A state House bill that would create a new management entity for Maunakea was approved Wednesday by three committees, but the legislation likely will be dead on arrival in the Senate.
House Bill 2024 would, if passed, establish a Maunakea Stewardship Authority to manage all Maunakea lands above the 6,500-foot level, removing the University of Hawaii as the leaseholder of the summit area.
The bill closely follows recommendations made last year by the Maunakea Working Group, which was formed to seek alternative management models for the mountain.
But Hilo Sen. Lorraine Inouye told the Tribune-Herald on Wednesday that she will not schedule a hearing about the measure should it come before the Senate Committee on Water and Land, which she chairs.
“I am the senior senator of the Big Island, and I do not agree with the bill,” Inouye said.
Inouye said she previously had “grave reservations” about UH’s management of the mountain more than 20 years ago, but added that the situation has improved.
“I firmly believe that the Maunakea Management Board has come a long way,” Inouye said, explaining that the university has improved its transparency and accountability in land management since the beginning of her career. “I’m satisfied with how (UH-Hilo Chancellor Bonnie) Irwin is managing it.”
As required by the bill, the Maunakea Stewardship Authority would be run by a nine-member board, including representatives of state agencies and members of the Native Hawaiian community. But Inouye said this requirement, devised to provide greater representation for Native Hawaiians, is misguided because Hawaiian groups currently have substantial representation in summit land management decisions.
In particular, Inouye cited Kahu Ku Mauna, a volunteer council comprised of several Native Hawaiians that exists specifically to advise UH’s Maunakea management bodies by “offering a Hawaiian perspective to those entrusted with stewardship,” according to its mission statement.
The bill also requires the board to establish a framework to limit astronomical development on the mountain and a plan to return the summit above the 9,200-foot level to its natural state. But Inouye said she “believe(s) in the economic benefits of astronomy on the mauna.”
No Senate committee hearings have been scheduled yet for the bill. But because the Water and Land Committee’s purview includes highly pertinent subjects such as land management and state management areas, Inouye said the bill will very likely be referred to her committee.
And with Inouye refusing discussion of HB 2024, she said she believes the measure has little hope of moving forward after crossing over to the Senate.
But the bill was not particularly popular in the House, either. Although the House committees on Water and Land, Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs and Finance voted Wednesday to recommend HB 2024’s passage, many representatives expressed dissatisfaction with the process and voted to support it only with reservations, and three representatives opposed the bill entirely.
“This bill was supposed to bring both sides together,” said Hawaii Kai Rep. Gene Ward. “It does neither. In fact, if anything, it kicks the can not down the road, but down the mountain.”
Ward said that public testimony about the bill has not come to any meaningful consensus, with both opponents and supporters of Maunakea development supporting and opposing the bill in equal measure. Because of that, Ward said, the bill has failed at its stated goal.
“I think it’s a longstanding fallacy in public policy work to say that, just because all sides don’t like something, we must be doing something right,” said Ewa Beach Rep. Matthew LoPresti. “That’s, frankly, absurd.”
House Water and Land Chair Rep. David Tarnas of Kohala, a co-introducer of the bill, repeatedly called the measure a “work in progress,” and introduced several amendments to it, including a provision that would remove telescopes from the mountain “when ground-based observatories are rendered obsolete due to developments in space-based astronomical technology.”
Other amendments included clarifying language recommended by the Department of the Attorney General, and changes recommended by Native Hawaiian cultural practitioners, including changing all references to the mountain to “Mauna A Wakea,” a traditional name for the mountain. But the structure of the committee hearing meant that members of the public had no chance to comment or review those amendments.
“This is a triple joint … committee. This is one and done,” said Lahaina Rep. Angus McKelvey. “The amendments that are being made today, while greatly appreciated, there will be no chance for members of the public to comment on them at another committee hearing on the House side.”
“It seems to me like the next time we want to have a House working group on something, the expectation should just be that, well, whatever the House working group comes back with, we’ve all just got to take it,” LoPresti said. “The Legislature is not a rubber stamp for working groups.”
Ultimately, Ward, McKelvey and LoPresti were the only representatives to vote against the bill. But Inouye agreed with their criticisms, saying that having multiple, separate committee hearings allows for more members of the community to be heard.
Having passed its House committees, the measure will go to final reading in the House before crossing over to the Senate. If it passes first reading in the Senate, it will be referred to committees, and, if one of those committees is the Senate Water and Land Committee and Inouye remains resolute, it will die before the end of the month.
Email Michael Brestovansky at mbrestovansky@hawaiitribune-herald.com.