Hawaii officially became the first American state of Tsun, the so-called “green fees”-which were added to the residences in the hotel room and other short-term visits to help protect the local environment and address the increasing effects of climate change.
Governor Josh Green signed the laws on the law on Tuesday after years of urging the legislative body to no avail to pass it. The effect is scheduled to enter the next year, the fees may collect about $ 100 million annually, and the state officials, part of which will go towards Hawaii’s response to future disasters similar to the Lāhainā 2023 fire.
Green said before signing the bill.
He added: “I hope that the world will watch, because the presence of something between the industry and the environment will be the way to move forward to protect your people, to protect your countries, to protect your economy.”
Specifically, revenues will come from an increase of 0.75 percent on Hawaiian tax visitors on their night hotel and short -term stays. The height raises the state of transit for state, or TAT, to 11 percent. Visitors already pay an additional 3 percent for their residence to the provinces.
Green said this would be translated into visitors who pay about $ 3, on spending $ 400 in a room.
Cori Lum / Honolulu Civil Rhythm
In general, this step aims to make coral reefs in Hawaii, beaches, paths, mountains, and other unique and weak environments more flexible in heavy storms, the most severe islands, and other challenges related to the changing climate.
It also seeks to avoid making the locals pay the full price of this damage. Al -Khadra and other supporters say that the fees for staying at the hotel, the cabins of cruise ships, and short -term rents are justified by the relationship between nearly 10 million visitors traveling to Hawaii every year and climate change in the state of the island.
The fees suggesting a lot of apostasy from some local rental owners in the short term and hotel industry members, who choose to choose to go to another place if the Huawei drawings are very high.
However, on Tuesday, the main members of the local hotel industry attended the signing ceremony of the bill in a strong support. Although they are still concerned about the decrease in visits, they said that the need to restore the eroded Hawaiian beaches and remove gas species has become more urgent to keep these visitors coming.
“We need money to restore these beaches, rebuild them, and take care of the gas plants around our hotels and around the housing,” Head of the Hawaiian Hotel Alliance Jerry Gibson said. “So we moved from the side of the spectrum, as you know, almost to the other.”
After extending conversations with Green, Jeff Wagon, head of the Willaginner Hotels in Outrigger, said that local industry leaders feel that they are sufficiently guaranteed that the tax imposed on its visitors will go to these projects.
Now heavy lifting comes
While state leaders and conservative groups have general ideas about the place of publishing green fees, how to spend money – and any local groups and agencies that will benefit from them – have not been determined.
Green said on Tuesday that the process of reviewing and determining projects should start to decrease before the first drawing groups in January.
The Legislative Council will also have an opinion on where the money goes. This is because, in an extraordinary step, the drawings will be It was directed to the state’s general fund instead of a special fund. Green from the concerns of Tuesday reduced that the arrangement may lead to the spending of some vegetable dollars on other purposes.
“We will actually sit together and reach a list of what must be spent,” he said. He added that the heads of government agencies and the new state of the state will have an opinion, in the place where the dollars go.
The need for a source for climate revenue and conservation has received strong support from many local conservative organizations.
A coalition for these groups, the care of ʻāina now, presented a study earlier this year showing an annual financing gap of no less than $ 560 million in Hawaii. This gap can reach $ 1.69 billion based on the worst scenario, according to the study.
Green said that some annual Green Green Groups can be used to bonds that may cover larger and more expensive projects with hundreds of millions of dollars.
New strategy
After the fees proposal failed to pass last year, Green collected a partial climate team to pressure legislators for approval.
Chris Benjamin, the group’s chair, said that the team, which was called the cat for short cats, had an interview with more than 60 state agencies, provinces, non -profit organizations, companies, and industries to understand the weaknesses of Hawaii for storms and other climate -related events.
“Our goal was to slow climate change – although this is a very important goal,” Benjamin said on Tuesday. “Our goal was to try to admit that Hawaii is weak and an attempt to find ways to make us less vulnerable.”
Previous ideas for collecting green fees included imposing fees for visitors on access fees when they land at the airport or imposing fees they should use the garden they can pay on their mobile phones. However, legislators asked how these proposals work and implement them, and opponents asked whether they were legal.
Other previous proposals included the use of the interest resulting from the state’s day of the state or the collection of one -time fee for visitors to reach long -standing walking distances, visit popular beaches, verify hotels, rent, or participate in other tourism activities.
This year, the legislative body found that the TAT increase will be the simplest way to go – and this approach was able to make Hawaii the first country in the country to agree on green fees. It mimics similar green fees He passed through the national level Written by Palau, New Zealand and other famous destinations.
Civilization coverage of climate change is supported by the Haley Foundation, the Marisla Fund for the Hawaiian Corporation, and the Frost Foundation Foundation.
