Hawai’i Has A ‘Blue’ Fee. What Can It Tell Us About The New Green Fee?
Divers prepare to descend after entering the water from a Waikīkī Dive Center boat. (Leilani Combs/ Civil Beat/2025)
By Leilani Combs
As Hawaiʻi prepares to collect a first-of-its-kind green fee to protect the environment — one aimed mostly at short-term visitors — a similar conservation fee on ocean users established last year offers insights.
Since 2024, state land and water officials have been charging an extra $1 to people who parasail, take dolphin tours or join snorkel excursions, Waikīkī cruises and other recreational outings in Hawaiʻi’s waters. The money is intended to help offset their impacts on coral reefs, fish, turtles and other marine life.
That Aloha i ke Kai Ocean Stewardship User Fee has received strong support from some of the ocean tour operators tasked with collecting it from their customers, who see the fee as a way to bolster their own improvement projects already underway. Other operators remain skeptical that it will work as advertised.
The ocean user fee goes into a special fund with the state’s Division of Aquatic Resources. It has a 2031 expiration, offering a chance for review that the money is being well spent.
“We supported it from the very beginning, because they wanted to work with us on stuff we were already doing,” said Denver Coon, owner and operator of Maui-based Trilogy Excursions and president of the Ocean Tourism Coalition.
One of the main selling points for industry operators, Coon said, was the promise of dedicated funds for day use mooring buoys.
The ocean user fee setup is different from the state’s new, broader green fee, which will collect a 0.75% tax on hotel stays and other short-term visits, then send that money into the state’s general fund. From there, it’s up to legislators and the governor to ensure the dollars get spent on environmental and climate change impacts
How It Started
Legislators approved the ocean stewardship user fee in 2021 to create dedicated resources for marine–focused projects. The $1 per ocean activity per person is intended to hold ocean-goers responsible for the resources they were directly affecting.
“It’s a unique model, because the intent of the program is user pays and user benefits,” said David Sakoda from the Department of Land and Natural Resources’ Division of Aquatic Resources, which is overseeing the program.
The ocean fee does not differentiate between tourists or residents of Hawaiʻi. However, the cost falls mostly on visitors, who represent the lion’s share of those tour companies’ customers. That’s similar to the new green fee, which targets hotel stays and short-term visits.
Companies that hold a commercial use permit with the DLNR’s Division of Boating and Outdoor Recreation have to inform their guests about the fee and collect it. They also have to report their guest manifests and turn the fee over to the government via a portal created by the Division of Aquatic Resources. How the dollar itself is collected is up to the company to decide.
If their reports aren’t accurate or they fail to report at all they could lose their permits. However, the state is not yet enforcing those penalties.
“The first-year objective was to get it up and running, make the payment portal functional and start generating that revenue,” Sakoda said.
The money held in the special fund controlled by the aquatic resource division will be used to support mooring buoys for commercial and recreational boats, marine debris cleanup and coral restoration projects throughout the islands.
There are 220 day-use mooring buoys throughout Hawaiʻi state waters. But these were not paid for and are not maintained by the state. Instead, the responsibility has fallen on commercial operators and nonprofits such as the Mālama Kai Foundation, to fund and take care of the moorings.
“The fee is turning a grassroots operation into a sustainable program,” said Victoria Martocci, project manager for Mālama Kai’s Maui Day-Use Mooring Program.
Mooring buoys play a big role in protecting Hawaiʻi’s coral reefs by providing a safe place for boats to attach while out on the water, Martocci said. Stable moorings help decrease the number of boats dropping anchor in the wrong place, potentially damaging thousands of years of coral growth in a single incident.
The user fee special fund will allow DLNR to contract companies with long track records, like Mālama Kai, to boost their efforts.
Despite the fund’s potential, some operators had doubts the program would deliver on its promises. As a fail-safe, they lobbied to build in the 2031 sunset date to guard against potential mismanagement.
It was “the only tool in our toolkit,” according to Coon. The sunset date gave them some leverage to ensure that the government kept its word. If things go well, the operators could return to the Legislature and advocate for extending or removing the sunset date altogether.
Even with that fail-safe in place, operators continued to voice concerns and frustrations at public hearings in 2023. Their testimony included distrust in the aquatic division’s management of the funds, where the funds will be spent and why they need to pay more money on top of their commercial use permits.
“The biggest sticking point other programs have had is the lack of transparency and mismanagement of funds,” Sakoda said, “We recognized that we needed to be accountable with this project.”
How It’s Going
So far, the Aloha i ke Kai website has offered some public transparency. The site provides information about the program and it’s where operators go to pay the fee. As of April, an interactive dashboard of funds collected breaks down revenue by activity and location.
The program in its first year raised $2 million, with 55% to 60% compliance. The goal is to get closer to the high estimate of $5 million per year cited in the program’s plan.
Some of the money collected so far has gone to operational costs, but in its early stages the program has not yet dispersed money to any actual projects. According to the timeline provided on the website, those payouts should begin this year.
The site also offers a breakdown of where the money will go, with the highest percentage — 25% — going to the day-use mooring buoy program.
Nonetheless, confusion remains. Some companies know the the program is now active but they’re unsure whether they are supposed to be participating. And most Hawaiʻi customers and tourists who do these ocean activities don’t even know the $1 fee exists.
One reason for the confusion could be limited public outreach. Sakoda said his division only contacted the operators with commercial use permits. According to the Division of Boating and Ocean Recreation, “All operators of commercial vessels or water sports equipment must obtain a commercial use permit.” This includes surf schools, snorkeling outfits and almost all boat-based activities.
That excludes small scuba outfitters who put their dive customers on other people’s boats, who may be unaware that they don’t have to pay the fee. Additionally, shops simply sending out customers with rental boards without supervision do not.
Another issue is that the Division of Aquatic Resources expects the operators to educate their passengers about the fee and what it is earmarked for. That places an extra burden on companies who already have to do separate, extensive educational and safety talks as a part of their everyday operations.
Further, just as with the new green fee, some residents and businesses are concerned that the ocean stewardship user fee could drive down tourism just as companies are starting to get back on their feet after Covid.
Dylan Moore, a tax economist with the University of Hawaiʻi Economic Research Organization, thinks that is unlikely with a $1 fee.
“I’m highly skeptical that that is a high-enough cost for these activities that anyone would really notice,” he said.
Moore added that the user flat fee design makes a lot of sense to him. A flat fee, he said, would have less impact on operators’ businesses than a percentage. It also sets a clear, fixed charge, he added, for environmental impacts.
Because the new green fee is a percentage, the more expensive a hotel room, the higher the environmental impact tax the tourist pays.
“I think these kinds of green taxes make a lot of sense in basic economics terms,” said Michael Roberts, an environmental economist at UHERO, “The only downside is that the people need to have some confidence that the money will be spent well.”
Sakoda said that they are hoping to have that evidence — the interactive dashboard of funds spent —active this July.
Civil Beat’s coverage of climate change and the environment is supported by The Healy Foundation, the Marisla Fund of the Hawai‘i Community Foundation and the Frost Family Foundation.
