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    Aloha SOFA Members and Supporters,

We are passing on this important update on HB2703 from Anthony Aalto, Sierra Club:

But oh no… At the very last minute the Chair of the House Agriculture Committee, Mr. Clifton Tsuji, took it upon himself to hijack months of work and replace our bill with language not seen or discussed before - some of which is not even within his committee’s remit and has no relation to the title of the bill. 

It’s Undemocratic

So now I need you to call and email Rep. Tsuji at:   808-586-8480  Email him at  reptsuji@capitol.hawaii.gov

Tell him to go back to the original Senate version SD2

And call and email Senator Nishihara at:  808-586-6970  Email him at  sennishihara@capitol.hawaii.go

and ask him to either defend his SD2 version or kill the whole darned thing.  Yes, its’ that bad.

What does Tsuji want to do?  

To start with, he wants it explicitly stated in the bill that the food self-sufficiency goal shall be non-binding – of course!  And if the Department of Ag doesn’t like the goal they should be allowed to cut it nearly in half – naturally!

Then, as if these aren’t bad enough, he wants our food and farming bill to be tied to “other goals of equal priority.”

§  Building as many new homes as the Hawaii Housing Finance and Development Corporation deems necessary by 2020. (What’s a housing issue doing in an ag bill?)

§  Meeting our renewable energy portfolio standard in 2020 “partly with biofuels and biomass crops at the volume estimated by the Department of Business, Economic Development, and Tourism.”

§  Requiring that “the community growth boundary of a county's long-term general, development, or community plan shall be respected,” which appears to be an effort to kill the Honolulu City Council’s recent decision to consider designating as Important Agricultural Lands the farmlands of billionaire developer Donald Horton and billionaire developer David Murdock at Ho‘opili and Koa Ridge (which between them grow 40% of the food currently grown in the state).

Yep: he wants to legislate that there shall be ”no state or county prohibition on the growing, raising, possession, or consumption by people of genetically engineered agricultural products within the state if the products are grown or raised in compliance with federal law.” 

That’s because this brave representative of the people probably receives more money from GMO corporations than any other member of the Hawaii state legislature, indeed he may be one of the top recipients of GMO funding in the nation.

Oh and then he inserts language that contradicts and nullifies public trust protections of water resources, by making commercial agricultural diversions a “public trust purpose” – something that big monied interests have tried and failed to promulgate for years.

It seems there is nothing too skanky for this gentleman to insert in a bill that was supposed to be about boosting food farming, creating an agricultural renaissance and stimulating our economy.

And here's one last beauty: “No person may bring an action against the state or any state officer or employee for an act or omission alleged to be contrary to attainment of the food sustainability benchmark.”

He wants to stink-up this bill so badly that we’ll be forced to lobby against our own measure.

The Legislature has received literally thousands of pieces of written testimony and phone calls from supporters of this bill.  Dozens of people have come to the Capitol to testify in person.  Just today a group of farmers published an editorial in the Star-Advertiser calling for passage of this bill.

Yet this one little man has chosen to subvert the democratic will.

We urge you to call and email Clifton Tsuji’s office and tell him what you think of his shenanigans.

Ask him to drop his giveaway to the rich and powerful landowners, developers, and GMO corporations.

Urge him to pass the Senate version of the bill known as SD2

808-586-6970        sennishihara@capitol.hawaii.gov

Let’s flood their phone lines and mailboxes!
Save Oahu Farmlands Alliance