Bills would expand fees to access Hawaii state parks, trails

Visitor “green fees” are already in limited use at state parks — most notably at the popular Diamond Head State Monument — but there’s renewed interest in the state Legislature this session to expand the concept to generate revenue to help protect Hawaii’s environment.

The general idea is to charge tourists fees to offset their impacts on state trails, state parks and state beaches.

The fees are intended to help fight coastal erosion, sea-level rise and coral bleaching, and repair damage to reefs, address coral bleaching and replace invasive species with native ones.

The visitor fee concept was emphasized on the 2022 campaign trail with some candidates for various offices suggesting that fees aimed exclusively at visitors also could help limit tourism as arrival numbers continue to climb in a post-COVID-19 era.

Most of the eight House and Senate proposals would charge tourists over the age of 15 to buy an annual “license” to use the state’s natural resources.

In his State of the State speech last week, Gov. Josh Green said he was open to any ideas to offset the effects of tourism on Hawaii’s fragile ecosystem, home to the largest number of endangered species on Earth.

“The revenues generated from visitor impact fees should fortify all of our efforts to protect Hawaii’s people and our way of life,” he told the joint session of the House and Senate. “And we’ll continue to take the impacts of climate change seriously. I support any plan, any plan, that gets us to a place where resources come from the impact of travelers to protect our environment.”

Following record rainfall that triggered catastrophic mudslides on the north shore of Kauai in 2018, Haena State Park was rebuilt with a new approach by the state to limit parking and charge entry fees.

But the concept goes back to the city in the mid-1990s.

Then-Honolulu Council member Mufi Hannemann authored legislation to charge visitors to enter Hanauma Bay for a special maintenance and preservation fund — along with a mandatory educational video so visitors can better appreciate the nature preserve, along with instructions on how they should behave.

Only visitors have to pay to enter Hanauma Bay.

“If you’re a local resident, it’s anathema to even think of charging you to use the beach,” Hannemann, now president and CEO of the Hawaii Lodging &Tourism Association, told the Honolulu Star-Advertiser’s “Spotlight Hawaii” livestream program last week.

Hannemann said he’s told Green that any fees collected at state parks and trails should be dedicated to special funds for maintenance and preservation for those specific locations — and not for the state’s general fund.

“We can support that,” Hannemann said. “We just don’t like when it sneaks into the general fund and gets used for other purposes.”

The bills introduced this session in the House and Senate take different approaches to expanding the practice of “green fees,” “environmental protection fees” or “impact fees.”

Several require the purchase of a one-year license for tourists over age 15 who want to use “a state park, beach, state-owned forest, hiking trail on state-owned land, or other state-owned natural area.”

And several call for the creation of unpaid oversight commissions whose responsibilities include issuing grants to nonprofit groups and other organizations dedicated to protecting Hawaii’s environment or fighting climate change.

>> House Bill 1162 has similar provisions to other bills, including penalties and the creation of an oversight commission. But HB 1162 would lower the age limit fee requirement to 15-year-old visitors, who would have to purchase an annual $50 “environmental license.”

>> HB 1051 and its companion, Senate Bill 1349, also would require tourists as young as 15 to pay $50 for a one-year “license” online or through a mobile app. Visitors who fail to buy a license would face unspecified financial penalties, which would not be enforced for the first five years after either bill becomes law.

The visitor fees would go into a new “Visitor green fee special fund.”

Like other bills, HB 1051 and SB 1349 also would create an unpaid “environmental legacy commission” that could disperse grants — as long as the grants do not add up to more than 50% of annual fee collections.

Both bills propose starting up the commission with $3 million out of the state’s general fund.

>> SB 658 would charge tourists over the age of 15 $50 for a one-year license and calls for the creation of “a visitor green fee special fund, into which shall be deposited fees, penalties, appropriations, and gifts and donations for the program,” along with an environmental legacy commission that also could award grants.

It also calls for unspecified financial penalties for violations, which also would not go into effect for the first five years.

>> SB 304 would charge tourists over age 15 $50 for an annual “environmental license” that could be purchased online, via an app or through retailers and nonprofit groups.

The bill also allows for unspecified financial penalties, which also would not be imposed until five years after the new fees go into effect.

A proposed “Environmental Legacy Commission” also would be able to distribute grants out of the fund.

>> SB 636 also proposes a visitor fee of $50 for a one-year license that the bill says could generate up to $400 million annually “to leave future generations with a healthy and safe environment.”

The fees would be deposited into a “Hawaii environmental legacy special fund.”

SB 636 also calls for the creation of an oversight commission that also would be empowered to issue grants. But a higher minimum of 50% of the revenue must be dispersed.

>> HB 442 also would require the purchase of a license for any visitor over the age of 15 to be deposited into a new “visitor green fee special fund.”

Anyone caught without the proposed license would face unspecified financial penalties.

>> HB 1237 calls for the creation of a visitor fee mobile app in multiple languages including, but not limited to, “Traditional and simplified Chinese; Japanese; Korean; and Tagalog.”