Hawaii Senator Chris Lee Will Sponsor 2025 ‘Warming Label’ Bill

Senator Mike Gabbard was the first to introduce a historic bill in Hawaii that will require a health-climate warning label on all gas pumps. Since 2021, he’s been the sponsor but as I wrote about in our meeting last year, Gabbard suggested a new one may help the political process. We chatted about Senator Chris Lee as a potential candidate, whom I had met before and found to be a super smart communicator. But as the author of Act 15, which legally commits Hawaii to a zero-emissions economy by 2045, a member of the National Caucus of Environmental Legislators, and Chairman of the Committee on Transportation and Culture and the Arts — Senator Lee also has serious climate cred. Someone I think, who can articulate the social norms piece towards reaching a net zero emissions transportation system in Hawaii by 2045. Some mythical time in the future where it is assumed, the driving public will freely choose emission-free modes of transport and some of the lifestyle changes associated with them.

I am happy to report Senator Lee agreed to sponsor the bill for warming labels in the 2025 legislative session! Which is to say, such warnings on the pump in Hawaii for 2025 were already shaping up to be a little different, despite Senator Lee. This summer the Circuit Court determined that the Hawaii Department of Transportation violates the State Constitution’s public trust doctrine and right to a clean and healthful environment. The court found transportation emissions at 9.63 (MMT CO2 Eq.) is the biggest threat to the environment in Hawaii. Aviation not surprisingly is the largest quotient, but a not insignificant 3.53 million metric tons of CO2 per year of this damage is emitted and controlled by the 93% of the driving public who choose gas powered vehicles. Faster adoption of electric vehicles and renewable energy generation in Hawaii for instance, rather than the status quo, will result in 99% less fossil fuel consumed and 93% less C02 emissions from ground transportation. With the lawsuit targeting the damage caused by transportation fuels, it highlights the hidden external costs to consumers who buy gasoline and diesel fuels but also, the driving public’s critical role in mitigating this damage. To more urgently take on the task of choosing low-no carbon transportation — and invest in the infrastructure at scale that goes with it — the driving public needs a more direct intervention. In the democratic spirit of the lawsuit, the more people know right when they buy these fuels their negative health effects in particular, the more this can ground Hawaii’s transition to clean energy in ground transportation. I make a pun.

~James Brooks, Founder, Think Beyond the Pump