Governor signs A bill that provides criminal penalties for abandoning hazardous waste or used oil has been signed into law by Gov. Ben Cayetano. The bill also increases penalties for some environmental crimes from misdemeanor to Class C felony.
environmental crime,
time-share bills
>> Several environmental
bills dead or dyingStar-Bulletin staff
The governor also has signed three bills relating to time-share plans. One excludes employees and contractors from registration requirements for time-share acquisition agents and developers. Another gives the state Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs the flexibility to determine what disclosures must be made in time-share promotional material. He also repealed a requirement that time-share plan sale and acquisition agents must register with the department as long as the agents are already registered real estate agents or brokers.
Also approved by the governor were bills that:
>> require a collection agency to disclose to a debtor that it is attempting to collect a claim, and to identify its communications as being from a debt collector. It exempts disclosure requirements in a formal pleading in a legal action.
>> shift the burden of proof in nuisance complaints against a farming operation from the farmer to the complainant.
>> require financial institutions to file statements of assets and liabilities with the state DCCA rather than publishing the statement in a newspaper.
>> broaden the definition of "substantial bodily injury" in the Hawaii Penal Code to include all burns of at least second-degree severity.
>> simplify the Department of Human Services reimbursement to noninstitutional providers of medical care.
>> allow an unaccredited educational institution to use an abbreviated notice of its status in promotional material.
>> clarify provisions in Hawaii Revised Statutes to facilitate land court recording procedures.
The text of all bills can be found on the Legislature's Web site, www.capitol.hawaii.gov, or may be purchased from the Lieutenant Governor's Office at 586-0255.
EARMARKING A PORTION of the state's income from tourism for the upkeep of state parks sounded good enough to Gov. Ben Cayetano that he promoted it in his State of the State address this year. Several environmentally
friendly bills lie dead or
dying after sessionThe bottle bill was postponed;
others failed or were diluted
to ineffectivenessBy Diana Leone
Star-Bulletin
Neither did several other of a handful of environmentally minded bills floated this session.
In its last incarnation before being deferred until 2002, Senate Bill 1029 would have allotted $4 million a year for two years from the Tourism Special Fund to state parks maintenance.
Rep. Brian Schatz praised the measure as a great way to have tourists help pay for the maintenance of "our ailing state parks."
In other "green" legislation news:
>> The bottle bill (HB 1256) remains on hold until next session while a beverage industry coalition tries to think of a recycling method they like better than the one the measure proposed.
The bill would have added 7 cents to the cost of each bottle of beer or soft drink, with 5 cents returned to the consumer when they turned in the bottle.
The other 2 cents would have paid the cost of processing the empties.
Suzanne Jones, the city of Honolulu's recycling coordinator, estimated that the bill would have cost her family $23 a year if they returned the empties on the four cases a month of sodas they drink.
Henry Curtis, president of Life of the Land conservation group, called the postponement of the bill "one of the real disappointments of the session."
>> Sponsor Rep. Hermina Morita (D, Haiku-Kapaa) intended the renewable-energy bill (HB 173) to promote more use of solar, wind, geothermal and other alternate energy sources, which currently make up about 7.5 percent of the state's energy.
But amendments weakened the bill so that it would have mandated a goal of 7 percent renewable energy, effectively shooting for lower than the status quo.
>> Also gone: an extension of the widely used solar tax credit (HB 1282), which has made the purchase of solar water heaters cost-effective for homeowners. Since the current credit expires in 2003, lawmakers could revisit the issue.
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