Ceded-land debate back on the table
By Gordon Y.K. Pang
Advertiser Staff Writer
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The Office of Hawaiian Affairs and state Attorney General Mark Bennett may soon be negotiating again on ceded land revenues.
If they negotiate under a new plan being offered in the Senate, the $200 million in land and cash for OHA that both sides saw as fair and reasonable when the settlement was announced Jan. 18 would be the minimum starting point for new talks.
The state House approved the OHA-Bennett settlement, but three Senate committees rejected it and told OHA to come back next year with a better plan.
OHA officials have offered to the Senate what essentially is a new bill calling for the agency and Bennett to renegotiate — this time with more public input during the negotiations.
OHA administrator Clyde Namu'o said the new legislation is "a realization that the Legislature is not going to pass the settlement as we presented it because they're not satisfied with it."
House Majority Leader Kirk Caldwell, D-24th (Manoa), said the latest plan "is a request to continue negotiations with a floor of $200 million."
It's the latest twist in the debate over how much money OHA should get as its share of the revenues and proceeds generated by ceded lands, the lands once owned by the Hawaiian government.
As late as Friday, OHA officials publicly were united with Gov. Linda Lingle's administration and House leaders in urging the Senate to pass HB 266, the settlement approved by the House.
Both Bennett and Caldwell said they still want the existing settlement to be approved by the Senate, adding that they are happy the Senate leadership is willing to discuss ceded land revenues this session.
DETAILS OF NEW BILL
Senate President Colleen Hanabusa said the new legislation makes no reference to waiving other claims to past revenues or to any future revenues yet derived. The OHA-Bennett settlement waives any other claims to past, current or future revenues and says OHA should get a minimum of $15.1 million annually for future revenues, with the exact amount to be determined by the Legislature.
Hanabusa, D-21st (Nanakuli, Makaha), noted that a waiver and the settling of future claims were among the major objections raised by opponents of the OHA-Bennett settlement. Those opponents included key state senators, who argued that OHA gave up too much for too little.
"What is not in the (new) bill are the two things that we (in the Senate) had the most trouble with, which was the waiver language as well as the issue of the capping of future revenues. Those are not in there," she said.
Under the new legislation, House Bill 1201, Committee Draft 1, OHA and Bennett are required to continue negotiations on the amount the agency should have received from Nov. 7, 1978, to June 30, 2008.
The new proposal also calls for OHA to:
WAIVERS STILL POSSIBLE
Both Hanabusa and Namu'o stressed that while language about a waiver of other claims and future claims aren't in the latest plan, those subjects could still work themselves into what finally returns to the Legislature next year. "Arguably, they might be able to negotiate it but that's not in this particular bill."
"The bill doesn't have any waiver because we're not settling anything," Namu'o said. "That's not to say that the settlement document itself, if we arrive at a new agreement, would not have a waiver."
Exactly which side is pressing for a reopening of negotiations was unclear.
Hanabusa said OHA officials and attorneys visited her office Thursday and Friday and provided "their position on the settlement."
Hanabusa added: "As far as we're (in the Senate) concerned, we were probably pau for this session. And the House, as I understand it, wasn't going to try to revive it."
Namu'o made it clear that OHA would not have offered up a new plan if the Senate had been more receptive to the OHA-Bennett proposal.
Bennett said any plan to keep the discussion about ceded land revenues alive this session is positive.
However, he said, "we spent a significant amount of time negotiating with OHA and presented for the Legislature's consideration a product which both we and OHA believed was fair and reasonable."
Asked what the administration will do if the Legislature approves a bill asking it to go back to the bargaining table, Bennett said: "I'm not going to speculate about legislation ... but at this point, we have nothing more to negotiate."
Ultimately, he said, "it's the Legislature's kuleana to decide how much it's going to pay OHA."
COMMUNITY OUTREACH
Caldwell said he has not yet discussed the new plan with fellow House leaders, but believes "the House is pretty clear where it stands — it wants a comprehensive settlement."
The House approved the OHA-Bennett settlement "to resolve this in a comprehensive way and to not have to put off for another year defining our constitutional obligation which we've put off for 30 years."
State Sen. Jill Tokuda, D-24th (Kailua, Kane'ohe), chairwoman of the Senate Agriculture and Hawaiian Affairs Committee, said the new proposal basically addresses the concerns senators had with the OHA-Bennett settlement.
Tokuda said the proposed settlement should be used as a base for further discussions that involve the Hawaiian community. "It's taking the rest of the year to go out and have that discussion with the beneficiaries and the community to flesh out the details, to get to a point where everyone is in agreement, and then to come back to us," she said.
Sen. Clayton Hee, D-23rd (Kahuku, Kane'ohe), the former OHA trustee, has been among the loudest voices opposing the OHA-Bennett proposal.
Hee said he "instinctively" believes the $200 million package is not enough to settle past claims.
The chairman of the Water and Land Committee, Hee said he and other senators still want to see a more detailed accounting of how the parties calculated that the settlement should be $200 million.
Advertiser staff writer Derrick DePledge contributed to this report.Reach Gordon Y.K. Pang at gpang@honoluluadvertiser.com.
