A bill that would dissolve the state Invasive Species Council to create an administrative body with greater authority to manage invasive species passed all but one committee in the state Legislature.
Senate Bill 2399 would restructure the Hawaii Invasive Species Council into the Invasive Species Authority, granting it greater authority and resources to carry out the state’s biosecurity plan.
One of the major changes the bill would cause is to establish the authority under the Department of Agriculture, rather than the Department of Land and Natural Resources, as the species council is currently structured, said Sen. Russell Ruderman, D-Puna, who co-sponsored the bill.
By moving to the Department of Agriculture, the authority would have a defined operating budget, unlike the council, which operates year-to-year on grant money.
“As an authority, it would have more — not to be redundant — authority,” said Springer Kaye, manager of the Big Island Invasive Species Committee.
Kaye said the invasive species council is frequently underfunded because it often receives less grant funding than it requests.
“That can be a problem, not knowing if you’ll be able work on the same species next year,” Kaye said. “You can have a three-year plan and get funding for the first two years and then you find out you don’t have funding in year three, and that’s two years of work wasted.”
An early draft of the bill would have allocated a $10 million annual operating budget for the authority — a significant improvement from the approximately $4 million budget under which the council previously operated. While the most recent draft of the bill amended that budget to an unspecified amount, Ruderman said he thought the $10 million figure was reasonable.
Kaye said the authority would allow for significantly more departmental overlap when developing action plans, and represents a “critical step” for the state’s biosecurity plan, which was established in 2017.
The biosecurity plan, a 10-year comprehensive strategy to improve the state’s control of invasive species, called for extensive cooperation between the Agriculture Department, the DLNR, the Department of Health and the University of Hawaii.
The bill passed all committees in both chambers of the state Legislature, save for the House Committee on Finance.
“All testimony has been in support of the bill,” Ruderman said. “I don’t think this is something anyone really has the motivation to try to kill.”
More than 100 pages of testimony from organizations, state agencies and private citizens were presented during various hearings as the bill progressed, all of which stressed the importance of managing the spread of invasive species in the state.
“Over the last 20 years on the Big Island, we have witnessed an onslaught of negative impacts to residential life, the agriculture industry and our economy due to harmful introduced species,” reads a statement from the Big Island Invasive Species Committee. “Children are stung at school and in their beds by little fire ants. Residents have endured serious disability due to the rat lungworm parasite. Homeowners have suffered millions of dollars in financial losses due to falling albizia. Kona coffee growers struggle to control coffee berry borer, even as a new introduction, the longhorn beetle, has begun to destroy cacao trees in Puna.
“In our island communities, invasive species are not an abstract concept, but a reality that impacts each of us on a daily basis,” the statement concludes.
Email Michael Brestovansky at mbrestovansky@hawaiitribune-herald.com