House bill quickens
approval for new speciesThe legislation would help in farming, research
By Craig Gima
and pest control, advocates say
Star-BulletinA tiny piece of genetic material is helping a University of Hawaii plant scientist to see a bacteria that causes anthurium blight, a disease that threatens Hawaii's $15 million-a-year anthurium industry. The gene makes the bacteria glow and helps the scientist, Anna Alvarez, see how the disease moves through the plant.
But Hawaii's strict plant and animal quarantine laws made it difficult and time-consuming for Alvarez to bring the gene into the state.
The process to approve new microorganisms can take years. So while science marches on elsewhere, Hawaii scientists are sometimes left behind.
"Timeliness is the most important thing," Alvarez said.
"When you have a creative idea, you have to be able to act on it."
That's why Alvarez and other University of Hawaii scientists are supporting a bill that would allow the Department of Agriculture to streamline the approval process for new microorganisms and other plant and animal species.
The bill passed the House Judiciary Committee yesterday and moves to the Finance Committee.
Charles Laughlin, the dean of the College of Tropical Agriculture at the Manoa campus, testified that biotechnology could become a $3.1 billion industry in Hawaii -- but will fail unless the quarantine process is changed.
Laughlin said the bill also would make it easier for farmers to use new biological agents to control pests and disease.
James Nakatani, chairman of the Board of Agriculture, said the current approval process can involve five or more public hearings and is redundant and outdated.
"The rule-making process is a long, deliberate legal process that does not lend itself to changing situations and desires by importers and other members of society," Nakatani told the House Agriculture Committee last week in written testimony.
The process being considered would allow a committee of scientists to review which new microorganisms should be allowed into the state.
The list would go before Board of Agriculture advisory committees and then the full board.
The proposed procedure would cut the number of public hearings to three or less.
Nakatani said the streamlined procedure would reduce the time to approve microorganisms to six months or less.
Laughlin said the bill would not affect safety procedures for University of Hawaii scientists, who would still be regulated by university, state and federal guidelines.
Besides microorganisms, the department is also considering a streamlined process for the commercial use of new plants and animals.
That would help fish farmer Richard Masse, whose Mangrove Tropicals company is raising aquarium fish in saltwater ponds in Kahuku.
Masse told the Agriculture Committee that there are more than 100 species of fish that are potential products for his company, but he cannot bring them in.
Raising new species, he said, "translates to over $750,000 and four new employees in three years if the proposed bill is passed and zero dollars if it does not," he said.
Nakatani said a streamlined procedure to allow fish farmers to bring in new species is still being worked out.
But he believes it would also cut the time needed to approve new species from two or three years down to one year or less.
But Cathy Goeggel, president of Animal Rights Hawaii, warned lawmakers to go slowly.
"In this time of economic difficulty, we sense a desire by some in the state to lessen our environmental protection," Goeggel said in written testimony.
"We feel that this is dangerous and will not benefit the people and the animals who live in Hawaii."
If the bill passes the Legislature, the new procedures still must go through Board of Agriculture public hearings before they can be adopted.
Senate outsiders reveal
By Mike Yuen
economic plan
Star-BulletinDissident Democratic senators and their Republican colleagues have unveiled their own economic revitalization plan, and one of its key elements is a special commission to determine how to reduce state spending by $150 million in each of the next four fiscal years. The recommendations of the proposed 21-member state funds expenditure review commission would become law unless they are rejected by a two-thirds vote in both the House and Senate.
The panel is patterned after the federal base closure commission and is intended to take politics out of budget-cutting deliberations, said Sen. Randy Iwase, who leads an eight-member faction of rebel Democrats who often brainstorm with the Senate's two Republicans.
Fifteen other Democrats -- in what many describe as a loose and fragile coalition -- control the 25-member Hawaii Senate.
At a news conference called by the Senate outsiders yesterday, there was bipartisan criticism of the leadership of Senate President Norman Mizuguchi (D, Aiea) -- who was not mentioned by name -- and of the Senate majority's economic initiatives.
But Iwase insisted that their proposal "is not to show up anybody. This is a plan that, we think, everybody should consider."
Sen. Sam Slom (R, Kalama Valley) agreed but used harsher words to describe the Senate majority's plan.
"Unfortunately, what we've seen are short-term, Band-Aid, emergency approaches that do not give anybody confidence.
"What they've done is cause a great deal of dissension," Slom said.
"We've had public vs. private employees warring against each other. We've had people worrying about where their next paycheck is coming from."
Mizuguchi and House Speaker Joe Souki (D, Wailuku) would each appoint six members to the commission to reduce state spending, while Gov. Ben Cayetano would appoint nine, Iwase said.
The unveiling of their plan means there are now five proposals to turn around Hawaii's stagnant economy floating in the Legislature.
The others are from Cayetano's Economic Revitalization Task Force; the House, whose plan is similar to the task force's; House Republicans, whose initiative has received a chilly reception from Cayetano and House leaders; and the Senate, which is proposing unspecified across-the-board pay cuts for all state workers.
The Senate Ways and Means Committee is still working on its version of the state budget, which will reveal what programs the majority faction believes should be cut.
Other key components of the plan by Senate outsiders include:
Siding with the Senate majority and rejecting an increase in the general excise tax as proposed by the House, the administration and Cayetano's task force.
The value-added tax, common in Europe, is assessed only on that portion of a product that increases the value of the particular product, so that the multiplier effect of the state's excise tax is eliminated.
Sen. Malama Solomon (D, Kohala) said having better spending controls will go a long way in helping to ease the state's budget crisis.
That's a common theme in reports by state Auditor Marion Higa, Solomon said.
"We have been given many examples of poor contract management, where the state's interest is not protected in so many ways: vague contract terms, little insistence on quality performance, paying contractors despite nondelivery, generous compensation rates and many more," Solomon added.
Iwase said cutting taxes will boost consumer confidence, leading to more spending and more money circulating in the state's economy.
"We've got to get out of the thinking that cutting taxes is viewed as a loss for the state of Hawaii," Iwase said.
"It is not a loss. It's a reinvestment by the state in its people and its economy."
Bill is revived to raise
By Craig Gima
judges’ salaries
Star-BulletinA proposal to give Hawaii's judges a pay raise has resurfaced in the House Judiciary Committee, but its future is uncertain in the Finance Committee. Judiciary Committee Chairman Terrance Tom (D, Kaneohe) took a Senate bill from last year and amended it with a proposal to give judges an 8 percent pay hike over the next two years.
Tom's original pay-raise bill died in the Finance Committee when Finance Chairman Calvin Say (D, Palolo) did not schedule a hearing on the measure.
"What Finance does with this bill is a money issue," Tom said yesterday during a hearing on the measure. "What we do here is a policy issue."
A Senate pay-raise bill did not pass the Ways and Means Committee.
Tom said it is good policy to give judges a pay raise because they have not had an increase since 1990.
Tom's proposal did not address the issue of judicial retirement benefits, which is the reason Gov. Ben Cayetano vetoed a raise for judges last year.
Courts Administrative Director Michael Broderick told committee members that since the last hearing on the pay-raise bill, Circuit Court Judge John McConnell announced he was leaving the bench.
He is the 10th justice to leave the bench since 1992.
Judges' salaries range from $81,780 a year for District Court judges to $94,780 for the chief justice of the state Supreme Court.
LEGISLATURE UPDATE
A calendar of hearings to be held at the state Capitol, 415 S. Beretania St., unless noted:
TOMORROW
None scheduled in House or Senate.
MONDAY
