Two agriculture-related bills moving forward at the state Legislature would increase penalties for agricultural theft and allow farmers and ranchers to use deadly force against intruders under certain circumstances.

Senate bills 1248 and 1249, both introduced by Sen. Tim Richards (D-Kohala), have cleared the Committee on Agriculture and Environment. Both bills on Feb. 13 passed their second readings.

SB 1248, the stand-your-ground legislation, has been referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, while SB 1249, an omnibus agricultural measure, has been referred to a joint session of the Judiciary and Ways and Means committees.

SB 1248 would allow a farmer or rancher, under certain circumstances, to use deadly force without retreating.

Richards calls the measure the “Cranston Duke Pia Act.”

Pia was a 39-year-old Makaha rancher, who was — in Richards’ words — “executed in front of his mother” for protecting his cattle from hunting dogs on Feb. 17, 2024.

Pia died of a single gunshot wound to the head.

Chantston Pila Kekawa, then 17, of Maili, was charged as an adult with second-degree murder, first-degree terroristic threatening, firearm offenses and first-degree theft. He’s pleaded not guilty and has a trial scheduled for April 7 in Honolulu Circuit Court.

Richards said Pia’s mother visited his office four days after the shooting.

“Mutual friends brought her in with Cranston’s widow,” Richards said. “I gave her my word I would work very diligently on trying to make a difference, and not let Cranston’s murder be for nothing. That’s been my driver.

“We’ve hit some headwinds, as you can imagine … but it is making progress and it is highlighting the problems of crimes against agriculture.”

The measure received written testimony in support by the state Department of Agriculture, Ka­pa­pala Ranch, Hawaii Farm Bureau and Hawaii Cattlemen’s Council.

In her written testimony, Lani Cran Petrie of Kapapala Ranch in Kau said that she, as president of the Hawaii Cattlemen’s Council, presented a resolution in Pia’s memory earlier this month to a National Cattlemen’s Beef Association committee.

“The resolution was accepted by the committee and is moving towards its presentation to the full membership for vote at the next annual convention,” Petrie wrote, calling the response from fellow ranchers at the convention in San Antonio “humbling and overwhelming.”

The Hawaii Farm Bureau testified that Pia’s death “highlighted the vulnerabilities that agricultural workers face, particularly in remote areas where law enforcement response times may be delayed.”

“In recent years, the agricultural community has reported an increase in confrontations with trespassers, including incidents where farm workers and landowners have been physically threatened,” the testimony states. “In some cases, criminals have returned multiple times, emboldened by the knowledge that response times from law enforcement are slow or that penalties for agricultural crimes are minimal. Farmers and ranchers need stronger protections to defend themselves and their families when faced with imminent threats.”

Pia’s father, Mike Pia, told lawmakers in live testimony on Feb. 10, “I want to see this thing pass.”

“Until today, I still ask the question, why?” Mike Pia testified. “Why a young kid took my son away, my youngest son, of my four children?”

“I’m still grieving today. It’s very painful,” he said.

According to the FindLaw website, 29 states have some form of stand-your-ground law.

A companion bill to the omnibus agriculture bill, House Bill 859, was introduced by Rep. Matthias Kusch (D-Hilo, Hamakua) and passed its second reading on Feb. 5 after clearing the Committee on Agriculture.

The legislation’s intent is to establish an agricultural crime prevention program within the DOA to provide grants, education and other services to the state’s agricultural industry and to strengthen laws regarding agriculture theft and hunting on private agriculture lands.

“The meat and potatoes of this bill is that it more carefully lays out penalties for agricultural crimes,” said Kusch. “Right now … (perpetrators) don’t get pursued by prosecutors because it’s sort of nebulous. There are a lot of hurdles, like you have to catch someone with a camera and they would have had to have climbed over a sign saying ‘this fruit is not free.’”

“We’re talking about making it sting a little bit,” added Richards. “The perpetrators are stealing avocados or papayas, whatever. And what the attorney general is working on is to stiffen the fines to make them more expensive and changing laws from saying ‘may include jail time’ to ‘shall include jail time’ to lock these people up.”

Written testimony in support has been submitted by Hawaii County Prosecutor Kelden Waltjen, Honolulu Police Department, Hawaii Farm Bureau, the Hawaii Department of the Attorney General and the state Department of Agriculture.

Written testimony in opposition was submitted by the Office of the Public Defender.

Waltjen told the Hawaii Tribune-Herald on Tuesday that he supports the efforts by Richards and Kusch “to aid farmers and ranchers by providing funding to protect and secure their crops and livestock, establishing more appropriate penalties to hold offenders accountable to deter future crimes, and supporting local law enforcement with additional resources.”

“Agricultural crimes — including theft, trespass and poaching/hunting on private agricultural lands — have been an ongoing concern across our state,” Waltjen said. “To my knowledge, our office is the only law enforcement office in the state that conducts agriculture crime awareness and prevention efforts by visiting local farmers markets.

“Our investigators educate vendors and members of the public about agriculture theft, the impact of purchasing stolen fruits, vegetables and produce, laws regarding ownership and movement certificates, document recent agriculture theft incidents for victims, and share methods farmers and ranchers can employ to protect their crops, animals, produce and equipment.”

Waltjen said the measures, if passed, “will further support these types of efforts” statewide.

A bill aimed at protecting Hawaiʻi renters from algorithmic price-setting has cleared the Senate Commerce and Consumer Protection Committee, which has recommended passage on second reading and referral to the Judiciary and Ways and Means committees.

Senate Bill 157 Senate Draft 1 would prohibit the use of algorithmic price-setting in Hawaiʻi’s rental market. It would require the Department of the Attorney General to develop and undertake a public education program regarding the prohibition, and it would establish fines and penalties. A YouTube video of the committee hearing can be seen here.

According to a committee report, the bill’s purpose is to prevent artificially inflated rental prices by banning the use of algorithmic price-setting, which has been used in local housing markets to share private data, including current prices, available square footage, vacancy levels and the number of applicants for a particular unit.

The committee found that third-party price setters use that data to recommend rent and occupancy levels and advise landlords to hold some units off the market to raise the price of a unit, creating artificial scarcity and displacing island renters.

“Because Hawaiʻi already has the highest median rent in the nation, this measure will help ensure units are filled via competitive pricing, rather than through cooperation to set prices,” the committee report says.

In public testimony on the bill, Maui Chamber of Commerce President Pamela Tumpap said that while the chamber agrees that Maui rents were inflated by post-wildfire rental support practices of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the bill might be “challenging to enforce effectively.”

“We would encourage the consideration of additional proposals and innovative ideas to address the broader issue of escalating rental prices,” she said.

“We share this concern and are increasingly witnessing residents being forced to sleep in their cars due to the lack of affordable rental options,” Tumpap said.

Jordan Hocker, education and outreach coordinator for the Maui Housing Hui, a grass-roots organization formed after the 2023 Maui wildfires, said that rents in Maui County have gone up 44% in the last two years and were climbing even before the wildfires disaster.

“The rate of houselessness in the state of Hawaiʻi has grown by 87%,” she said. “We acknowledge that renters, those making 70% area median income and below, are most at risk of becoming unhoused and face the greatest challenges under our housing crisis.”

Hocker said a forward-thinking bill such as Senate Bill 157 is needed “to protect Hawai’i’s renters from the unrelenting condition of corporate greed and price-fixing to the detriment of our community.”

“Hawaiʻi’s renters cannot afford any additional compounding factors,” she said.

Michael EKM Olderr also supported the bill, saying: “These algorithmic, AI-driven rent pricing schemes prey on vulnerable tenants and exploit those who are struggling to have enough money to support themselves. They are driven not out of necessity to cover damages, mortgages, or upkeep costs but as a lazy attempt to satisfy a landlord’s greed.”

Lyndsey Garcia, director of advocacy for the Hawai‘i Association of REALTORS®, noted that in August 2024, the Department of Justice and eight states (not including Hawaiʻi) filed a lawsuit against software company RealPage.

The department alleges an unlawful information sharing scheme that allowed property managers to increase apartment rental prices through the use of RealPage’s algorithmic pricing tools. The lawsuit, which is still ongoing, does not currently target the property managers who utilize the tool, according to Garcia.

A proposal to help subsidize the installation of animal control fences is the only survivor of four bills in the state Legislature aimed at controlling pigs, goats and sheep.

Senate Bill 523, co- introduced by Kohala Sen. Tim Richards and Puna Sen. Joy San Buenaventura, would require the state Department of Agriculture to establish a biosecurity fencing cost-sharing program that would reimburse farmers up to a certain percentage of the cost of installing animal control fences.

As currently written, farmers who can demonstrate their active agricultural operations and have developed an “approved conservation plan” can apply to have “not less than 50%” of fencing expenses reimbursed.

The bill currently has a blank spot where an upper reimbursement limit per person would be established. Similarly, it does not yet specify what the program’s total yearly budget would be.

“People are afraid to go into their own backyards,” said San Buenaventura. “But the fencing cost per acre is huge.”

Bob Duerr, commissioner on the Big Island Game Management Advisory Commission, said the cost of fencing can reach $1 million per mile in some places. He added that fences have proved to be effective for animal management, driving problem animals from areas with fences to areas without.

“Large swaths of mauka lands in the hands of federal, state and private landowners are fenced and game animals eradicated,” Duerr said.

However, Duerr said, this also has interfered with hunters, who can no longer rely on access to their common hunting grounds.

“Hunting game animals for food is an effective population control that is disappearing,” Duerr said. “Fencing with access corridors is a must for game management.”

Other pig-related bills have failed to move through the Legislature. Another San Buenaventura bill, SB 315, died Wednesday when two Senate committees deferred the measure.

That bill would have expedited the Department of Land and Natural Resources’ permitting process to allow for the destruction of feral pigs on private land, if the animals have caused or are likely to cause substantial damage to crops.

House Bill 347, which would have prohibited the DLNR from establishing bag limits for goats in public hunting areas, also was deferred earlier this month, and a companion bill in the Senate hasn’t moved at all since being introduced.

Finally, Senate Bill 568 would have designated the DLNR as the state’s primary agency for trapping feral goats and sheep, and would require it to establish a program to humanely manage feral animal populations. That bill also has failed to move at all since its introduction, to Duerr’s chagrin.

“Though looking like having no chance of passing, this bill puts its finger on the game animal problem’s pulse,” Duerr said. “No one is responsible for the conservation and control of game animals in the state of Hawaii. At GMAC we have only seen DLNR talk about eradication, which means fencing tens of thousands of acres and killing all the ‘invasive’ game animals within.

“For years now at GMAC, we have not seen DLNR nuisance animal population studies or game management plans for problems beyond fence and kill.”