Hawaii Can’t Afford To Wait To Lower Blood Alcohol Level
Several good bills died this legislative session without explanation, even though they had support.
April 25, 2024 · 3 min read
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On Friday, May 3, the Hawaii Legislature will adjourn its 33rd session sine die and the legal blood alcohol concentration for driving in our state will still be 0.08%.
Four bills to lower the BAC from 0.08% to 0.05% — BAC bills, as we like to call them — were proposed this year.
Each of them has died. And, along with them, more humans.
This is the fourth session in a row our legislators have failed to finish the job on this issue — despite resounding endorsements from many of them at different stages of the process and overwhelming support from their constituents.
Let’s break it down.
On Jan. 18 the Hawaii Alcohol Policy Alliance and its partners held a press conference with Sen. Karl Rhoads to introduce the 2024 BAC legislation. Gov. Josh Green stood with us, supported the policy and expressed his frustration with missed opportunities to save lives.
There were four different bills to lower the BAC. Ultimately, , introduced by House Transportation Committee Chair Chris Todd, was part of an agenda for public discussion in the committee on Feb. 6. Support from the community was overwhelming, with 79 testimonies in favor and only one testimony in opposition to the bill.
Despite the committee’s approval of the bill, lack of being placed on agendas for subsequent committees and tight deadlines prevented the measure from advancing.
We focused on an identical piece of legislation, , introduced by Sen. Rhoads. Once again, advocates turned out in record numbers, this time to express their support for lowering the BAC during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Feb. 27. The committee unanimously passed the bill.
The full Senate then passed SB 2384 by a vote of 22-3, moving the bill to the House Transportation Committee — the same committee that passed an identical bill earlier in the session.
There’s nothing political about lowering the BAC.
The deadline for that committee to schedule the bill for a hearing was March 12. The date came and went with no action taken and no explanation given.
We can’t afford to wait another year to lower the BAC.
The legislative process and all the politicking that goes on can feel a whole lot like a game of chess. Each bill is a pawn, trying to make its way from one end of the board to the other, fighting against strategic blocks thrown by those with more power.
There’s nothing political about lowering the BAC. It’s time for our lawmakers to stop playing games with human lives.
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