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Matson Navigation Co. has said it will clean up the mess it caused when a faulty pipeline spewed 233,000 gallons of molasses into Honolulu Harbor, causing a massive fish kill and damaging sensitive coral reefs.

But there’s still a lot of uncertainty about the company’s future responsibilities for the spill.

Matson has not promised to pay for any restoration activities, and a spokesman said Monday that the company is waiting on an environmental assessment from the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources before making a decision.

A loophole in federal rules also raises questions about Matson’s liability, and whether the company will be on the hook for more than just initial cleanup costs.

Molasses is not considered a hazardous substance under federal environmental law, which has given Matson more wiggle room than if it had discharged a federally regulated toxic material into the environment.

But U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz is drafting legislation that he hopes will tighten pollution regulations in a manner that will hold companies more accountable for damaging discharges of any substance into the environment.

“The molasses spill that hit Honolulu harbor was one of the worst environmental catastrophes in Hawaii’s history,” Schatz said in statement to Civil Beat.

“The devastation revealed gaps in our existing laws and that everyone needs to work together on both the state and federal level,” he said. “That is why I’m working on federal legislation to provide a financial incentive for companies to work to prevent spills, and to make sure sufficient resources are available in the case of a future incident.”

Schatz sits on the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. In September, he announced that federal Superfund money would be made available to help reimburse local, state and federal agencies for the initial response to the spill.

The is administered through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and was developed to clean up toxic and hazardous waste sites. It provides money for the initial response efforts after a spill or discharge. The program also can force polluters to reimburse the government for clean up and remediation expenses.

But Schatz’s office found a number of shortcomings in the law when dealing with Honolulu’s molasses spill, prompting him to draft two bills to revise the rules.

The first piece of legislation aims to increase the amount of money the Superfund reimburses governments for initial response and cleanup from $2 million to $4 million.

The amendment should not be controversial, according to Schatz’s office. The $2 million threshold has been in place since 1986, and when adjusted for inflation would be just over $4 million.

Schatz’s second bill includes more substantive revisions to the law, however, and is more likely to receive some push back, particularly from the corporate sector.

Under current Superfund rules, individuals and entities are automatically liable for spills and other discharges if a substance is on the maintained by the government. Liability can go beyond simple clean-up costs, and include long-term remedial action.

But the government can’t recover costs for other spills involving pollutants or contaminants not on that list, including molasses.

Schatz proposes closing this loophole by making any individual or company that discharges a pollutant into the environment financially liable for the spill if it triggers a federal cleanup response, which is exactly what happened in Honolulu.

Schatz said he hopes this will provide a financial incentive for companies to prevent spills as well as ensure there are resources for future incidents.

Matson didn’t have a molasses spill response plan on Sept. 9, when the leak from a company pipeline was first discovered.

The company has since shut down its molasses shipping operations, and has yet to decide if it will start them again in the future.

Matson’s public relations director Jeff Hull said the shipping company doesn’t want to comment on Schatz’s proposed legislation. But he did acknowledge that the company is aware that tighter rules could be on the way.

“We wouldn’t comment on something we haven’t seen,” Hull said of Schatz’s legislation. “We’re currently not moving molasses, but we understand that things are changing.”