The University of Hawaii will suspend all sublease negotiations with the Maunakea Observatories as Gov. David Ige considers whether to sign or veto a bill that could change the future of astronomy on the Big Island.
After House Bill 2024 passed final reading in the Legislature Tuesday, UH President David Lassner issued on Thursday a statement about the bill enumerating UH’s concerns with the measure.
The bill would remove UH as the managing entity of the land on Maunakea’s summit, which UH currently leases from the state, with that lease set to expire in 2033.
Under the bill, after a five-year transition period, a new state entity, the Maunakea Stewardship and Oversight Authority, will take over the lease, which includes the land on which all the Maunakea telescopes stand.
Although the bill establishes astronomy as “a policy of the state,” Lassner in his statement wrote that it is unclear how the astronomy industry on the mountain will be impacted, should the bill be signed into law by Ige.
“(The bill) makes it clear that the new Authority will be responsible for deciding if there will be more or less astronomy on Maunakea than the nine observatories allowed under the current UH Master Plan,” Lassner wrote.
Because of this, and because of the considerable momentum behind the bill, Lassner wrote that UH will immediately pause all sublease negotiations with current observatories as well as planning for additional telescope decommissioning. Furthermore, the university will halt work toward a new master lease post-2033 and an associated environmental review.
In his statement, Lassner said UH will engage with the Authority “as positively and collaboratively as possible,” adding that both the UH-Hilo chancellor and a Board of Regents representative will be present on the Authority’s board. However, he identified several problems with the bill that have persisted throughout its various drafts.
During the five-year transition period, the bill states that the Authority and UH will share authority over the leased Maunakea lands, but it does not specify how those duties will be split, nor does it clarify what will happen to certain UH vested property and obligations once UH is replaced as steward.
Lassner worte in his statement that UH does not believe those concerns are sufficient for the university to request Ige veto the bill.
The Department of Land and Natural Resources had stronger words for the bill, however, issuing a statement Thursday that the measure as written is significantly flawed and could be worse for Maunakea than the current state of affairs.
DLNR’s concerns were manifold, but most significant are the department’s fears that the bill’s requirements may actually encourage development on the mountain. The bill requires the Authority to be financially self-sustaining, but the Maunakea lands are not revenue-generating, which may incentivize the Authority to open the lands to commercial tourism, according to the DLNR.
Furthermore, the statement went on, the bill does not provide for the lands’ current Conservation District regulation to continue, which could in theory allow the Authority to freely develop anywhere within those lands. The DLNR also worries that separating Maunakea from the state’s “extensive legal framework for land management and natural and cultural resource management, beyond the oversight and control of the DLNR … is a dangerous legal precedent contrary to our state constitution.”
The DLNR also shares Lassner’s concern that the moratorium on new leases until after the transition period will make it difficult for existing observatories to have new leases by 2033.
Finally, the DLNR statement noted that the bill is in many ways redundant to current policies enacted by UH.
“The department believes that while well-intentioned, this bill is based on a misguided assumption that UH has not managed Maunakea well,” the statement concluded. “This is an old narrative that is no longer true. Maunakea is tightly managed as a clean astronomy zone at the summit surrounded by 10,000 acres of well-protected natural and cultural resources. Many people who state that Maunakea is mismanaged believe that (the Thirty Meter Telescope) should not be built. That is an entirely different issue.”
Ige acknowledged Thursday the DLNR’s concerns with the bill, but did not indicate whether he plans to veto the bill.
“We will be going through the legislative proposal and looking at what is required in the constitution,” Ige said. “I do think all of those are valid questions, and we will be trying to evaluate the legislation in this next 45 days (until the veto deadline).”
Email Michael Brestovansky at mbrestovansky@hawaiitribune-herald.com.