House Standing Committee on Energy & Environmental Protection

Good morning. We're convening this Thursday, Feb.13, 2025 hearing for the Energy Environmental Protection Committee. We're going to immediately recess as we are also half of the Committee is participating in the CPC-JHA hearing next door and we plan to reconvene, I would say in about 20 minutes from now. Recess.

All right. Good morning, or almost afternoon. Thank you all for your patience. We are back. It is 10:15-- It is 11:00am but we're on the 10:15am agenda. Committee on Energy and Environmental Protection, Conference Room 325. We're going to, in the interest of time, just move right forward. First up, we have House Bill 332, relating to recycling.

And first up to testify, we have Department of Health.

Okay, we do-- Can everyone come up to the mic just so that it's audible to everyone watching on stream?

I'm sorry. Good morning, Chair, Vice Chair, Members of the Committee. Lei Notsu for Department of Health. We stand on our written testimony providing comments on the measure.

Thank you. And then we have Hawaii State Energy Office.

Aloha, Chair, Vice Chair, Members. Maria Tome, Hawaii State Energy Office. We will stand on our written testimony with comments.

Thank you. Followed by Climate Commission.

Chair, Vice Chair, Members of the Committee. Leah Laramee of the Climate Change Mitigation Adaptation Commission. We stand on our testimony in support. Mahalo.

Thank you. And then Hawaii Food Industry Association on Zoom. Not present. Retail Merchants of Hawaii on Zoom. Not present. Consumer Technology Association on Zoom. Oh, hello. Go ahead.

Morning, Chair. Ryan Toyomura, on behalf of CTA. We're submitting testimony in opposition to HB 332. But to the extent that this measure is considered, we'd ask the Committee to look carefully at the testimony submitted by PRBA, which has significant experience dealing with recycling matters related to lithium ion batteries and batteries in general.

So with that, any questions you might have, I'm here for that. So thank you.

Thank you. And then we have PRBA on Zoom. Not present. And we have additional written testimony that was submitted that we did review. Is there anyone else here to testify on this measure? If not, Members, questions? All right. Seeing none, we will move on. House Bill 256 relating to environmental protection.

This codifies, kind of upholds the current level of regulation at the EPA that would apply to, I think, clean air. And first up to testify, we have Department of Health.

Good morning. Chair, Vice Chair, and Committee Members, Marianne Rossio from the Department of Health. The Department stands on its written testimony, all offering comments. And we're here if you have any questions. Thank you.

Thank you. And Climate Protectors, Hawaii, Ted Bolan.

Thank you. Chair, Vice Chair, Members of the Committee, Ted Bolan, for the Climate Protectors Hawaii. We support the intent of this bill to protect against, I would call backsliding of standards to protect people from toxic emissions.

We would propose an amendment, however, on page two, line one, we would strike existed on December 31, 2024 and substitute quote as proposed by US EPA in draft rules issued on January 23, 2024.

The reason we propose this amendment is that in the process on the Federal Government level, the rules were watered down and they need to be stronger and the draft rule was superior and we should adopt that instead in this Bill. Thank you for the opportunity to testify. Available for questions.

Thank you. And that is everyone. We have signed up to testify in person or on Zoom. We have additional written testimony we have reviewed. Is there anyone else here to testify? Please come forward.

Apologies, Chair Ryan Toyomora on behalf of Reworld. So we did submit testimony and I think maybe the noting that I was going to be in person wasn't made to the Committee. But we are submitting testimony and strong support of HB 256, noting that Reworld does operate the city owned HBAR facility here in Honolulu.

And we've far below the emission standards set by the FDA. Excuse me, by the EPA. And we support this bill in order to continue our commitment to keeping well below those emissions standards by the Federal Government. So we ask for this Committee to support this measure. Thank you.

Thank you. That is everyone we have, unless there's anyone else. Seeing no one. Members, any questions? Seeing none. We'll move on. House Bill 348 relating to single use plastics. We've seen this bill many years in a row now.

This would prohibit lodging establishments from providing personal care products in small plastic containers that would encourage them to transition to bulk or more sustainable packaging. And first up to testify we have Department of Health.

Good morning. Lei Notsu for the Department of Health. And we stand on our written testimony providing comments on the measure.

Thank you. And then Starn O'Toole Marcus & Fisher on Zoom. Go ahead.

Morning. Sarah Strona. On behalf of Starn O'Toole Marcus & Fisher, we stand on the written testimony that we submitted to the company.

Thank you. And then we have Surfrider Foundation.

Aloha Chair, Vice Chair, members of the committee. My name is Hanna Lilley. I am the Hawaii Regional Manager for Surfrider Foundation. I offer this testimony on behalf of all three chapters and the written testimony already submitted. We strongly support House Bill 348 for the following reasons.

One, this is a proactive measure which aligns with our ocean friendly hotel program and meets one of our mandatory criteria. Two, as of December, the state of Hawaii received over 9.5 million visitors in 2024. That's over six times the state's population. The visitor industry significantly contributes to plastic pollution which often ends up on our beaches and oceans.

With over 150 hotels in Hawaii, this measure would save millions of single use plastic bottles every year. There's a common sense money saving option for lodging establishments. In 2018, Marriott stated that they could save around $2,000 per hotel every year by switching from single use toiletry bottles to bulk containers.

This aligns with feedback received from an ocean friendly hotel in Alaska that noted significant cost savings and found that tracking bulk containers is more efficient than tracking thousands of tiny bottles. Last point. With a number of lodging establishments that may be actively moving towards a more sustainable future, most have yet to adopt refillable toiletry containers.

A regulatory approach sets the standard and provides a much needed jumpstart to a more sustainable model. Washington, New York, California, and Illinois all have the similar regulations to ban or limit hotel toiletries. Thank you for the opportunity to testify.

Thank you. That's everyone we have signed up to testify in person or on Zoom. Is there? We have additional written testimony that we have reviewed. Is there anyone else here to testify on this measure? If not, members, questions?

Nope.

Great. Okay. Moving on. House Bill 810 relating to noise pollution. This establishes a private right of action for any person aggrieved by violation of the FAA and existing federal laws to bring a civil action against owner or operator of a helicopter in violation and collect damages and litigation costs.

And first up to testify we have Department of Transportation with comments on Zoom. Not present. That's everyone. We have just signed up to testify in person. Is there anyone else here to testify on this measure? And we do have additional written testimony. We did review seeing no one Members. There's no one to ask questions of.

So we will move on. House Bill 505 relating to Red Hill. This establishes a VI policy coordinator for coordination of Red Hill VI activities within DLNR. First up to testify, we have Department of Land and Natural Resources. No longer here. I guess in support we have Board of Water Supply.

Good morning Chair and Members. My name is Kathy Mitchell with the Board of Water Supply and we strongly Support House Bill 505 HD1. Thank you.

Thank you. And Hui Malama, Pono, Hawaii in support. Not present. And Kaala Hui, Hawaii on Zoom. Not present. And we do have additional. Oh, wait. We have an individual signed up to testify in person. Kimmere Nahonu Horson, Big Horse. Not present. And we have Patricia Green on Zoom. Not present.

Okay, if there's no one else here, is there anyone else here who would like to testify on this measure? We do have additional written testimony. We did review. Members, any questions? All right, seeing none. The last bill that we're taking testimony for on this agenda is House Bill 975 relating to carbon sequestration incentives.

This codifies and makes permanent the Hawaii Carbon Smart Land Management Assistant Program under dlnr. And first up to testify we have the Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Commission.

Aloha. Leah Laramie with the Climate Change Mitigation Adaptation Commission. We just stand on our testimony in very strong support of this program. The Climate Commission has been the entity that's been helping to operate this program and it's had really a lot of enthusiasm and support from the land managing community.

So that's farmers, ranchers and land managers and foresters. So we would just really appreciate that you folks are hearing this bill and mahalo for your support.

Aloha, thank you. And then the Office of Planning and Sustainable Development.

Aloha Chair, Vice Chair, Member of the Committee. My name is Danielle Bass, State Sustainability Coordinator for OSPD. We support the intent of this bill, offer comments. Of course we support our partners at DLNR and Department of Agriculture in this program. We did publish the Carbon offsetting report in 2019.

So we do caution carbon offsetting programs within the State of Hawaii. Hawaii. And suggest the Committee consider adding potential language specific to disallowing the use, engagement in or Administration of carbon offsetting in for this program. Thank you. And I'm available for questions.

Great, thank you. And that's everyone I had signed up to testify. zero wait, no. We have Wayne Ogasawara, please come forward.

Aloha. I am not Wayne. My name is Emily. Thank you for the opportunity to speak on his behalf. Wayne did come this morning, but he is a farmer and the Mahiii called him back.

And so I just wanted to call attention to his testimony which has also been submitted to you a little bit late and you may not have had time to review it. He is a Carbon Smart land manager within our pilot. The pilot program.

And, and he came to represent the farmers that he also works with and to ask that this HB975 be supported so that farmers like him may be able to have access to the resources for carbon smart sequestration strategies across the island. So mahalo Nui.

Thank you. And that's everyone. We have signed up to testify in person. We do have additional written testimony we did review. Was there anyone else here to testify on this measure if not Members?

Questions, Quick question, I guess for Climate Commission, just like what kind of activities specifically are the funds that were allocated that you originally had used for.

It's a wide range. So we're doing some cover crops, some agroforestry, doing some work to get composting made out of, you know, food waste. We are doing some reforestation projects as well for natural resource protection, invasive species control. Silvopasture.

So what's the process by which I mean, this is kind of like, is it a reimbursement basis? And this goes to the farmer? So what's the process by which you, like, verify the activities?

So we have quarterly reporting where folks submit what activities they've accomplished within that time. And also when they submit their invoices, we also have them identify what we're paying for. And then we're also doing soil core samples.

So we're measuring before the activities begin and then after it happens to kind of see what the progress over time has been. And there's also been great interest for folks that are really interested in this and they want that to continue to happen.

So our plan is to continue that monitoring in the long term, even if the funding is a. Only for the short term.

Okay, so you are going out and doing site visits or someone is to assess it. Okay. And based on the comments from opsd, I assume the concern is that these funds will be used to. I'm not quite sure exactly what the concern is. I guess.

So maybe opsd, if you want to explain that the farmers would take the funds and use them to purchase carbon offsets elsewhere or.

Thank you for the question, Chair. That's not the concern specifically. You know, we just wanted.

We just thought that if this is going to be codified as statute, you know, it would be supportive to provide those guardrails so that future implementers, future land managers don't possibly use this program, which is about, you know, sequestering the carbon in our own land. Right. That's the intention.

We don't really want to support carbon offsetting for, you know, entities outside of the State of Hawaii to purchase any credits or anything like that. So it's just a guardrail.

Double. Double. Paid for the same. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. All right, thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. Any other questions, Members? All right, seeing none. We need quorum before we can do decision making. So we'll recess. We'll come back when we have quorum for decision making.

Thank you.

All right, we are back for decision making on the 10:15am agenda. Committee on Energy and Environmental Protection. Thursday, February 13th, room 325. And first up, we have House Bill 332 related to recycling.

So we're going to turn this into a working group to assess recycling of small and medium format lithium ion batteries and make for them to assess the feasibility of recycling and make recommendations to the Legislature. We'll have DOH chair, the working group.

Other members will include HSEO, a representative from the lithium ion battery manufacturing industry, lithium ion battery recycler collectors, a representative from the waste shipping industry, a representative from an out of state lithium ion battery recycler, a member from an EPR organization, a representative from a fire department and others.

As invited by the chair, we'll make some technical amendments for clarity, consistency and style and defect the date to July 1, 3000. And we will also note in the committee report that an appropriation may be needed for this working group.

We're not adding that at this time because our referral on this bill does not include finance, but we will note that we spoke with DOH. They suggested an amount of $75,000 and that potentially that funding could come out of the deposit beverage container special fund with that. Members, any discussion? Seeing none. Vice Chair.

On House Bill 332, Chair's recommendation is to pass with amendments. Chair and Vice Chair voting I.

[roll call]

Chair, your recommendation has been adopted.

Thank you. And House Bill 256 relating to environmental protection. We will adopt the Department of Health's suggested amendment to clarify compliance with federal law unless those are made more stringent. And we will defect the date to July 1, 3000. Members, any discussion? Seeing none. Vice Chair.

On House Bill 256, Chair's recommendation is to pass with amendments. Chair and Vice Chair voting I. And noting the excused absence of Representative Quinlan and Representative Ward. Are there any reservations or no votes? Seeing none. Chair, your recommendation has been adopted.

Thank you. House Bill 348 relating to single use plastics. We're going to move this forward as is. Members, discussion? Seeing none. Vice Chair.

On House Bill 348 HD1. Chair's recommendation is to pass as is. Chair and Vice Chair voting I. Noting the excused absences of Representative Quinlan and Ward. Are there any reservations or no votes? Seeing none. Chair. Chair, your recommendation has been adopted.

Thank you. And House Bill 810 relating to noise pollution. We'll also move this forward as is. Members, any discussion? Seeing none. Vice Chair.

On House Bill 810, HD1. Chair's recommendation is to pass as is. Chair and Vice Chair voting I. Representative Quinlan and Representative Ward are excused. Are there any reservations or no votes?

Reservations.

Representative. Noting Rep. Kusch's reservations. Chair, your recommendation has been adopted.

Thank you. And then House Bill 505 relating to Red Hill. We're going to move this forward as is. Members, any discussion? Seeing none, Vice Chair,

On House Bill 505 HD1. Chair's recommendation is to pass as is. Chair and Vice Chair voting I. Noting the absences of Representative Quinlan and Representative Ward. Are there any reservations or no votes? Seeing none. Chair, your recommendation is adopted.

Thank you. And then on House Bill 975 relating to carbon sequestration incentives, we will adopt Office of Planning Sustainable Development's suggested amendments noting these are not to be used for carbon offsets. We will blank out the dollar amounts but note those in the committee report and defect the date to July 1, 3000. Members, any discussion? Seeing none, Vice Chair.

On House Bill 975 chair's recommendations is to pass with amendments. Chair and Vice Chair voting I. Noting the excused absence of Representative Ward and Representative Quinlan. Are there any reservations or no votes? Seeing none. Chair, your recommendation has been adopted.

Thank you. And now moving on to the two items on our agenda for decision making only. On House Bill 1476.

We deferred decision making on this because we still had questions for DLNR at the time who wasn't present and got those questions answered and determined we're going to defer this bill at this time, even though really appreciate the intent behind it and the concerns about not having proper oversight of spacecraft landing in state waters.

So appreciate the introducer bringing this measure forward. Moving on to House Bill 974. Sorry, I'm reading through this all too quickly. We have a number of amendments on this and I distributed proposed house draft to the members. So I'm just going to read a general summary of the amendments that we're making to House Bill 974.

So we're going to add a definition of reserve fee and a separate definition of revenue which will include the power purchase charges and reserve fees net of any applicable taxes and fees. We're going to clarify this applies to the duties of Department of Budget and Finance rather than the state generally.

And that budget and finance obligation is limited to revenues associated with the step in agreements. We're going to clarify that step in agreements do not pledge the full faith and credit of the state or any state monies outside of revenues collected as described in this bill.

The trust fund for holding these revenues will be established outside, not inside, the state treasury. So we're making that change. Also clarifies the obligation of the utility to continue to bill, collect, and manage revenues even in the event of a default.

We clarify that power purchase charges will cover any administrative costs incurred by the department related to this act, but not necessarily administrative charges of the utility. We clarify that if there's a successor utility, the funds transfer to them when the step in agreement ends.

We clarify that if the step in agreement terminates, all money remaining in the reserve fund from the reserve fees will be returned in full, including interest, to customers through a rate credit. We're going to make amendments to the purpose clause to reflect these changes and numerous technical amendments for clarity, consistency, and style.

We will defect the date to July 1, 3000. And then, in addition, I want to make a note in the committee report that the consumer advocate indicated that counter to their original testimony on this measure, a reserve fee may not be constitutionally required as they had previously thought.

We're going to leave that in the bill for now because it's unclear whether this bill would serve its intended purpose of addressing the concerns about being able to obtain financing if we pass it out without the reserve fee requirement and the reserve fund requirement.

But we need continued discussion around whether we can accomplish what needs to be accomplished without a customer surcharge. If we can, obviously that would be preferable. So with that, members, any discussion? All right. Seeing none. Vice Chair.

On House Bill 974, Chair's recommendation is to pass with amendments. Chair and Vice Chair voting I. Noting the excused absence of Representative Quinlan and Representative Ward. Are there any reservations or no votes? Seeing none. Chair, your recommendation has been adopted.

All right, thank you. And we are adjourned.