Hawaii Legislature ends with tax on tourists to help mitigate climate change
By Kristen Consillio
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HONOLULU, Hawaii (KITV) — Before the state legislature ended its session, lawmakers passed the first-of-its-kind “green fee” bill to protect Hawaii’s natural resources.
“There are numbers out there that we are not doing enough to fund the protection of natural resources,” said Rep. Linda Ichiyama who represents Salt Lake. “I think it’s a good place to start, and we’ll make a big dent.”
Lawmakers have tried for years to come up with a way to balance a new tax on the roughly 10 million visitors each year to Hawaii with the need to raise more money to protect the ‘aina.
This year the Hawaii Legislature finally passed a bill to increase the transient accommodation tax, known as the hotel room tax, from 13.25% to 14% statewide.
That’s expected to raise $100 million a year for disaster mitigation to prevent wildfires, flooding and coastal erosion.
“The impact to travel to Hawaii will cover our needs as we deal with climate change and superstorms and all of the things we’ve known to be true after the wildfires,” said Gov. Josh Green, who’s been pushing the fee for years.
It’s not only for hotel guests. Tourists on cruise ships docking in Hawaii will also start paying the additional tax.
“We figured the simplest would be to simply increase the existing transient accommodation tax,” Ichiyama said. “And also as a matter of fairness to make sure that it applied to all types of transient accommodations, not just to hotels or B&Bs, but also to cruise ships.”
The new tax comes at a critical time with increasing climate threats and federal cuts to environmental agencies working to save the planet.
Hawaii is facing an estimated $560 million annual shortfall in the funding needed to protect natural resources.
“This funding is essential because it’s really going to help us steward our natural resources and make sure that they’re available for future residents and visitors for many years to come,” Ichiyama said.
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