Hawaiʻi Bills

The fol­low­ing four bills in the 2024 ses­sion of the Hawaiʻi State Leg­is­la­ture are sup­port­ed by Ener­gy Jus­tice Net­work , Hawaiʻi Clean Pow­er Task Force ‚Kokua na Aina , and the Envi­ron­men­tal Cau­cus of the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty of Hawaiʻi

INCINERATOR AIR POLLUTION RIGHT-TO-KNOW(SB 2123 / HB 2796)  — Requires H‑POWER or any new waste incin­er­a­tor to con­tin­u­ous­ly mon­i­tor their air emis­sions of tox­ic chem­i­cals and oth­er pol­lu­tants, and report this infor­ma­tion to a pub­lic web­site, ensur­ing that accu­rate data is avail­able on what they are releas­ing into the air, cov­er­ing nine pol­lu­tants that are cur­rent­ly mon­i­tored just once per year (which can dras­ti­cal­ly under­state actu­al emis­sions), and nine oth­ers that cur­rent­ly go unmonitored.

The Depart­ment of Health Clean Air Branch weighed in with com­ments on an ear­li­er draft of the bill. Read the fact­sheet first, then check out their com­ments and our response.

House Bill 2123: Bill Sta­tus | Bill Text | Writ­ten Tes­ti­mo­ny | Watch Oral Tes­ti­mo­ny in Envi­ron­men­tal Committee
Sen­ate Bill 2101: Bill Sta­tus | Bill Text | Writ­ten Tes­ti­mo­ny | Watch Oral Tes­ti­mo­ny in Committees

ADVANCING TRULY CLEAN ENERGY (SB 2102 / HB 2786)- Removes “bio­mass” (the burn­ing of waste, trees, or oth­er plant mat­ter) from the state’s Renew­able Port­fo­lio Stan­dard so that those dirty ener­gy sources can­not be used by util­i­ties to meet the state man­date for 100% renew­able elec­tric­i­ty by 2045.See our fact­sheet!

Sen­ate Bill 2102: Bill Sta­tus | Bill Text | Tes­ti­fy!
House Bill 2786: Bill Sta­tus | Bill Text | Tes­ti­fy!

SAFE DISPOSAL REQUIREMENTS FOR TOXIC ASH (SB 2571 / HB 2795) — Requires tox­ic ash from the Lahaina fires to be dis­posed of in a licensed haz­ardous waste land­fill on the con­ti­nent unless test­ing demon­strates it not to be haz­ardous, in which case it must be dis­posed of in licensed munic­i­pal waste land­fill such as Cen­tral Maui Land­fill. This bill also pro­hibits “recy­cling” of tox­ic trash incin­er­a­tor ash into roads or con­struc­tion mate­ri­als, and clar­i­fies that this sol­id waste must still be placed in a lined munic­i­pal waste or haz­ardous waste land­fill. See our fact­sheet!

Sen­ate Bill 2571: Bill Sta­tus | Bill Text | Tes­ti­fy!
House Bill 2795: Bill Sta­tus | Bill Text | Tes­ti­fy!

EQUAL APPLICATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT REQUIREMENTS (SB 2367 / SB 2372 / HB 2097 / HB 2798) — Expands the cur­rent require­ments for an envi­ron­men­tal assess­ment from only cov­er­ing new and expand­ing fos­sil fuel pow­er plants to equal­ly apply to cov­er pow­er plants burn­ing oth­er fuels as well as exist­ing pow­er plants that switch fuels. See our fact­sheet!

Sen­ate Bill 2367: Sta­tus | Bill Text | Tes­ti­fy!
Sen­ate Bill 2372: Sta­tus | Bill Text | Tes­ti­fy!
House Bill 2097: Sta­tus | Bill Text | Tes­ti­fy!
House Bill 2798: Sta­tus | Bill Text | Tes­ti­fy!