Votes at a glance: House committee advances multiple environment, energy and funding measures (March 13, 2025)

At decision-making on March 13 the House Committee on Energy and Environmental Protection (and, where noted, joint panels) took final action and moved a set of bills forward. Below are the measures the committees recorded action on during the hearing and the committee-level outcomes.

Votes at a glance

- SB 984 (water pollution): Passed with amendments. Committee adopted Department of Health suggested amendments, clarified applicability for landowners of at least 10,000 acres and deferred effective date for drafting consistency. Chair recommendation recorded as pass with amendments; chair and vice chair voted aye.

- SB 639 (underground storage tanks): Passed with amendments. Committee adopted Sierra Club suggested and technical amendments; chair’s recommendation to pass with amendments was adopted.

- SB 946 (wastewater management): Passed with amendments. Committee struck two lines relating to renewable energy (clearing language from prior statute), adopted technical amendments and moved the bill forward.

- SB 438 (waste disposal facilities): Passed with amendments. Committee clarified landfill-unit definitions, limited applicability to counties with populations over 500,000, clarified no landfill units inland of the underground injection control line and removed the ash-reuse prohibition pending Department of Health review (see separate article).

- SB 1395 / House Bill 1395 (state funds; referenced as House Bill 13 95 in testimony): Passed with amendments for further work; committee blanked defective dates and moved the bill forward for additional drafting and discussion.

- SB 1396 SD3 (tourism tax / visitor fee for climate resilience): Passed with amendments. Committee substituted the contents of SB 1396 with the contents of HB 504 (House Draft 1), adjusted the purpose clause and advanced the bill; exact TAT rate and allocations remain to be specified in later drafting (see separate article).

- SB 1269 SD1 (geothermal resources; joint committees): Passed with amendments. Joint committees added language barring use of funds for drilling and prohibited use of funds within 15 miles of an existing geothermal plant supplying the grid; committee noted a $6,000,000 request in materials but blanked appropriation amounts for drafting.

- SB 191 SD1 (energy assistance; joint with Human Services & Homelessness): Passed with amendments. Committees authorized creation of a state Home Energy Assistance Program and advanced the bill with technical/drafting changes; appropriation amounts and FTEs were blanked per drafting convention.

- SB 897 SD3 (energy and utility liability / securitization): Passed with amendments. Committee moved to a new approach that retains a form of liability limitation for economic damages (capped at the lesser of $1 billion or aggregate assessed replacement value) while authorizing securitization up to $500 million for infrastructure resilience work (to be collected via an infrastructure resilience charge if authorized). The committee removed provisions relating to the Hawaii Electricity Reliability Administrator and the RPS from this draft and set the defective date for drafting consistency.

Procedural notes

- For several bills the committee adopted technical edits for clarity, consistency and style and reset defective dates to 07/01/3000 as a drafting convention.

- Where the committee removed controversial technical language (for example, the ash reuse prohibition in SB 438) it did so to allow state agencies to complete further review before imposing statutory restrictions.

- Several bills were advanced with material left to subsequent drafting and appropriation processes (notably SB 1396 and SB 1269), leaving key fiscal and implementation details to be finalized in future committee and budget work.

If a bill listed above is of particular interest, see the related article for a fuller summary of testimony, technical concerns and committee instructions to agencies.