SB 617 Hawaii Senate · 2025 Regular Session

RELATING TO THE ENVIRONMENT.

SB 617 requires that for every draft environmental impact statement (a review of potential environmental effects), a public hearing must be held in the community directly impacted by the proposed project. This affects communities near developments like construction, energy projects, or infrastructure changes. The key provision mandates these hearings before the final environmental review is completed, ensuring local residents can provide input early in the process. The bill aims to increase community involvement in environmental decision-making.

Issues: ✓ Environment

Bill status in committee 1 of 4 stages cleared

Introduction

Jan 2025

Committee Review

Floor Vote

Governor

Introduced Jan 17, 2025 Last action Feb 14, 2025

Maddy AI version diff · 1 comparison

What changed between versions

SB617 → SB617_SD1 · 3 edits

MINOR

The bill was reformatted from a standard legislative document to a system-generated template, but the substantive policy language remains largely unchanged. The main substantive change is in Section 1, where the requirement for public hearings was narrowed from applying to both draft environmental assessments and draft environmental impact statements to only draft environmental impact statements. This limits the scope of communities that would receive mandatory public hearings under this law.

Scope change

The bill's scope was narrowed to apply only to draft environmental impact statements, removing the requirement for public hearings on draft environmental assessments.

REQUIREMENT

Public hearing requirement was changed from applying to both draft environmental assessments and draft environmental impact statements to applying only to draft environmental impact statements.

TECHNICAL

Document was reformatted from a standard legislative text to a system-generated template with metadata headers and timestamps.

Minor wording changes in Section 1, such as changing 'unequally protected' to 'inequitable treatment' and 'any community' to 'the community'.

Floor votes

How they voted

No floor votes recorded yet.

Full legislative history

Actions timeline

Total actions

Key actions

Committee

Feb 14, 2025

Committee

Reported from AEN/GVO (Stand. Com. Rep. No. 634) with recommendation of passage on Second Reading, as amended (SD 1) and referral to JDC/WAM.

upper

Feb 11, 2025

Upper · Passed

The committee(s) on AEN recommend(s) that the measure be PASSED, WITH AMENDMENTS. The votes in AEN were as follows: 3 Aye(s): Senator(s) Gabbard, Rhoads, Awa; Aye(s) with reservations: none ; 0 No(es): none; and 2 Excused: Senator(s) Richards, DeCoite.

upper

Feb 11, 2025

Upper · Passed

The committee(s) on GVO recommend(s) that the measure be PASSED, WITH AMENDMENTS. The votes in GVO were as follows: 5 Aye(s): Senator(s) McKelvey, Gabbard, Moriwaki, San Buenaventura, Fevella; Aye(s) with reservations: none ; 0 No(es): none; and 0 Excused: none.

upper

Feb 6, 2025

Upper · Passed

The committee(s) on AEN/GVO has scheduled a public hearing on 02-11-25 3:10PM; Conference Room 225 & Videoconference.

upper

Jan 23, 2025

Committee

Referred to AEN/GVO, JDC/WAM.

upper

Jan 17, 2025

Introduced

Introduced.

upper

2 primary · 1 co-sponsor