A bill that would allow the state Commission on Water Resource Management to hire its own legal counsel is receiving pushback from the state’s largest law firm: the attorney general’s office.
Senate Bill 3327 aims to safeguard the Water Commission from outside influence. That includes situations where the state’s interest may conflict with the public trust purposes in the state water code.
The AG's office argues it is best suited to provide legal advice to its state clients. They add that state agencies already have the option to request private attorneys.
However, the AG’s office has a decades-long history of arguing against the principle of water as a public trust resource, according to Wayne Tanaka, executive director of Hawaiʻi's Sierra Club.
"In Waiahole, the Supreme Court expressed serious misgivings about the actions of the attorney general and the governor, including the dismissal of the deputy AG on that case and then the subsequent significant alteration of the proposed decision against the streams and against the farmers of Windward Oʻahu," Tanaka said.
"In 2009, my first supervisor after law school testified that the chair’s recommendation to restore just one out of 19 streams in East Maui didn’t make sense and he was immediately suspended for ten days. And then we saw what happened last year after the fires, right?" Tanaka said.
"This isn’t about a single chair or a single administration, this is about finally fixing major issues that have eroded the public’s confidence in the work of the commission."
SB 3327 passed out of the House Committee on Water and Land, and now awaits a hearing by the Committees on Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs, and Finance.
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