Tax on gas, auto weight would go up via bill OK’d by senators

Opposition mounted in the Senate on Tuesday to a proposal by Gov. David Ige’s administration to hike the gasoline and motor vehicle weight taxes and increase the cost of registrations. If enacted, Senate Bill 2938, part of the governor’s legislative package, is expected to increase costs for a typical motorist by about $83 a year.

The bill was the last on the list of dozens of bills that the full Senate voted on as part of what’s known as “crossover,” when hundreds of bills move between the Senate and House. It also sparked the day’s most heated debate.

“I see we saved the worst for last,” said Sen. Sam Slom (R, Diamond Head-Kahala-Hawaii Kai), the lone Republican in the Senate, as he rose in opposition to the bill.

The hike would bring in about $75.3 million in added revenue annually to the state Department of Transportation to repair the highway system. But senators criticized the Transportation Department for a history of inefficiency, poor contract management and a troubling track record of allowing hundreds of millions of federal dollars to languish unspent.

“I don’t think it is fair to ask people to take on faith that this three-way tax increase is going to translate into improved roads,” said Sen. Laura Thielen (D, Hawaii Kai-Waimanalo-Kailua).

The measure was passed 16 to 8. Six of the senators voting in favor of the bill did so with reservations. The House version of the bill never made it out of committee hearings.

Other bills that elicited robust debate Tuesday included a House bill that would allow Alexander & Baldwin to retain its rights to millions of gallons of water that it diverts daily from dozens of East Maui streams; a bill that would allow the director of the Department of Public Safety to release low-level offenders from jails that are severely overcrowded; and a number of gun bills.

By the end of the day, the House and Senate passed 445 bills. Several hundred bills also crossed over last week. This is down from several thousand bills that were in play when the session opened in January.

While hundreds of bills die during crossover, lawmakers can resurrect a bill through a tactic known as “gut and replace,” by which the contents of one bill is replaced with another.

Maui water bill debated

Some of the more high-profile proposals lawmakers have kept alive include measures to address homelessness, invasive species, elections by mail, equal pay and funding for teacher travel.

Bills that failed to pass to the other chamber include measures that would require police departments to disclose more information about officers who have been disciplined or fired, a bill that would legalize gambling, and proposals to hike the general excise tax to support education and in-home health care services for seniors and the disabled.

Meanwhile, one of the hottest debates on the House side Tuesday centered on House Bill 2501, which would allow revocable permits for water to be extended annually on a “holdover” status while an application for a water lease is pending approval. The House approved it.

The measure would allow Alexander & Baldwin to continue diverting millions of gallons of water each day from East Maui streams to the state’s last sugar acreage, in central Maui. Supporters say the move would help ensure that A&B can eventually convert its sugar acreage to diversified agriculture instead of homes.

If the water stops flowing to the 37,000 acres there after this year’s final sugar harvest, it’ll be a “desert,” House Speaker Joseph Souki (D, Waihee-Waiehu-Wailuku) told his colleagues Tuesday. The state needs time while the Department of Land and Natural Resources devises a water plan that’s “fair to everybody,” he said. “All we’re asking for is five years to work on this problem.”

But critics say the bill would circumvent a January court ruling that invalidated A&B’s permits to tap that water without conducting environmental assessments or consulting with Native Hawaiians. On Tuesday, lawmakers opposing HB 2501 questioned whether so much water still needed to be diverted there without such water-intensive crops.

“We don’t need the water because sugar’s gone,” and with diversified agriculture “they’re going to need a whole heck of a lot less water,” Rep. Matt LoPresti (D, Ewa Villages-Ocean Pointe-Ewa Beach) said Tuesday. “Hoarding is not good. There’s enough water there for everybody. … The taro farmers need it. The streams need it.”

Cool-classrooms bill advances

The House also sent to the Senate a series of bills to tighten the state’s firearms regulations.

It approved HB 2569, which would compel the Department of Education to hasten efforts to cool the state’s overheated public classrooms, as well as several energy-related bills. One of those bills, HB 2649, aims to tie Hawaiian Electric Co.’s revenues to new “performance metrics” that benefit ratepayers. HECO “appears to lack movement” to change its business model on its own, and the bill aims to change the way the utility makes money, said Rep. Chris Lee (D, Kailua-Lanikai-Waimanalo).

One bill that failed to make it to the Senate chamber, HB 2773, would have allowed incarcerated residents to vote in the state’s elections by absentee ballot.