The state Senate on Tuesday passed dozens of bills on mandatory third reading, a key step before becoming law, but senators rejected one contested measure that aimed to combat an increase in animal cruelty cases in Hawaii.
Senate Bill 3282 comes four years after the Legislature reorganized the agency to improve its focus in part by converting it from a DBEDT division to an agency with a Cabinet-level director.
Roughly 2,400 bills were introduced this year but only a third have survived so far by crossing over from the House to the Senate, or from the Senate to the House.
In its first forecast following the deadly Aug. 8 Lahaina fire, the University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization on Thursday proposed the creation of a new entity to oversee what comes next for Lahaina over the years to come to be created by the state Legislature.
President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden arrive today on a grief-stricken Maui, where the number of wildfire deaths is expected to rise considerably above the 114 being reported and loved ones need answers about the fate of an estimated 1,000 still missing.