House Bill 499, sponsored by Rep. David Tarnas, a North Hawaii Democrat, is intended to extend leases past the current 65-year limit by adding 40 more years if the developer agrees to a plan that improves the property
So far more than 40 organizations signed a letter to lawmakers advocating against HB499 citing DLNR’s long and dismal track record in managing public lands.
HB499 would allow 100-year leases of public lands, which would privatize public trust resources. The Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR) and Board of Land and Natural Resources (BLNR) would have the authority to negotiate 40-year lease extensions with industrial, commercial, resort, mixed-use, and government/military lessees of public lands. That’s in addition to the existing 65-year leases.
The bills Introducer(s):
Big Island: David A. Tarnas, Lorraine R. Inouye, Greggor Ilagan, Mark M Nakashima, Chris Todd
Oʻahu: Patrick Pihana Branco, Daniel Holt, Linda Ichiyama, Lisa Marten, Scot Z Matayoshi, Lauren Matsumoto, John M Mizuno, Adrian K. Tam, Ryan I Yamane
Maui: Troy N Hashimoto, Tina Wildberger, Kyle T Yamashita
Kauaʻi: Dee Morikawa, Nadine K Nakamura
Views on HB499:
“I have a difficult time accepting a reality that it’s ceded lands, and that it’s lands that are taken away from our Hawaiian people” – Lorraine R. Inouye
“It’s disappointing definitely, but we are just very grateful for the Senators and the Representatives that voted the right way and made the right decision, not just for Kanaka Maoli, but for the public and for the environment,” Sonoda-Pale added.
“Public concern over this bill is understandable because you have to look at the fact of the bill, and that is, it alienates these public lands out of the public land trust,” “Regardless of the intent, it sends a message to the public, it sends a message to Native Hawaiians that their claims to those lands, their interests and the history surrounding these lands do not matter,” – Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation’s Director of Litigation David Kauila Kopper.
“So long as Native Hawaiian claims to ownership of the ‘ceded’ lands remain outstanding and unresolved, and so long as there remains manifold evidence of the state’s failure to meet its trust obligations to Native Hawaiians,” “prudence demands that the state’s management and administration of the ‘ceded’ lands trust inventory manifest, at all times, its fiduciary duties of due diligence and undivided loyalty to its beneficiaries.” – Native Hawaiian Legal Corp. Executive Director Summer L.H. Sylva
“The fact that they ignored the voices of the public, of the beneficiaries, of the various legal experts … I feel that it was a pre-determined process in terms of, they already knew they wanted to pass this bill,” – Healani Sonoda-Pale of Ka Lahui Hawaii
“I am extremely disappointed by the Governor’s recent decision to not consider HB499 for a veto. This decision by the Governor ensures that this controversial bill, which OHA and many other organizations and individuals repeatedly raised concerns about in opposition during and after the 2021 legislative session, will inevitably now become law. HB499 will represent the most damaging law to Native Hawaiian rights enacted in nearly a decade.
Forty-year lease extensions, directly negotiated between current lessees and the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, threaten to prevent future generations of Native Hawaiians from ensuring the best uses of our public trust lands. Moreover, such extension authority also ignores and perpetuates the historical injustices inflicted upon the Native Hawaiian people, who continue to struggle with the intergenerational traumas that resulted from the theft of their lands and the disruption of their sovereignty, by allowing the current and future state administrations to foreclose any opportunity for Native Hawaiians to assert their claims to their stolen, ancestral lands for four decades at a time.
I now call upon the Governor to issue a moratorium on the extension of any leases under HB499, unless and until the adoption of administrative rules that can ensure transparency and accountability in the negotiation and issuance of lease extensions, and that sufficiently recognize and protect the unresolved claims of Native Hawaiians to the stolen, “ceded” lands that may be encumbered under this measure. I will also work with my fellow trustees and the community to pursue a repeal of HB499 next legislative session.
In the meantime, we will remain steadfast in our commitment to this ʻāina and the Lāhui, and we look forward to continuing to work with our community to help facilitate and further the state’s constitutional duties and moral and legal obligations to Native Hawaiians and the public trust.”
– OHA Chair Carmen “Hulu” Lindsey
OHA TESTIMONY IN OPPOSITION TO HB499 RELATING TO LEASE EXTENSIONS ON PUBLIC LAND
Feb. 2, 2021 – House Committee on Water and Land
Feb. 25, 2021 – Ke Kōmike Hale o ka ʻOihana ʻImi Kālā – House Committee on Finance
March 15, 2021 – Senate Committee on Water and Land
April 7, 2021 – Senate Committee on Ways and Means
April 16, 2021 – Conference Committee
