Budget Talks Intensify

Hawaii legislators went into overdrive this week as the close of the session approached this Friday, but they did so without seeming to make great strides toward agreeing on the state’s $11 billion supplemental budget, according to Hawaii Civil Beat.

Passage of the supplemental budget bill is being held up by House Speaker Calvin Say, who wants legislators to pass a bill to streamline environmental regulations, the publication reported.

According to Civil Beat, he won’t compromise on budget issues unless legislators first approve the measure.

House and Senate leaders were slated to meet again late Thursday night to try to hammer out an agreement on the budget bill.

But it will be the seventh time in 10 days that conferees have met on the budget, and the deadline is 6 p.m. Friday, according to reports.

The operating side of the budget has been agreed upon, but the House and Senate haven’t agreed on capital improvement projects and are said to be hundreds of millions of dollars apart.

The hold up, Civil Beat reported, is the insistence of Say that the Senate accept SB 755, a measure granting temporary exemption to environmental laws in order to expedite state and county construction projects.

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