Ride a moped, wear a helmet: House and Senate conference committees struck a deal Thursday on Senate Bill 30 to prohibit anyone younger than 16 years old from driving mopeds on public roads, and to require that all moped riders wear helmets.

Current state law allows kids 15 years or older to operate a moped on a public road, and requires anyone younger than 18 to wear a helmet.

The measure was backed by the state Department of Transportation, which testified there were 15 moped-related crashes in 2023 that resulted in serious injuries. In 11 of those, the rider was not wearing a helmet.

Earlier drafts would have required anyone younger than 21 to wear a helmet, but lawmakers opted for the last-minute change on Thursday requiring helmets for all ages.

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Banning more firearms: Hawaiʻi law bans assault pistols but not other assault weapons such as .50 caliber firearms and rifles like AR-15s. On Thursday, conferees approved House Bill 401, which would ban high-powered semiautomatic rifles and shotguns with military features that can fire multiple rounds rapidly. Hunting weapons such as .22 rifles and semi-automatic rifles without military features are unaffected by the legislation. 

Sen. Brandon Elefante said the final language in HB 401 addressed concerns about inheritance so that people currently and legally owning assault weapons specified in the bill have the ability to transfer ownership of the weapon to the registered owner’s spouse, reciprocal beneficiary or lineal descendant, and to allow the transferee the ability to obtain a permit for that weapon.

The bill was backed by the Hawaiʻi Department of Law Enforcement, Everytown for Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. But it was also vigorously opposed by Second Amendment rights advocates.

“Guns or ammunition don’t kill, people kill!” Kim Cordery of the Aloha Freedom Coalition wrote in his opposition to HB 401. The bill now awaits a full vote in the House and Senate.

Stadium cash still on ice: Aloha Stadium officials likely won’t get access to money they need to cover pre-development costs for a replacement stadium slated to open in 2028.

Two measures pending in the Legislature, House Bill 1494 and Senate Bill 1589, had not been scheduled for conference committee hearings, meaning they are likely dead without some late-session maneuvering, stadium authority officials said at a board meeting Thursday morning.

The bills would have given officials access to nearly $50 million in the stadium’s special fund but is supposed to be used for pre-development costs. The state has been moving money around to cover those costs using proceeds from the stadium’s $350 million in general obligation bonds.

“It makes an already complicated project even more complicated,” Stadium Authority Chairman Brennon Morioka said at the meeting.

Two other stadium bills are still in the works, and both have hearings Friday at 9 a.m.

Senate Bill 583 would allow the state to negotiate naming rights to display on signage outside the new stadium. Sadayasu said that could bring in about $1 million a year.

House Bill 1007 would give the Hawaiʻi Community Development Authority the power to issue revenue bonds to pay for new infrastructure, including at the stadium site where more than $170 million is needed for utility relocation and infrastructure costs.

Online betting has a shot: Gambling measures at the Legislature die every year, but House Bill 1308 to legalize online sports betting in Hawaiʻi has a hearing Friday at 12:30 p.m.

The hangup appears to be over fees charged to sports betting companies and the taxes they would need to pay.

The Senate’s draft of the bill would tax gaming companies at a rate of 10%. The state Taxation Department estimates that would bring in a paltry $5 million annually, although the gambling industry puts that figure at closer to $10 million.

Rep. Dan Holt, who introduced the bill, said the House is pushing for a higher tax rate as well as an increase in licensing fees that gaming companies pay, currently set at $250,000 when they first apply for a license.

Taking the “exchange” out of needle exchange: Conferees overrode the concerns of state Attorney General Anne Lopez to approve a bill to overhaul the state’s longstanding needle exchange program designed to limit the spread of infectious diseases among intravenous drug users and their sexual partners.

Senate Bill 1433 would discontinue the current “one-to-one” system that requires people to turn in a used needle to get a clean one, shifting instead to a “needs-based” model.

The bill is part of Gov. Josh Green’s administration package, but Lopez has her doubts.

“The distribution of an unlimited number of new syringes and needles, without requiring the return of used syringes or needles, raises significant concerns,” Lopez said in written testimony. “Expecting illicit drug users to properly and safely dispose of all used needles and syringes is counterintuitive.”

Six House Republicans and three Democrats voted against the bill on the House floor earlier this month, and House Republican Minority Floor Leader Diamond Garcia warned that cities that adopted similar approaches such as San Francisco and Chicago “are littered with needles.”

“We should be investing in treatment, counseling and detox centers, in real recovery, not normalizing drug use in our communities,” Garcia told his colleagues during a House floor debate April 4

The state health department supports the bill, saying research has found one-to-one exchange programs are less effective than “needs-based syringe distribution.”

No hike in unemployment tax: Lawmakers abandoned a proposal to raise the unemployment insurance tax on Hawaiʻi businesses Thursday, citing the financial implications of House Bill 202.

That bill was supported by the state Department of Labor and Industrial Relations, but business advocates strongly opposed it.

The idea was to build up the reserve balance in the fund that pays unemployment benefits to workers to better prepare the state for the next economic downturn, when unemployment claims will likely surge.

The fund was quickly drained early in the pandemic, which forced the state to borrow about $700 million from the federal government to pay benefits. It has slowly recovered, and the state expects it will have $838 million in reserves by the end of 2025.

The plan was to raise the tax that employers pay into the fund to build up the reserves to more than $1 billion by the end of 2027, but Senate Labor and Technology Committee Chair Henry Aquino said it was “just not the right time for this, with all the uncertainty that we’re facing.”

Minority report: Democrats, as we all know, run the Hawaiʻi Legislature, making it hard for Republicans to get bills passed. But a bill from the House Minority Caucus actually made it to conference committee this session, and it even has a hearing Friday.

House Bill 286 attempts to make it easier to afford a home in Hawaiʻi, a bipartisan goal. It would increase the maximum annual deduction for contributions to individual housing accounts.

“Contributions to the first-time home buyer savings account will reduce taxable income,” the bill states. “This incentivizes first-time home ownership through saving for a down payment and closing costs.”

House Minority Leader Lauren Matsumoto said it’s the first time in her 13 years as a legislator that one of the caucusʻs bill advanced this far.

The House GOP’s other 17 bills this year are no longer breathing, however. Same goes for all five of the measures introduced by the Senate Minority Caucus.

Maybe they’ll come back next year. Yeah, right.