Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 17, Number 3, 1 March 2000 — OHA at the legislature [ARTICLE]

OHA at the legislature

By PūuIū Durbin KA WAI OLA has confirmed, that, contrary to news stories, OHArelated bills are moving forward in the legislature. Earlier this session, the Honolulu Star Bulletin reported Sen. Colleen Hanabusa, Chair of the Senate's Water Land and Hawaiian Affairs Committee, intended to "hold all bills in her committee dealing with the semiautonomous agency" until the United States Supreme Court had issued a ruling on the structure of OHA's elections at issue in Rice vs. Cayetano. Hanabusa's committee did decide to hold SB 2970, a bill whieh would have transferred all of OHA's assets to the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands in anticipation of a Rice decision adverse to OHA. Hawaiians, including OHA's spokesperson, testifying before Hanabusa's committee were almost unanimously opposed to the bill as premature and unconstitutional. Otherwise, Hanabusa's staff insists she was misquoted. Feb. 18 was the Legislature's intemal deadline for bills to either pass out of the committee in whieh they were introduced or receive no further consideration for this session. By then, Hanabusa's committee had passed to the Ways and Means Committee the follow-

ing OHA-introduced or OHA-related bills: SB 460 appropriates funds for infrastmcture improvements to the Maunalaha Valley subdivision. SB 2108 provides for an inventory of the public land tmst including the submerged lands, natural resources and revenues generated. OHA wants the bill amended to include an audit of past proceeds, reported and unreported; a reduction in the cost to OHA; a recommendation the federal govemment take the lead in conducting and funding the audit; the inclusion of the all Section 5 land transferred to the state under the Admission Act; the identification of eaeh parcel by tax map key number and original source; the identification of all alienated ceded land; and the completion of a status report, not the full inventory, by Dec. 31, 2001. SB 2181 appropriates $16,060,000 in interim ceded lands revenue to OHA pending completion of an inventory of public tmsts assets from whieh OHA's exact share ean be calculated. SB 2323 would pay OHA from nonairport sources of revenue an amount equivalent to its pro rata share of public land proceeds from airports previously withheld by the govemor. SB 2479 amends OHA voting procedures so Hawaiians would vote for

trastee representation by island. The bill, whieh OHA opposes as a violation of the "one-man-one-vote" has been re-referred for a joint hearing by the Judiciary and Water, Land and Hawaiian Affairs Committees. SB 2736 provides infrastmcture improvements in Kikala-Keokea for Hawaiians displaced by lava flows. SB 2971 requires environmental assessments and environmental impact statements include the disclosure of the effects of a proposed action on cultural practices. SB 3181 would have appropriated $2.5 milhon of OHA trust funds to fund a process for Native Hawaiians' to register their position on whether to be subjects of the Kingdom of Hawai'i or a citizen of the United States. OHA opposes the measure because OHA supports a process by whieh Native Hawaiians ean eome to an agreement on a model for sovereignty after having explored various options. The bill passed out without the appropriation. Bills affecting the Hawaiian community: According to Tmstee Colette Machado, OHA has taken a position on at least 130 bills affecting Hawaiians, ranging from protection of cultural vistas, such as Mauna Kea, to the use of Hawaiian street

names. Among those passed out committee were the following: SB 2845 extends the Hawaiian Home Lands Trast Individual Claims Review Panel through Dec. 21, 2002 so that successful claimants ean be compensated for the State of Hawai'i's breaches of the Hawaiian Home Lands trast. OHA is monitoring this bill whieh is opposed by attorneys who have filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of claimants whose chances of recovering damages were cut off last summer when the governor vetoed a similar extension. SB 2712 is one of several bills to eontrol shark finning, a fishing industry practice opposed by Native Hawaiian groups. OHA has proposed requiring sharks be landed before finning and use of 50 percent of the carcass. The bill passed out of the Senate's Committee on Eeonomie Development to Water, Land and Hawaiian Affairs. SB 3049 makes confidential the Department of Land and Natural Resources records on containing information relating to the location and description of historic and burial sites. OHA supports this bill as a deterrent to desecration and looting of specific loeations. The bill is currently awaiting a hearing in the Judiciary Committee. ■