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Senate committee advances coral reef resilience bill after debate over mandates and metrics
Summary
The Senate Water, Land, Culture and the Arts Committee voted to advance SB 3201 with amendments to require planning rather than immediate achievement of numeric reef targets, and to remove fixed percentages for biomass and coral cover after testimony raised feasibility and drafting concerns.
Chair of the Senate Committee on Water, Land, Culture and the Arts on Monday moved SB 3201 — a bill to formalize science-based performance metrics for coral-reef resilience — forward with amendments after extensive testimony from state scientists, conservation groups and retired federal researchers.
Proponents including Angela Melody Young of CARES said the measure would move reef management from general goals to "legally binding science-based performance metrics," and cited targets in the bill text for at least 80% of natural biomass and 25% live coral cover. Randall Kosaki, a recently…
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