 Good afternoon, viewers, and welcome to the Will of the People on Think Tech Hawaii. My name is Martha Randolph, and I am your host. Our topic today will be the recent passage of Senate Bill 3095. It is a historic bill, which is supporting the fight against the abuse of use of toxic chemicals by agribusinesses in Hawaii. My guest today is Gary Hooser, who I love to call a political progressive, who has represented the state of Hawaii—represented Kauai and Nihao in the state Senate, and he was the director for environmental quality control for the state of Hawaii during the Abacame administration. He is currently president of the board of directors for the Hawaii Alliance for Progressive Action, and he is also executive director for Pono Hawaii Initiative, P.H.I., was recently erected as the vice chair of the Democratic Party of Hawaii, and he and Hapa were very instrumental in getting SB 3095 passed and signed into law. So welcome, Gary, and thank you so much for appearing on this show. Thank you, Martha. Thank you for having me. Yeah. Now, I am going to just turn right over to you and say, can you tell us a little bit about what SB 3095 actually is and why its passage has been so important for Hawaii and as something that may help other states in our country? Why is it necessary to support these regulations, which supposedly are passed down by the federal government? Well, thank you for asking. You know, SB 3095 was a first in the nation, first in Hawaii, not first of all, Hawaii has never passed anything meaningful regulating restricted-use pesticides or the agrochemical companies. This started for me and for a lot of other people about five years ago on Kaua'i. We did a bill called Bill 2491, a similar type of measure requiring disclosure and buffer zones, and we fought against the five of the largest chemical companies in the world. Disclosure and buffer zones for what, particularly? We should use pesticides and the growing of genetically modified organisms. We fought against Sanjenta, Dow Chemical, Dupont, BASF, Monsanto was not on Kaua'i at the time. It was a long, hard-fought battle. There were more people that showed up at those meetings in any time in history for Kaua'i and we won. But then they took us to court and they won. And so the court said the state has to be the one to regulate our pesticides. So we then moved that battle to the state legislature. People from all over, from Maui, from Hawai'i County, from here, lots of organizations, the Center for Food Safety, Hawai'i Seed, the Sierra Club, lots of organizations lined up, the Hawai'i teachers, to say that the state of Hawai'i needs to protect the health and environment of its community. First of all, the children, because chlorpyrophose is a chemical that was banned. It's a four-year phasing ban. It's proven to damage the brains of developing children in the fetus. And this evidence, the evidence for that, has been with the federal government for some time, I believe, long before the protests for use on this island existed. Isn't that correct? It's absolutely correct. This chemical was banned for the use inside homes for residential use a number of years ago. It was proven. They knew then that it harms the brains of children. But the chemical industry and big business and big government pushed back against banning it for outdoor use. Hawai'i was the first in the nation. It's a phased-in ban, but it's the first state in the nation to do this. Isn't it interesting enough just a couple of weeks ago, a U.S. federal court ruled that the EPA now must ban it statewide. The Trump administration, zoo director, has been fighting that. Absolutely. Absolutely. They're just directed, and they have 60 days to ban it nationwide. Nationwide. OK. And I think if you can please explain to our viewers what you mean when you say phased in, because if you read the actual law, it does give corporations the option of requesting, from the federal government, permission to continue using this dangerous chemical until 2022. Now are they—if they do, are they still required to limit where they use it in terms of the distance from schools and other such things and not using it as a spray? The bill had about five major components. The four-year ban of chlorpyrifos was one of the most important ones. And that means after four years you can't use it in the state of Hawai'i at all. But initially farmers or people that are using it now can't continue using it. They have to apply for a special permit and that permits public information and they cannot use it within—it's only 100 feet of schools during school hours or yes. And there's also full disclosure of all restricted use pesticide use, not just this one chemical, but all. There is probably 90 different restricted use pesticides used in the state of Hawai'i. For the first time, every user will have to publicly disclose their use, how much they use, what they use, and where they use it. OK. And do you, as an organization or an individual, do you approach these companies or their boards of directors and try to speak to them, person to person, as an individual, basically saying, you know what this does. And you are using it anyway, recognizing that you have concerns and profits and this is what your purpose is. Do you feel OK about this? Do you fear any kind of comeback at you when the general public discovers what you've been doing? Why would you continue to do this? I know this may sound terribly naive, but I feel it necessary to ask the question because presumably the people who run these organizations are people and they have children and they should certainly they don't have their own children living in these areas. So do you guys try that? Do you get the chance? It's interesting that you ask that question. Yes, we try it. Yes, I personally tried it. Most people they think, well, let's just get everybody at the table and we can work this out. And I did try that. Unfortunately, the people that manage these businesses are not the ones making the decisions. The decisions are made in Chicago or in Zurich or in some other place in the world. And when I tried, the first thing I did when I started down this path five years ago, I met with the heads of the local heads of these companies and asked them for the basic information. Just tell me what you're doing so I can make my decisions. And they refused to do that. And then they proceed to lie and mislead and not tell you things. So it was a very frustrating experience trying to work with them. And then you realize at some point I realize that these are people, but the corporations aren't people. The corporations are driven by profits and profits alone. And they believe that is most important. But they'll lie. They'll say things like we need this to feed the world. They will say that we have to grow all these crops and use all these chemicals and do all this GMO to feed the world. And then you say, what are you growing? And the truth is they're growing corn for ethanol or for cattle feed or for high fructose corn syrup. And you don't feed the world with sugar and meat and ethanol. Very little of what they do. They're designing crops that withstand pesticides. And then they're selling these people more pesticides. So it's a profit motive. And you're dealing with corporations who are thugs and criminals on an international scale. They are doing major harm to the environment and the health of people in countries all over the world. And they justify it on the basis of their profits and their right to pursue what I have to refer to as a capitalist agenda. I actually went to Basel, Switzerland, which is the corporate headquarters of Singenta, which is now Kim China. They're based in Basel, Switzerland. And I spoke to the board of directors and 900 members of the board. I was invited to speak from an activist group who got me on the agenda. And I spoke to the members and I asked them, I said, don't do in my community what you're not allowed by law to do in your own town. Exactly. You know, they're not allowed to use atrazine orchlorperifos in Switzerland. They can't even grow GMO crops in Switzerland. But the companies in my town and your town in our community are doing this very same thing. Exactly. I think this is ironic, because as you probably remember, those of us of a certain age do, when DDT was banned in the United States, the companies that made it and used it went to third-world countries. India appeased to mind immediately and freely and happily used these substances, which were banned in America. And they were allowed to get away with it. And the people living in those countries had no recourse to legal action. And in many cases, when they tried to sue, even if they won their case, it did not apply to the corporation, which was based in the United States. So in a way, this is karma. This, this turnabout, is fair play. The problem is it's our people being affected, and which shows you why you have to be a conscious voter. And they treat the state of Hawaii the same way they treated those other countries in the past. They come in and they employ people. And then they enroll those people to be on their team because they want to keep their jobs. And then they spread money around the community. They fund football teams and baseball teams and the Chamber of Commerce and all these organizations. They put a lot of money in the community. So it keeps the community quiet. People don't want to complain. They don't want to rock the boat because of the money that these companies are bringing in. But we're winning. You know, Senate Bill 3095, the first in the nation, other states are going to follow our lead. There was a major court case last week that Monsanto was fined $289 million for glyphosate and causing this man's cancer. And there's 8,000 people lined up behind him. They're going to appeal it. It's going to take years. Of course. But that judge raked Monsanto over the coals for withholding information, for providing false information. They do what they call research shopping. They'll do research and they won't tell them what they want to hear. So then they'll keep looking for studies until they find some studies that support what they're doing. And they don't tell the public about those other studies. No, of course not. The other thing is I wanted to start on a topic. You mentioned some of the early efforts you had on the island of Kauai. I remember that incident, by the way. But in the process of getting this bill through the legislature, you must have faced some interesting objections because, unfortunately, many of our representatives have dual agendas. Many of which are related to the funding they get from these organizations. So how long did it actually take, from the time of being told by the courts that you have to present it to the state and go through the state, to actually getting this through the legislature and on the desk of the governor, who I have to give him credit, signed it, and seems to be supporting these entire actions? It's probably four years from the time the courts ruled until we pass this into law. And it's good news and bad news. I'm thrilled. I'm very happy that we passed it. But that's three years of more people being exposed and more health and environmental harms that were caused that didn't need to be caused. And what were the barriers that presented? Were there individuals who actually put a block on it? Or did they keep throwing it back to the courts or asking for more information? What seemed to be the biggest problem? I spent eight years in the Hawaii State Senate representing Kauai and the majority leader for four years. So I understand how things work. And the system set up where certain committee chairs, certain individuals have inordinate power. And what happened is our bill got blocked over and over again in the Senate and then got blocked in the House. It never got anywhere. And the name of the show is Will of the People. Is that what you call it? OK, that's why we passed this into law. It passed unanimous at the end of the day. Unanimous in the House and the Senate because people showed up and knocked on doors. People called. People sent emails. We overwhelmed that building and those legislators with testimony, science-based testimony, real reality based from children, from teachers. And it was just this relentless. And I have to tell people, remind people, as you know, their word helps and it matters. When they fill out that testimony, I'd get calls from people saying, you want me to do this again? You know, they've been doing it for three or four years. And I'd say, yes, please. And they did it again. And we won. And I played a role in Hoppe did. But it really was thousands of people. I had legislators tell me, stop already. They come in and their voicemails full. They have too many emails. And the Hawaii State Teachers Association, the nurses came in to support us. We had the pediatricians, American Academy of Pediatrics stepping up to the plate. But there was roadblock after roadblock. After we won, the industry put up two of their lobbyists and an employee to run for state senate in the same house this past election. They both lost in the primary. But that was their reaction. An employee of DEL Chemical on Kauai ran against a state house member who was supporting our bill. And another person ran for the senate, former lobbyist, former senator. So this is something very important to pay attention to, that these corporations do not give up when a law is passed against them. They will put through their candidate. And unfortunately, this sounds very similar to some of the stuff we've been seeing in the federal government, which is someone with a personal interest or a corporate interest basically takes their money and tries to put someone in a position to battle against and prevent any further laws being passed. So we are going to be moving to a little break in a short time. And then after that, Gary, I hope we can come back and talk a little more about HAPPA and your other organizations, what they do, how you put them together, and how people can participate more aggressively. By the way, thank you for your recommendations for the primary. I really enjoyed that. Thank you. And so this is Martha Randolph. The show is The Will of the People. And we have been talking about The Will of the People with SB 3095 to limit and control the spread of pesticide use by GMOs and agribusiness in Hawaii. Thank you. Aloha. I am Howard Wigg. I am the proud host of Cold Green for Think Tech Hawaii. I appear every other Monday at 3. And I have really, really exciting guests on the exciting topic of energy efficiency. Hope to see you there. Aloha. I'm Wendy Lo, and I'm coming to you every other Tuesday at 2 o'clock live from Think Tech Hawaii. And on our show, we talk about taking your health back. And what does that mean? It means mind, body, and soul. Anything you can do that makes your body healthier and happier is what we're going to be talking about, whether it's spiritual health, mental health, fascia health, beautiful smile health, whatever it means. Let's take healthy back. Aloha. Hi, everyone. Welcome back to The Will of the People. Today, my guest is Gary Hauser. And we're talking about Senate Bill 3095, which limits the use and control and regulates pesticide usage in the state of Hawaii by agribusiness and GMOs. But Gary has a wide-ranging access. And he has wonderful organizations which we'd like to talk more about. So, Gary, can you tell me about HAPPA, which is the Hawaiian Alliance for Progressive Action? How did it get formed? What are your agendas? And I believe you have a training program for first-time politicians or candidates. I'd like you to tell us all about it. Great. I'd be happy to. HAPPAHI.org, if someone wants to find out more about us. The Hawaii Alliance for Progressive Action was formed about three years ago. And it came from conversations we have with people. You sit around and you talk about how we're going to make the world a better place. And I realized, and the people I was talking with realized there really isn't any overarching or broad-based progressive groups. There are mostly been silos. There'll be gay rights groups. There'll be environmental groups. There'll be labor groups. But there aren't any that really cover the spectrum of progressive values, Port of View. So we thought that we should start this. And it's a statewide organization. We have a broad base of board members on every island, people in the environmental community, in the native Hawaiian community, in the environmental community. And we raise money and have programs that we do. And one of the main programs we do is a program called the Kuliana Academy. Kuliana Academy identifies trains and new emerging leaders, political leaders. And the reason this came about is it's an interesting story because it ties to the GMO pesticide action. On Maui, they put a ballot initiative to ban Monsanto, basically. It was a moratorium on Monsanto's GMO crops. But they put it on the ballot. And over half the people, over half the voters on Maui said, yes, we want to do this. And then they launched in court also, Monsanto sued them. But it got me thinking, half the voters on Maui, half of those people want to support something that's pretty radical, that's pretty progressive, regulating Monsanto. How come they're not electing more progressive candidates? And we came to the conclusion was we didn't have good candidates. We had good people, but not good candidates. We had people with sometimes a single issue. They have purple mohawks. They don't know how to run a campaign. So we started this campaign leadership training program. We've done three of them so far. This last election, out of that training program, two people were elected to the state house. Two new house members, solid progressives, came out of this program. That's fantastic. Another two or three came very close. Many are still in the running now. And they're all, I hate generalities, but they're all looking at 2020 also. The people they lost are saying, we're in this for the long term. And we feel really good about that. HAPA is a 501c3. We don't actually support the candidates. We train them. We're an education. So we teach them how to run a campaign, how to raise money, how to public speaking, how to knock on doors and talk about issues. But then we send them off and they run their own campaigns. They choose to run or not. That's what HAPA does. We also do other community work, but that's our main program right now. And is that a program which is supported financially or do they have to pay a fee to be a part of it? And are there any connections to that fee payment? They're, each, it's a competitive process. So we take applications from around the state. People apply. They tell us why they should be accepted into the program. Because we limit it to 15 people. We usually have about 30 or 40 people that might apply. And if they're accepted, part of their agreement is to attend these classes. And they're five or six weekend retreats over three months. We actually fly everybody in. And we all stay at the hotel. And it's really. You fly them, you pay for that? Yes, we pay for that. We pay for the trainers. And we ask them to commit to raising $1,000, not just take out of their pocket, not to spend, not to take, but to use their fundraising skills because we teach them how to raise money. So teach them how to go ask 10 people for $100 or 20 people for $50 to help them pay for this program. The actual cost is closer to $6,000 per student. And that's raised out in the broader community. So that's one of the main programs is a Cullian Academy. We've done three cohorts. We have about 60 graduates. This last election cycle, about 17 of them ran for public office. Yeah, and I saw a large list of people. And they're good, solid people. They're not only just progressive, but they're bold. They've got their people of character. They're articulate. They're thoughtful. They're really solid group. And Hawaii will be blessed by any of them getting elected, in my opinion. And two of them were successful. OK, now I have a quandary here, which is part of me. I would like to discuss with you the significance of the recent primaries and the lack of participation by voters, which has been chronic here in Hawaii. And I'd like to talk as well about the reality of trying to run for office in this state when you are new, if you don't have massive funding so you can put out massive commercials and such things. But at the same time, I'd like to know about your other organization. So if you can briefly tell us about that, and then hopefully we have time to talk about the actual election process. Because for years now, it has been clear that whether it's local office or national office, it is difficult to run and be successful without a whole bunch of money behind you, which is one of the things that we are discovering. Our democracy, or so-called democracy, is being purchased right out of pocket by people with big, good bucks. And our focus is on local elections, council, and state legislative offices. The bar is a little bit lower in terms of money. If people are interested in our next Kuliana Academy program, they can go to our website. And put their name on a list too. And we'll talk more about the realities of running and winning. But first, I'll talk about the Pono Hawaii Initiative. So the Pono Hawaii Initiative, I'm the executive director. I run the day-to-day business of that. That is a political organization in the sense that it's actively lobbies for bills and it actively supports candidates. It's totally separate from HAPA. There's no redundancy in the board or the staff or the budgets. That kind of thing's totally separate. And we've been trying to help candidates actually run. And by endorsing them, providing funds for mailers, that kind of thing, to support the candidate. My philosophy on elections is that it ultimately belongs to the candidate. The candidate's responsible. Nobody can be blamed other than the candidate. And if a candidate is willing to knock on doors, and this is one of the lessons, recurring themes for the Kuliana Academy. We have governors, former governors, we have all these people come in and talk, say house members to the class. And the question is, what does it take to win? And universally, it's about knocking on doors. It's about hard work. And it's not so much about money. You have to have some money on the local level. But it's really about working. And if you have less money, you have to work harder. You have to have roots in the community. You can't just parachute into a community and live there for a year and expect people to embrace you. So the ideal candidate is somebody with roots. Ideally, they'd been to school there, but at least they've been involved in various organizations. They have some track record of leadership. And they're willing to knock on those doors and raise the money. The two that were elected to the State House from our Academy, it was the first time for both of them. First time for both of them. That's fantastic. Now, so just let me to repeat. Basically, the Pono Action, the Pono Hawaii Initiative, I'm sorry, all these letters. That is a lobbying group. That is a group that puts forward political actions. And it is separate. It is not a nonprofit organization. It is separate from HAPA, which is more of an educational situation. But HAPA was very much more involved in the passage of SB 3095, which any action by the other group would have been separate. Absolutely. The 501c3s are allowed a certain percentage of their budget to be used for lobbying. HAPA is a 501c3. Donations to HAPA are tax-deductible. For sure, you cannot actively support candidates. But you can do a little bit of lobbying. Pono Hawaii Initiative can do 51% lobbying and 49% candidates. So it's more purely political. And the contributions are not tax-deductible. OK, so just to review, is there more that is going to be done similar to 3095 that will continue to advance and make more aggressive the limitations on what these huge agribusinesses are doing? Since, as you say, they are corporation mentality. Now, the fact that the Supreme Court has indicated that a corporation is an individual, which is very disturbing to me, means that they have rights, which before that decision was made, they did not have. So how are you going to battle, or how many other battles are out there maybe right now that the public should know about? When I say we, it's a collective we. It's HAPA, Pono Hawaii Initiative to a certain extent, and other organizations. So it's not just me. I want to be clear on that. We're looking at an agenda, 2019 agenda, that's going to encompass raising a minimum wage to at least $15 an hour, publicly funded elections, the legalization of cannabis, recreational use by responsible adults, and bail reform. Those are my personal priorities. And I believe they're going to emerge among a broader group as being privateers. We're going to fight for those really hard. And with the pesticides and the GMOs, we're going to go to the Department of Education. We're going to the Department of Education and say, you know, there's a plenty of evidence. You don't need more science on glyphosate and these chemicals to say they shouldn't be used on school grounds. So they could do that without a law. And I don't think they should be used on school grounds whether the kids are in the school or not. Because clearly, if they're not in school, they're not going to catch it the next day when it's on the ground. So I think that little thing that you added is something that has to be looked at. Because it doesn't have to be a law. We don't need five years to pass a law. The Department of Education and the Board of Education Department could say, you know, there's plenty of evidence. We're going to at least temporarily for a year or two till we figure this out, stop using herbicides and insecticides, pesticides on school grounds. So that's what we're hopeful that the administration of the schools will recognize the value of this and voluntarily do it. And we're confident that parents and teachers are going to line up behind us and demand this as well. That's fantastic. So we are getting ready to wind up. So we will have to get to other subjects on another day. This is Martha Randolph. The program has been the will of the people. And we have talked with Gary Hauser about the passage of SB 3095, which is the first in this state that is putting limitations on the use of pesticides by GMOs and agribusiness. And I have so many more questions. So Gary, I hope you will join me again, and we will pick this up. I hope you have the two. Run with it, especially before the elections if I can manage it. All right, ladies and gentlemen, please come and join me again in two weeks when we will be speaking with a surprise guest. I will let you know as soon as I've got it confirmed. Thank you very much. Bye-bye.