Holt on the record

Would repeal the prohibition on building or expanding landfills inland of the underground injection control line in counties over 500,000 people. Aloha Chair Lowen, Vice Chair Perruso, and Members of the Committee on Energy and Environmental Protection, My name is Cristina Holt and I am a resident of Hilo, Hawaiʻi, House District 2 and Senate District 1. I am in STRONG OPPOSITION to HB1673 HD1. This bill seeks to repeal a protection that is barely a year old. Act 255, signed into law in 2025, established a clear, bright-line prohibition on the construction, modification, or expansion of landfill units inland of the underground injection control (UIC) line in counties with a population greater than 500,000. That law exists for one reason: to protect Oʻahu's freshwater aquifers from landfill contamination. Now, less than a year later, this bill wants to tear that protection out and replace it with discretionary authority given to the manager and chief engineer of the Honolulu Board of Water Supply, using a "no-pass zone" layer on a zoning app as a guideline. Let me be clear about what is happening here. We are being asked to replace a hard legal prohibition with a suggestion. A law with an app. This is the wrong direction for the following reasons: We just fought this fight. Act 255 was the product of extensive public testimony, scientific review, and legislative deliberation. The people of Oʻahu made their position clear: do not allow landfill expansion over our drinking water. The legislature listened. The Governor signed it. Repealing that protection barely a year later undermines the public's trust in the legislative process itself. Hard prohibitions exist for a reason. The UIC line is a scientifically established boundary. It is not arbitrary. It represents the line beyond which contamination has a direct pathway to underground sources of drinking water. Replacing a prohibition tied to that line with discretionary approval authority based on a "no-pass zone" on a zoning application is a dramatic weakening of protection, no matter how it is framed. Discretionary authority is not a substitute for a legal prohibition. This bill's own language makes the case against itself. It states that without the prohibition in section 342H-52(c), the manager and chief engineer "would then be able to withhold approval" of a landfill unit within the no-pass zone. The key word is "able." Not required. Not mandated. Able. That means they would also be able to approve it. That is the entire point of this repeal, and it is exactly why it is dangerous. We already know what happens when we get this wrong. Oʻahu is still dealing with the consequences of the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility, where inadequate protections led to catastrophic contamination of drinking water for thousands of military families and surrounding communities. The idea that we would weaken aquifer protections in the same legislative session where we are appropriating funds to study Red Hill remediation (HB1926 HD1, on this very same agenda) is staggering. We should be learning from Red Hill, not repeating the same logic that led to it. The framing of this bill is misleading. This bill is presented as a technical improvement, swapping one protective framework for another. But the reality is simple: Act 255 says you cannot build a landfill over the aquifer. This bill says maybe you can, if someone decides it's okay. Those are not equivalent protections. Oʻahu's freshwater is not a resource we can afford to gamble with. The island's aquifers supply drinking water to nearly a million people. Landfill contamination of groundwater is not a theoretical risk. It is a well-documented reality across the country. Once an aquifer is contaminated, remediation is extraordinarily expensive, technically difficult, and in some cases effectively impossible. The precautionary principle demands that we maintain the strongest protections available, not weaken them at the first opportunity. I also want to note the effective date of this bill: July 1, 3000. While I understand this is a placeholder, it signals that even the drafters recognize this measure is not ready. I would argue it should never be ready, because the underlying policy is wrong. The people of Hawaiʻi fought hard for Act 255. It was the right policy when it passed, and it is the right policy now. I urge this Committee to hold this bill and send a clear message: we do not roll back protections on our drinking water. Not after one year. Not ever. Mahalo for the opportunity to testify. Cristina Holt Hilo, Hawaiʻi

Would require the Land Use Commission to reclassify agricultural and rural lands designated for urban growth under county plans, bypassing state-level oversight. Agricultural land reclassified is agricultural land gone forever. Chair Tarnas, Vice Chair Poepoe, and Members of the Committee, I am submitting testimony in opposition to HB 1823 HD1. This bill is asking us to trust that state and county governments will voluntarily protect our coastlines without being required to. That trust has not been earned. We are in the same session where the Governor is trying to redefine public use to make it easier to hand our beaches to private resorts through SB 3148. And now we have a bill that would strip environmental review requirements from infrastructure projects in our most sensitive coastal areas as long as someone can point to a community plan and say it fits. Community plans are broad documents. They are not environmental assessments. They do not tell you what will happen to a reef, a wetland, or a shoreline when construction begins. That is exactly what the special management area permit process is for. This bill guts that process for an entire category of projects and calls it streamlining. Our coastlines are irreplaceable. Once they are damaged they do not come back. The permit process is not the problem. The unwillingness to be held accountable is the problem. I urge the committee to hold this bill and stop treating environmental review as an obstacle to overcome. Mahalo for your time and consideration.

Would lower the voting threshold needed to approve boundary amendments at the Land Use Commission. Makes it easier to convert land, harder to protect it. Chair Tarnas, Vice Chair Poepoe, and Members of the Committee, I am submitting testimony in opposition to HB 1844 HD1. This bill would turn the Land Use Commission into a filing cabinet. A county decides it wants to develop land, sends a request, and the commission is required to say yes. No independent review. No ability to push back. Just update the maps and send a notification. The commission might as well not exist. We are supposed to believe this is about affordable housing. It is not. Reclassifying land as urban has never once guaranteed that affordable housing gets built on it. Not here, not anywhere. What it guarantees is that developers gain access to land they could not touch before. The luxury units and the resorts come first. They always do. Working families are the sales pitch, not the outcome. This is the same session where the Governor is trying to redefine public use to hand our beaches to private interests through SB 3148, and where HB 1823 would gut coastal zone permits for government projects. Every single one of these bills is chipping away at the same thing: the public's ability to have any say over what happens to our land. Hawaiʻi's land does not grow back. When it is gone it is gone. The Land Use Commission exists because we learned the hard way what happens when there is no check on development pressure. This bill forgets that lesson entirely. Do not pass this. Hold it. Mahalo for your time and consideration.

Companion to HB1844. Changes quorum and voting rules at the Land Use Commission, including for Important Agricultural Lands. Weakens the protections that keep our farmland in farms. Chair Tarnas, Vice Chair Poepoe, and Members of the Committee, I am submitting testimony in opposition to HB 1845 HD1. Right now it takes six out of nine Land Use Commission members to approve a boundary amendment. This bill would change that to a simple majority of whoever happens to show up that day. If five members are present, three votes could reclassify land. Three people could permanently change the land use boundaries of this state. This is being sold as a fix for permit delays. It is not. The reason boundary amendments require a supermajority is because they are irreversible. Once agricultural or conservation land is reclassified as urban it does not go back. That is not a bureaucratic inconvenience. That is the point. Decisions with permanent consequences should require broad agreement, not a thin majority of a potentially half-empty room. And let us be honest about what is happening in this session. We have HB 1844 eliminating independent review of county reclassification requests. We have HB 1823 gutting coastal zone permits. We have SB 3148 redefining public use to benefit private developers. And now this bill makes it easier to push boundary amendments through with fewer votes. These bills are not unrelated. They are a coordinated demolition of the protections that stand between our land and the people who want to profit from it. Do not lower this threshold. Hold this bill. Mahalo for your time and consideration.

Would grant the Hawaiʻi Community Development Authority expanded powers over the Waiākea Peninsula and Banyan Drive area in Hilo, enabling large-scale private redevelopment of illegally stolen crown lands without meaningful community or lineal descendant input. Aloha Representatives Hashem and Keohokapu-Lee Loy, Representatives Kusch and Shimizu, Senators Lee and Inouye, and Senator Kanuha, My name is Tina Holt. I live in Hilo, House District 2, and I am writing to ask you to stop SB2001 here. Before I get into the bill, I want to say something about this place. Because I think the conversation keeps skipping over it. Makaoku was not always what it is today. Hawaiian historical records describe this peninsula as a food container. Rich fishponds. Kalo cultivation. The aku fishing ground of Maka-o-Ku right off Moku Ola. One of the most valued lands in all of Hilo. Queen Liliuokalani herself gifted the fishpond Waihonu to the people of Hilo. That fishpond sits at the heart of what we now call Liliuokalani Gardens, and there is already an active community effort to restore it. The work is already beginning. Then came the 1960 tsunami, and the decision that followed it. The state banned residential rebuilding. Families were relocated, some to Keaukaha, also a tsunami zone. They lost not just their homes and businesses. They lost the right to return. The state decided what this land would become. And what it chose was tourism. Local families did what they could. The Kimi family built Uncle Billy's Hotel on state leased land and ran it as a beloved local institution for about 50 years. Then a Honolulu developer bought it, ran it for one year, closed it after health and safety violations, and walked away. Eight million dollars in demolition costs later, taxpayers are still paying that bill. The Country Club Condominiums are following the same script. The demolition bill is coming, and it will not be the developer who pays it. This is not bad luck. This is a pattern. And now the proposed solution is to hand this land to the Hawaii Community Development Authority, an Oahu-based body, and call that progress. I have followed this bill carefully across every version. In the original, there was no lineal descendant seat at all. In SD1, one appeared as a voting position. In SD1 HD1, it disappeared from the voting board entirely and was placed on a community advisory council hand-selected by HCDA in Honolulu, with no voting power. In the final version, it came back as a voting seat nominated by OHA. I want to acknowledge that arc, because I think the people in this community who showed up and advocated through that process deserve to have it named plainly. And then I want to name what that seat actually is in the final structure. One voice. Out of twelve voting members, the majority of whom are state agency directors appointed from Honolulu. That is not community governance. That is community optics. The people who have the deepest relationship with this aina, whose ties to Makaoku go back further than any lease, any agency, or any development plan ever will, deserve to be in charge of what happens here. Not consulted. Not represented by a single seat on a board dominated by state directors. In charge. There is a different future available for this place. Restored fishponds. A clean Hilo Bay. Local food. Spaces built for the people of Hilo, not for outside investors who have already shown us exactly what they do when the returns stop coming. That future does not require urgency. It requires intention. And it requires starting with Kanaka Maoli and working outward, not the other way around. This bill is not that. Please do not advance it. Mahalo for your service and your consideration. Tina Holt Hilo, Hawaii Island

Would grant the Hawaiʻi Community Development Authority expanded powers over the Waiākea Peninsula and Banyan Drive area in Hilo, enabling large-scale private redevelopment of illegally stolen crown lands without meaningful community or lineal descendant input. Aloha Chair Lee, Chair Dela Cruz, and Members of the Committees: My name is Tina Holt. I am a resident of Hilo, Hawaiʻi Island, and I submit this testimony in strong opposition to SB2001. SB2001 proposes to establish a new community development district over stolen crown lands on the Waiākea Peninsula, lands to which Native Hawaiians have never relinquished their claims, and place governance of those lands in a structure controlled by the governor and legislative leadership, with community voices deliberately weakened. We have seen this model before. For decades, these same lands have been handed to private developers through ground leases. The developers come in, extract what profit they can, and when things fall apart, the public pays the bill. Uncle Billy's Hilo Bay Hotel cost Hawaiʻi taxpayers fourteen million dollars to demolish, a figure confirmed in DLNR Chairwoman Dawn Chang's own testimony. The state is now on the hook again for the Country Club Condominiums next door. Same story, different address. SB2001 does not fix this model. It institutionalizes it. What this bill proposes is a structure where public land carries public risk but generates private profit. That is not economic development. That is socialism for developers, paid for by the people of Hawaiʻi. I am particularly troubled by the removal of the lineal descendant as a voting member of the governing body. The Lineal Descendants are the original stewards of this ʻāina. They carry genealogical ties, cultural kuleana, and ʻike that cannot be replicated by consultants or replaced by an advisory committee. Demoting them from voting members to an advisory role, as HCDA recommended in HB2616, is not a technicality. It is a deliberate choice to sideline the people most connected to this land from the decisions that will shape its future for generations. I agree with the testimony of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, which calls for OHA to serve as a member of the HCDA with jurisdiction over this district, for the lineal descendant of Makaokū to be restored as a voting member, and for OHA to have a meaningful role in nominating the cultural specialist and lineal descendant members. These are not unreasonable requests. They are the minimum standard for any process that claims to honor this place and its people. I am also deeply concerned about the proposal for 99-year leases on ceded lands. As OHA notes in their testimony, multi-generational leases on stolen crown land lock out future generations from making decisions about their own ancestral territory. The blank appropriation lines in this bill compound that concern. This committee is being asked to authorize a governance structure and a special fund without knowing how much public money will flow through it or to whom. The people of Hilo deserve a genuine community-driven process for the future of Banyan Drive, one that centers Lineal Descendants, honors the cultural and historical significance of this ʻāina, and does not repeat the pattern of handing public land to private interests while leaving the community to bear the costs. SB2001 as written does not do that. I respectfully urge this committee to oppose this measure. Mahalo for the opportunity to testify. Tina Holt Hilo, Hawaiʻi

Would allow counties to reclassify land use boundaries for parcels up to 25 acres without Land Use Commission review, framed as a housing solution but lacking any affordability guarantees. Housing language protecting developer interests, not local families. Aloha Chair Lee, Vice Chair Inouye, Chair Wakai, Vice Chair Chang, and Members of the Committees on Water, Land, Culture and the Arts and Energy and Intergovernmental Affairs, My name is Cristina Holt and I am a resident of Hilo, Hawaiʻi, House District 2 and Senate District 1. I am in OPPOSITION to SB2007. I want to start by acknowledging something that this bill's supporters will undoubtedly raise: Hawaiʻi has a severe housing crisis. That is real. People are struggling. Families are leaving. The cost of housing is breaking communities apart. I do not dispute any of that. But this bill is not the answer. And framing it as a housing solution obscures what it actually does, which is bypass one of the most important land use oversight mechanisms we have. Currently, district boundary amendments involving land areas greater than 15 acres must go through the Land Use Commission (LUC), a state-level body that provides an important check on land use decisions with statewide implications. SB2007 would allow counties to unilaterally amend district boundaries for parcels up to 25 acres for residential housing, agricultural workforce housing, long-term rental, or workforce fee simple ownership, without LUC review. That is a significant expansion of county authority over agricultural land reclassification, and it deserves far more scrutiny than a single hearing can provide. The Land Use Commission exists for a reason. Hawaiʻi's land use system is unique in the nation. The LUC was established because land use decisions on an island have consequences that extend far beyond the parcel in question. Converting agricultural land to residential use affects food security, watershed health, viewplanes, cultural sites, and the character of entire communities. The LUC process, while imperfect, ensures that these broader impacts are considered before irreversible changes are made. This bill would remove that layer of review for a significant category of projects and hand that authority entirely to counties, whose decision-making bodies are, by nature, more susceptible to local development pressure. The agricultural land protections in this bill are weaker than they appear. The bill limits county authority to lands with soils classified as overall productivity rating C, D, E, or U, and excludes important agricultural lands. On its face, that sounds protective. But in practice, many lands classified as lower productivity are still actively farmed, used for ranching, or provide critical ecosystem services like water retention and erosion control. Soil classification alone is not a sufficient measure of a parcel's agricultural, ecological, or cultural value. Furthermore, the exclusion of important agricultural lands (IAL) is only meaningful to the extent that IAL designation is complete. Hawaiʻi's IAL mapping process remains unfinished. Lands that should be designated as IAL but have not yet been may be vulnerable to reclassification under this bill. The 25-acre threshold is not small. Twenty-five acres is a substantial piece of land, especially in Hawaiʻi. For context, that is roughly the size of 19 football fields. Allowing counties to reclassify parcels of that size without state-level review is a meaningful reduction in oversight, not a minor procedural adjustment. "Housing" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in this bill. The bill's stated purposes include residential housing, agricultural workforce housing, long-term rental, and workforce fee simple ownership. These are broad categories. There is nothing in this bill that guarantees the housing built on reclassified land will be affordable, will serve local residents, or will remain workforce housing in perpetuity. Without enforceable affordability requirements, deed restrictions, or anti-speculation provisions, there is no guarantee that this bill produces the kind of housing Hawaiʻi actually needs rather than the kind that developers find most profitable. We have seen this pattern before. Agricultural land gets reclassified for "housing." What gets built is market-rate or luxury product. Local families still cannot afford it. And the farmland is gone forever. The housing crisis demands real solutions, not shortcuts. If we are serious about housing, we should be investing in infrastructure for lands already zoned and entitled for residential use but sitting undeveloped. We should be strengthening affordable housing requirements. We should be addressing the financialization of housing, the proliferation of short-term vacation rentals on residential land, and the systemic barriers that prevent local families from homeownership. Weakening agricultural land protections and bypassing state oversight is not a housing policy. It is a development policy dressed in housing language. I urge both Committees to hold this bill. Hawaiʻi's land is finite, and the decisions we make about how to use it are irreversible. The Land Use Commission's role in reviewing significant boundary amendments is not a bureaucratic obstacle. It is a safeguard. We should be strengthening it, not carving out exceptions. Mahalo for the opportunity to testify. Cristina Holt Hilo, Hawaiʻi House District 2, Senate District 1

Would have appropriated state funds to DBEDT for the Military and Community Relations Office (MACRO). MACRO is an office created by the Pentagon, funded by the Pentagon, and staffed in part by an active Navy officer. It should not receive state dollars. The bill was killed after over 600 pages of public opposition testimony. Aloha Chair Belatti, Vice Chair Iwamoto, and members of the committee. My name is Cristina Holt. I am a resident of Hilo, Hawaiʻi Island, and I strongly oppose SB 3240 SD1. This bill is about timing, propaganda, and tightening the military's grip on Hawaiʻi. It is hiding behind the mask of workforce development. Military leases on Hawaiian land come up for renegotiation in 2029. That is one of the most significant opportunities Hawaiʻi has had in decades to reclaim land, to reassess the terms of the military's presence here, and for Native Hawaiians to reclaim land that was taken in the illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom and has never been returned. Everyone in this building knows that deadline is coming. This bill is timed to move through the 2026 session specifically to make sure Hawaiʻi cannot take that off ramp. It embeds our workforce pipeline, our community colleges, our manufacturing base, and our children's career expectations so deeply into the defense economy that walking away from military leases in 2029 becomes politically and economically unthinkable. The bill language makes that explicit. It calls for aligning Hawaiʻi's workforce with "evolving industrial and defense-related needs." It calls for connecting local companies to "federal procurement pathways." That is not workforce development. That is manufactured dependency, timed on purpose. And they want our kids!? The bill calls for integrating students from kindergarten through twelfth grade into career pathways aligned with "defense-related needs." Kindergarten. Five years old. The Department of Defense already has a $1.42 trillion budget, 47 military recruiting offices across Hawaiʻi, ads in our movie theaters, and a college payment program that functions as a poverty draft for families who cannot afford tuition any other way. They do not need Hawaiʻi taxpayers building them another pipeline starting at age five. They also want our state tax dollars to fund their propaganda. MACRO, the office this bill funds, was created in 2024 using a federal grant that exists specifically to fund military entrenchment in communities near installations. It runs a podcast. It places promotional segments on HI Now Daily. It produces economic impact studies designed to make the case for military spending to increase and never cease. It is not a neutral state office. It is a communications operation whose mission is to make Hawaiʻi's civilian population more comfortable with military dependence. The Pentagon built that infrastructure with federal money. Now they want Hawaiʻi taxpayers to make it permanent. That is not what our money is for. We are being asked to do all of this at the worst possible moment. The United States is currently engaged in an illegal war invasion against Iran. How can this body even CONSIDER funding their propaganda? Especially under these circumstances and at this time? The defense sector this bill wants to pipeline our children into includes Palantir, Anduril, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and more; companies that are actively building autonomous weapons systems, targeting algorithms, and mass surveillance infrastructure. Deepening Hawaiʻi's military footprint does not make us safer. It makes us a bigger target. That is not a fringe position. It is strategic logic. And the military has never earned our trust. The Navy's Red Hill facility contaminated the primary drinking water source for nearly 100,000 Oahu residents. The military knew, said nothing, minimized it, delayed, and fought accountability at every step. At Pohakuloa on Hawaiʻi Island, the military has operated for decades, denied documented depleted uranium contamination, and produced an Environmental Impact Statement that was found to be inadequate. Hawaiʻi has multiple military-related Superfund sites on the EPA's list. Contaminated soil, contaminated groundwater, contaminated communities. The military created these sites, disputed responsibility, slow-walked cleanup, and then uses that contamination as an excuse not to vacate the land because it is too dangerous. This is the institution this bill asks us to fund. This is the institution this bill asks us to route our next generations toward. If this legislature has $1.3 million to spend on workforce development, spend it on clean energy, food sovereignty, sustainable agriculture, healthcare, education, or climate resilience. Industries that do not poison our water, bomb our sacred land, or ask us to send our children to fight in needless, illegal wars. Industries that build a future Hawaiʻi can actually live in. The answer to dependency is not to deepen it. It is to end this extractive, abusive relationship before its too late. I strongly oppose SB 3240 SD1. I ask this committee to hold it. Mahalo for the opportunity to testify. Cristina Holt Hilo, Hawaiʻi Island

Would allow the Mauna Kea Stewardship and Oversight Authority to extend existing telescope leases by up to ten years before the transition is even complete, transfer land obligations away from UH without ensuring cleanup duties are enforced, lock in UH's existing plans and rules indefinitely, and grant the Authority state sovereign immunity, limiting public accountability over sacred public trust lands. Aloha Senators Lee, Kim, Rhoads, and Inouye, and Representatives Garrett, Hashem, Tarnas, Kusch, Morikawa, and Shimizu, I am writing to urge you to oppose HB2592 in conference. This bill fast-tracks 10-year lease extensions before the new management authority is even fully vetted or operational. That is not a new chapter. It is the same chapter with a new cover. The community and Native Hawaiian practitioners were promised meaningful participation in whatever comes next. HB2592 shuts them out before the process has even begun. Transferring land and facilities 'as is' creates serious risk that cleanup and decommissioning obligations will go unenforced, leaving the public on the hook for costs that should fall to the leaseholder. These are public trust resources. The state has a constitutional duty to protect them, not quietly hand off liability along with the keys. Equally troubling: the new authority would operate under state sovereign immunity protections, shielding it from legal accountability for decisions involving public trust lands. An entity that cannot be held accountable has no business managing resources that belong to all of us. HB2592 moves too fast, too quickly, and in the wrong direction. Please oppose it. Mahalo, Cristina Holt Hilo, HI