������Ƶ

OK so I was naïve, I admit it. In the last session of the Legislature I helped lobby for a simple bill that I thought would sail through – a law to boost Hawai‘i’s anemic food production. It should have been like voting for mom and apple pie. But the bill went nowhere.

Right now, according to the US Department of Agriculture, we import 92% of everything we eat, leaving us extraordinarily vulnerable to supply disruptions and the vagaries of global economics. The draft bill -to get us to grow 20% of what we consume by the year 2020- was backed by the Abercrombie administration and the Farmers Union. Not one organization or individual sent testimony in opposition. Yet, though the bill survived the Senate committee process, it never had a single hearing in the House of Representatives. It died a quiet death – a reminder, if one were needed, of the power and influence of big-money in our Legislature.

Of course SB 1145 wasn’t the only good policy given the cold shoulder by our representatives. Clean air regulations; efforts to make recycling easier by requiring stores to redeem beverage containers; a plan for an easy financing mechanism so the average homeowner could afford to install clean energy… they all bit the dust. And, in every case, the defeat came thanks to the work of high-paid lobbyists whose powerful backers, armed with deep pockets and inside connections, can ensure that good bills stagnate while crucial decisions about vital issues that will shape our future are decided on the basis of truly shortsighted criteria.

I should have known better. I mean it’s hardly a secret that in Honolulu, as in Washington DC and every other state capital in the country, corporate lobbyists lucubrate to defend their masters’ interests. And SB 1145 had a kicker that the biggest landowners in the state would surely hate: if we failed to reach 20% of local food production by 2020, an automatic, albeit temporary, moratorium would have kicked in to stop reclassification of large pieces of land from agriculture to urban. That’s a measure that could have put the brakes on suburban developments splurging over our best farmland – not something the big landowners want. Their whole profit model is based on planting single-family homes rather than food crops on the lands they have acquired down the decades.

Now as it happens, according to opinion polls, this is one of Hawai‘i voters’ top concerns. A survey by Honolulu’s Department of Planning and Permitting for the 2035 O‘ahu General Plan, released in November, showed that “Protecting agricultural land and increasing agricultural production” was second in importance only to traffic. 83% of respondents believed that “High quality agricultural lands need to be saved for future farming.” The most popular answer to the question about which economic choices the General Plan should encourage was, “Increasing the percentage of food that is grown and consumed locally.” And a survey by the Ulupono Initiative presented to the Legislature last month showed that “Consumers across O‘ahu strongly believe local food is important, they don’t think there’s enough available; and they are willing to pay more for local food.”

So here’s the kicker. As popular as this issue is, at the Senate hearings last year, just 12 people sent testimony in support. Twelve. Why is that? Well it’s because most people weren’t even aware the bill was being considered. Most legislating is done in small rooms, before small groups of people, the majority of whom are lobbyists. We’re not saying all legislators are on the take, just that lobbyists have an inside track.

The Capitol may be the people’s house, but The People rarely set foot in it. If that is to change, if we as a citizenry want to be more effective in building a sustainable future for Hawai‘i, it’s vital that we nurture and invigorate the sinew of which every healthy democracy is built: a smart and informed electorate. We need citizen lobbyists who care about what happens at the Capitol and who are willing to speak up for the type of future they’d like to see.

That’s why the Sierra Club revitalized its Capitol Watch last year – transforming it into a team of volunteers who dedicate the time and passion to find out which legislation needs help and which should be blocked. They file reports twice a week throughout the session in the form of a newsletter, to be supplemented this year by up-to-the-minute blog posts. Last year more than 500 people subscribed to this free service.

In order to kick-start this session, on Saturday the Capitol Watch holds its second annual Forces For Good Symposium – an opportunity for concerned citizens to come to the Capitol and see that it’s not such a scary place, that it is indeed their house. It’s a chance for ordinary folk to attend workshops offered by experts and learn what’s happening in efforts to boost our food production, to stop plastics polluting our oceans, to protect our vital drinking water supply, to develop a denser, more livable model of the city as an alternative to suburban sprawl, and to create a more transparent system of government. At the Symposium you’ll have a chance to learn how to testify at a hearing, or by email: what to say and how to say it. People who have done it will show you how.

We know that organizations that work for good government and a better future can often seem fragmented and harder to rally than a nuisance of cats, but at the Symposium you’ll find that an extraordinary array of groups have come together: from the AARP to the Surfrider Foundation; from Faith Action for Community Equity to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, from Kanu and Common Cause and Kokua Hawaii and Hawaii’s 1000 Friends to the Carpenters Union’s Pacific Resource Partnership and the American Heart Association.

I can’t list them all here. But you can find them and register to participate by going to and clicking on the button that says Be a Force For Good!

About the Author: Anthony Aalto has been a foreign correspondent for The Guardian, The Economist, The BBC and most recently Pacific Rim Correspondent for Expresso of Portugal. He is currently filming a TV series for Oceanic Time Warner called ‘My Green Hale – How I built the Greenest House in Hawai‘i’
He is Chair of the Sierra Club Capitol Watch and Secretary of the O‘ahu Group.