Former Biotech Legislator of the Year to Head House Agriculture Committee
Advocates hoping to pass new state-level restrictions on pesticides and genetically-modified organisms say their prospects for the upcoming legislative session are grim.
The Hawaii Independent // The Rotunda
November 13, 2014
Representative Clift Tsuji (House District 2, Keaukaha, Hilo, Panaʻewa, Waiākea) has been named as the Hawaiʻi State House Committee on Agriculture (AGR) chair, leaving advocates hoping to pass new state-level restrictions on pesticides and genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) looking at grim prospects for the upcoming legislative session.
Tsuji is unpopular enough with anti-pesticide and anti-GMO activists that a petition asking that he not be appointed chair of the committee collected more than 5,000 signatures.
Agrochemical corporations have been featured in Tsuji’s top five campaign donations list the past four election cycles, dating back to 2008. In 2010, Tsuji—along with former Speaker of the House, Representative Calvin Say (House District 20, St. Louis Heights, Pālolo, Wilhelmina Rise, Kaimukī)—was named “Biotech Legislator of the Year” by the largest biotech trade group in the country, the Biotechnology Industry Organization. Tsuji was serving as the AGR chair then, too, but that was under the leadership of the highly conservative Say.
Now Tsuji is replacing former AGR chair Representative Jessica Wooley (House District 48, Kāneʻohe, Kahaluʻu, Waiāhole), an environmental progressive who became AGR chair last year when Representative Joseph Souki (House District 8, Kahakuloa, Waiheʻe, Waiehu, Puʻuohala, Wailuku, Waikapū) replaced Say as speaker after organizing an unusual coalition that relied on both liberal Democrats and Republicans.
Wooley tried unsuccessfully to get GMO-labeling legislation passed last session, and was friendly toward the pursuit of further regulations on the biotech and agrochemical industries. It seemed likely that the agribusinesses would aggressively campaign to prevent her re-election, but she was tapped by Governor Abercrombie to serve as Director of the Office of Environmental Quality Control (OEQC) instead.
While the State Senate has given progressive senator Russell Ruderman (Senate District 2, Puna, Kaʻū) the Senate Committee on Agriculture (AGL) and progressive senator Laura Thielen (Senate District 25, Kailua, Lanikai, Enchanted Lake, Maunawili, Waimānalo, Hawaiʻi Kai, Portlock) the Senate Committee on Water and Land (WTL), Tsuji’s appointment is a shift backwards toward conservative, corporate-friendly policy and politics in the lower chamber of the Hawaiʻi State Legislature.
