive are inclusive of limited liability corporations, sole proprietorship.

So in the amendment you legislate pursuant to the rules of Department of Consumer affairs as outlined by the Hawaii Revised Statute, Chapter 428, the Uniform Liability Uniform Limited Liability Company Act. Because this statutory provision for framework provides to the farm businesses how to operate within legitimate business structures.

And it also provides to the General public what the rules are to obey and why bias for this act. So thank you.

Thank you, Angela. Anyone else? Members, any questions? Okay.

Sorry. I have a question.

Senator.

Yeah, I guess Department of Agriculture.

Senator.

How would you approach determining what a customary and traditional subsistence farming activity is?

Yeah, the part of the testimony was that it be in compliance with the Chapter 165 and that it be customary and traditional subsistence farming from nuisance claims.

Protect customary and traditional subsistence farming from nuisance claim if this farming is equivalent to a commercial, agricultural, civicultural or aquacultural facility or pursuit as required by section 165-2 and part of the testimony was that we should do a study to determine what those practices are and how they would be protected by Chapter 165.

So you do the study. The study determines some parameters and then based off of those parameters, I guess your Department would be asked, would be tasked with determining.

We would make the recommendations. Right.

Well, but in order to be afforded the protections in the bill, the Department would have to determine the Department would sit in judgment of Hawaiian farmers and according to the guidelines, would have to make determinations whether they were Hawaiian farmers or not.

It would be more that we would determine the compliance and alignment with Chapter 165. It would be not we would determine, but we would determine how the new customary and practices would be protected by 1 Chapter 165.

I guess that is my concern because these are already protections that are established in the Constitution. Right.

I think what we're doing here is potentially creating this framework where the Department of Ag would be required to sit in judgment of who is Hawaiian farmer or not, when a Hawaiian farmer can already go to any court and assert their constitutional right.

I would have to get a legal opinion on that, Senator, respectfully, because Chapter 165 doesn't really define that. What Chapter 165?

Yeah, the Constitution defines it so to, you know, like to be more specific. So I'm not questioning your willingness or ability to execute the bill. I'm questioning whether that provision of the bill is necessary when the protections for native Hawaiian farmers are already established in the Constitution.

I would seek the legal definition and opinion.

Sure. Thank you. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Okay, so no need to go into decision making on for Aen. I was planning on deferred decision making until Monday. So it is a joint. So for Aen, I'll turn it over to Chair Richards.

Yeah. Thank you, Chair. Been through this Bill and been something that Senator Keokoli brought up as concerns me about trying to articulate something that's already in the Constitution.

On the other side, from the agricultural standpoint, we've heard bona fide agricultural experts testify of what we need to do to take our steps forward and I don't think this is the way to do it though I don't disagree with some of the concerns. This is not the vehicle to get that done.

So it is a recommendation of the chair to defer this indefinitely.

Okay, that's it.

Let's go and journal the hearing.