RELATING TO CONSERVATION BANKING.
SB2005 establishes a new conservation banking framework in Hawaii law for threatened, endangered, candidate, and proposed species. It authorizes the Department of Land and Natural Resources, as well as certain public or private entities, to create and operate conservation banks with approval from the Board of Land and Natural Resources. These banks would generate credits through habitat restoration, creation, enhancement, or protection, and those credits could then be sold or transferred as compensatory mitigation for impacts authorized under incidental take licenses and habitat conservation plans.
The bill sets out detailed requirements for conservation bank applications, instruments, long-term stewardship plans, monitoring, performance standards, financial assurances, site protection, and annual reporting. It also defines key terms such as credit bundling, credit stacking, adaptive management, and major amendments, and it gives the department authority to adopt implementing rules and collect fees for rulemaking, application processing, and oversight. The measure also updates the endangered species recovery committee by adding the associate director of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Ecosystem Mission Area and expanding the committee’s role to review, monitor, and recommend action on conservation bank proposals and amendments.
If enacted, SB2005 would add a new part to chapter 195D, Hawaii Revised Statutes, creating a formal legal process for conservation banking and making conservation bank credits an authorized form of compensatory mitigation for listed species impacts. It would also amend section 195D-25 to expand the membership and duties of the endangered species recovery committee, and it would give the Board of Land and Natural Resources stronger approval, suspension, revocation, and amendment oversight over conservation banks. The bill excludes aquatic life and their habitats, and it would not eliminate existing incidental take license requirements for bank sponsors.
The bill appears to have generally favorable support in committee and on the floor. It passed the Senate Water, Land, and Agriculture Committee unanimously with amendments and later passed Senate Ways and Means unanimously, indicating broad agreement on the concept of conservation banking and its role in species protection and mitigation. The House action noted in the bill history shows some support with reservations and one no vote, suggesting the measure remained generally acceptable but not entirely uncontested.
The main points of contention are likely to involve the balance between conservation benefits and regulatory flexibility. The bill allows private and public entities to operate conservation banks, but only under substantial oversight, which may raise concerns about administrative burden, approval standards, and the adequacy of financial and scientific assurances. The prohibition on credit stacking, the requirement that credits be retired after use, and the need for committee approval of credit use may also be debated by developers, landowners, and conservation advocates. Another possible issue is the bill’s delayed effective date of July 1, 2050, which is unusual and may reflect implementation concerns or a policy compromise.