The full Senate will consider a bill that would allow media access to island disasters and emergencies after it was amended to say that emergency management officials will have “the sole discretion” to decide how much access to give to journalists.

If approved, the changes to Senate Bill 655 would not take effect until May 22, 2050.

The bill came in response to journalists’ frustration in covering the 2014 and 2015 Hawaii island lava flow that was blocked from viewing by county police and Hawaii National Guard soldiers who set up road blocks.

The original bill ensuring media access had been introduced by five senators, three of whom represent parts of the Big Island.

But it was amended by the Senate Committee on Public Safety, Intergovernmental and Military Affairs to include new language requiring journalists covering disasters to be “under the supervision of designated emergency management personnel.”

With the changes, SB 655 now reads, “Nothing in this section shall prevent a duly authorized credentialed representative of any news service, newspaper, radio station, television station, or online news distribution network, under the supervision of designated emergency management personnel, from entering an area closed pursuant to this section; provided that the State and counties shall not be held liable for any injury or damage to persons or property arising from entering the area. … The decision regarding media access shall be at the sole discretion of the designated emergency management authority for the affected jurisdiction. Media personnel who access the closed area do so at their own risk, and the state or county may seek reimbursement pursuant to chapter 137 for search and rescue expenses incurred on behalf of those media personnel.”

Following Wednesday’s passage of the bill by the Senate’s Judiciary and Labor Committee, committee Chairman Gilbert Keith-Agaran (D, Waihee-Wailuku-Kahului) told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser that the bill “will help clarify and set some standards.”

Emergency managers, Keith-Agaran said, “will make the call. But if they allow it, this bill will set the parameters for how it’s done.”