Senate committees approve SB 443 after agencies seek Agriculture role and legal changes

Senators on the Senate Committee on Water and Land and the Senate Committee on Energy and Intergovernmental Affairs voted to pass Senate Bill 443 with amendments after testimony from state agencies and stakeholders recommended changes to how the bill would verify farming activity on agricultural district lands that host solar energy facilities. The committees adopted language moving toward making any finding that solar-occupied agricultural land is used for farming an explicit permit condition and assigned the Department of Agriculture a central role in verification.

The bill, as introduced, would have required the Board of Land and Natural Resources (BLNR) to certify that lands inside the agricultural district with solar energy facilities are also used for a farming operation. DLNR staff and several testifiers told the committees that another agency — the Hawaii Department of Agriculture…