Hawaiʻi makes history as the first condition to be charged to tourists to save the environment

Hawaiʻi has officially become the first American state to adopt a so -called “green expense” – an added accusation to stays in a hotel room and other short -term visits to help protect the local environment and meet the growing impacts of climate change.

Governor Josh Green signed the costs on Tuesday after years of non-subsidians urging the legislator to adopt it. To take effect next year, the costs could raise around $ 100 million a year, state officials say, part of which will go to Hawaii’s response to future disasters similar to the Forest Fire of Lāhainā 2023.

“Hawaiʻi does what other states and other nations will have to do … There will be no way to deal with these crises without a avant-garde mechanism,” Green said a few moments before signing the bill.

“I hope that the world is watching,” he added, “because having something that is a balance between industry and the environment will be the means to move forward to protect your people, protect your states, to protect your economy.”

More specifically, revenues will come from an increase of 0.75% on the tax that Hawaiʻi visitors pay on their night hotel and their short -term stays. The increase increases the tax on transient state accommodation, or Tat, at 11%. Visitors are already paying an additional 3% of 3% on their stays in the counties.

This will result in visitors paying approximately $ 3, said Green, on a stay of $ 400.

Overall, the movement aims to make reefs, beaches, trails, mountains and other unique but vulnerable environments of Hawaii more resilient to heavier storms, more serious droughts and other challenges linked to the changing climate.

He also seeks to prevent residents from paying the entire price of this damage. Green and other supporters say that the costs of the hotel stays, the cabins of cruise ships and short -term rentals are justified due to the link between the nearly 10 million visitors who go to Hawaii each year and the climate change of the island state and environmental problems.

The proposal for fees previously obtained a lot of decline from certain local short -term rental owners and members of the hotel industry, who worry visitors would choose to go elsewhere if the costs on their stays in Hawaiʻi go up too high.

Tuesday, however, key members of the local hotel industry attended the bill of the bill in a strong demonstration of support. Although they are still worried about a decrease in visits, they said that the need to restore the eroding beaches of Hawaii and to remove the invasive species has become more urgent to bring these visitors.

“We need money to restore these beaches, to rebuild them, to take care of the invasive plants that are in our hotels and around the residences,” said the Hotel Hotel president, the president of the Jerry Gibson hotel. “So we went from one end of the spectrum to the other, you know, almost to the other.”

After prolonged interviews with Green, the president of hotels and stations of stations, Jeff Wagoner, said that local industry chiefs felt sufficiently insured for the tax billed to their visitors to go to these projects.

Now comes the bulk of the work

While heads of state and conservation groups have general ideas on where to deploy green costs, exactly how money will be spent – and which local groups and agencies it will benefit – has not been set.

Green said on Tuesday that a process of revising and selecting projects should start falling before the first costs collections in January.

The legislator will also have his say to say where the money goes. Indeed, in an unusual decision, the costs will be sent to the General State Fund instead of a special fund. Green has minimized concerns on Tuesday that the arrangement could lead to green costs to spend on other purposes.

“We will really sit together and find a list of what to spend,” he said. Heads of State Agency and New Marshall of the State will have a say, he added, where the dollars go.

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The need for a dedicated source of climate and conservation income has received strong support from numerous local conservation organizations.

A coalition of these groups, Care for ʻāina Now, presented a study earlier this year showing an annual conservation financing gap of at least $ 560 million for Hawaiʻi. This gap could reach $ 1.69 billion depending on the worst case, according to the study.

Some of the annual collections of green fees, said Green, can also be used to float bonds that could cover larger and more expensive projects in hundreds of millions of dollars.

A new strategy

After the costs proposal did not succeed last year, Green gathered an advisory team on the climate in part to put pressure on the legislators to approve it.

This team, called Le Chat to be short, interviewed more than 60 people from state and county agencies, non -profit organizations, companies and industries to better understand Hawaii vulnerabilities to storms and other climate -related events, said Chris Benjamin, group president.

“Our goal was not to slow down climate change – even if it is a very important goal,” said Benjamin on Tuesday. “Our goal was to try to recognize that Hawaiʻi is vulnerable and trying to find ways to make us less vulnerable.”

The previous ideas for collecting green expenses included invoicing visitors to arrival costs when they land at the airport or bought park costs which they could pay via their mobile phones. However, legislators wondered how these proposals would work and would be applied, and the opponents wondered if they were even legal.

Other previous proposals included the use of interests generated from the state rain fund or the pierce than punctual costs for visitors to access picturesque hikes, visit popular beaches, check in hotels, praise cars or participate in other activities related to tourism.

This year, the Legislative Assembly noted that the increase in the state would be the simplest way to follow – and this approach managed to make Hawaii the first state of the country to approve green costs. He emulates similar green costs transmitted to the national level by Palau, New Zealand and other visiting-popular destinations.

The coverage of climate change by Civil Beat is supported by the Healy Foundation, the Marisla Fund of the Hawai’i Community Foundation and the Frost Family Foundation.