Hawai‘i $100 Million Green Fee Gets Public Scoreboard Push

By Erin Collins for Hoodline Honolulu

Xpixupload / Wikipedia via Wikimedia Commons

Hawaii lawmakers are moving to put the state’s new green-fee cash under a brighter spotlight, pushing for a one-stop public “scoreboard” that tracks every dollar. At the Capitol this week, the House advanced a measure that would build a single online dashboard and standardize reporting across agencies that receive the fee. Supporters say the idea is simple: if the state is about to pour tens of millions into climate and conservation projects, residents should not have to play detective to see where the money goes.

House Bill 1949, HD1, would set up a Green Fee Transparency and Accountability Program and a Green Fee Resiliency Impact Dashboard, both housed under the Hawaiʻi Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation Commission. According to the bill text on LegiScan, the dashboard is intended to show annual and cumulative revenues, allocations and appropriations by project and agency, project-level expenditures and obligations, project descriptions, timelines, performance indicators, and environmental or tourism outcomes. The bill also creates uniform reporting standards, gives agencies 30 calendar days to respond to data requests, and seeks an appropriation for building and maintaining the dashboard.

Click here to read the full article published by Hoodline Honolulu on Mar. 9.