HB2180

SECTION 1. The legislature finds that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world's leading authority on climate science, in its 2023 Assessment Report 6 Summary for Policymakers, stated with high confidence that "sea level rise is unavoidable for centuries to millennia due to continuing deep ocean warming and ice sheet melt, and sea levels will remain elevated for thousands of years", regardless of whether humans slow carbon emissions into the atmosphere. The legislature also finds that the state climate change mitigation and adaptation commission, created by Act 32, Session Laws of Hawaii 2017 (Act 32), stated in its 2022 report to the legislature that Hawaii is projected to likely experience between 3.9 and 5.9 feet of sea level rise by the year 2100.

As reflected in Act 32, the legislature recognizes that not only is climate change real, but it is also the overriding challenge of the twenty-first century and one of the priority issues of the legislature. Climate change poses immediate and long-term threats to the State's economy, sustainability, and security and its residents' way of life. Act 32 established the Hawaii climate change mitigation and adaptation commission and directed the commission to, as a first step, focus on and develop sea level rise vulnerability and adaptation reports.

The legislature finds that the sea level rise vulnerability and adaptation report approved by the Hawaii climate change mitigation and adaptation commission identifies areas that are susceptible to sea level rise impacts based on a 3.2-foot increase in sea level projected to occur by mid-century or earlier. These areas are designated as the sea level rise exposure area projection, which the commission recommends be adopted as a sea level rise exposure area overlay to guide state and county adaptation strategies and standards for development.

The legislature finds that the methodology of sea level rise modeling used for the sea level rise exposure area and the Hawaii Sea Level Rise Viewer, having gone through peer review and publication in the Nature Journal Scientific Reports, are sufficiently validated to be appropriately used in land management decisions as the best available information.

The legislature finds that sea level rise poses a serious and imminent threat to Hawaii's coastal communities and residents and to Hawaii's natural resources, primarily beaches and coastal ecosystems. The legislature recognizes that the State has an affirmative duty to preserve coastal resources, including beaches, as a public trust resource for the people of Hawaii and that healthy coastal ecosystems and beaches are both culturally important and provide natural resilience to sea level rise and associated coastal flooding.

The purpose of this Act is to increase the resilience of Hawaii's coastal resources and communities and to reduce future loss to property owners from sea level rise by prohibiting new development within the sea level rise exposure area.

SECTION 2. Section 205A-26, Hawaii Revised Statutes, is amended to read as follows:

"[[]205A-26[]] Special management area guidelines. In implementing this part, the authority shall adopt the following guidelines for the review of developments proposed in the special management area:

(1) All development in the special management area shall be subject to reasonable terms and conditions set by the authority in order to ensure:

(A) Adequate access, by dedication or other means, to publicly owned or used beaches, recreation areas, and natural reserves is provided to the extent consistent with sound conservation principles;

(B) Adequate and properly located public recreation areas and wildlife preserves are reserved;

(C) Provisions are made for solid and liquid waste treatment, disposition, and management that will minimize adverse effects upon special management area resources; and

(D) Alterations to existing landforms and vegetation, except crops, and construction of structures shall cause minimum adverse effect to water resources, beaches, coastal dunes, and scenic and recreational amenities and minimize impacts from floods, wind damage, storm surge, landslides, erosion, sea level rise, siltation, or failure in the event of earthquake.

(2) No development shall be approved unless the authority has first found:

(A) That the development will not have any significant adverse environmental or ecological effect, except as any adverse effect is minimized to the extent practicable and clearly outweighed by public health, safety, or compelling public interests. Those adverse effects shall include but not be limited to the potential cumulative impact of individual developments, each of which taken by itself might not have a significant adverse effect, and the elimination of planning options;

(B) That the development is consistent with the objectives, policies, and special management area guidelines of this chapter and any guidelines enacted by the legislature; [~~and~~]

(C) That the development is consistent with the county general plan, community plan, and zoning; provided that a finding of consistency shall not preclude concurrent processing where a general plan, community plan, or zoning amendment may also be required[.]; and

[~~(E)~~] (D) That the development will not be located within the sea level rise exposure area as designated by the Hawaii climate change mitigation and adaptation commission or its successor.

(3) The authority shall seek to minimize, where reasonable:

(A) Dredging, filling or otherwise altering any bay, estuary, salt marsh, river mouth, slough or lagoon;

(B) Any development that would reduce the size of any beach or other area usable for public recreation;

(C) Any development that would reduce or impose restrictions upon public access to tidal and submerged lands, beaches, portions of rivers and streams within the special management areas and the mean high tide line where there is no beach;

(D) Any development that would substantially interfere with or detract from the line of sight toward the sea from the state highway nearest the coast; and

(E) Any development that would adversely affect water quality, existing areas of open water free of visible structures, existing and potential fisheries and fishing grounds, wildlife habitats, or potential or existing agricultural uses of land."

SECTION 3. Statutory material to be repealed is bracketed and stricken. New statutory material is underscored.

SECTION 4. This Act shall take effect upon its approval.

INTRODUCED BY:	_____________________________

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES	H.B. NO.	2180
THIRTY-SECOND LEGISLATURE, 2024
STATE OF HAWAII