Hawaii’s Green Fee Is Paying For Beaches. And A Slaughterhouse.

Visitors began paying Hawaii’s new Green Fee this year with what most thought was a fairly clear understanding of the deal. The added cost would help protect the beaches, reefs, forests and other natural resources that bring people here to Hawaii in the first place.

Hawaii has now finalized its first major decisions about where that money will go. Most of the spending plan still funds exactly those kinds of projects. But it also includes one item few visitors would have expected: $200,000 for a cattle slaughterhouse. Governor Josh Green signed the state’s supplemental budget, authorizing approximately $129 million in Green Fee funding over 18 months for 91 projects spread across 11 state departments.

That does not mean Hawaii has already collected and spent the money. The budget authorizes up to $42 million connected with fiscal 2026 collections and another $87 million for fiscal 2027, with money left unspent or uncommitted eventually subject to a June 30, 2028, lapse provision.

That distinction is worth noting. Visitors cannot look at any restored trail, reef or beach and know that their Green Fee paid for it. That isn’t the case.

Green Fee spending goes against the original visitor promise.

The Green Fee Advisory Council reviewed hundreds of proposals before recommending a group of projects it believed were best fits for using the new revenue. Lawmakers were not required to adopt that list unchanged, and, in fact, they did not.

The final budget grew to 91 projects. While most remain connected to conservation, resilience or tourism, several additions are difficult to imagine when someone thinks about helping pay to protect Hawaii’s beaches and natural resources.

The largest is $7 million for a Food and Product Innovation Network. The final list also includes $800,000 for Americans with Disabilities Act compliance work at Waipahu High School, $350,000 for a sports and signature-events study and $200,000 for a cattle slaughterhouse.

Those four projects total $8.35 million, or about 6.5% of the approximately $129 million plan. That isn’t the focus of the Green Fee budget, and we are clearly stating that. It is still enough money to raise a fair question about where the boundaries are on Green Fee spending.

Even Green Fee Advisory Council Chair Jeff Mikulina described some of the additions as “head-scratchers.” Hawaii Public Radio reported that most of the changes were inserted through the Senate Ways and Means Committee.

Each project has supporters who can describe the public benefits. Better food development could strengthen local agriculture, disability improvements at a public school are worthwhile, sporting events may generate economic activity, and livestock infrastructure may reduce Hawaii’s dependence on imported food. But that isn’t the point.

Visitors paying the Green Fee just wouldn’t recognize them as the environmental and climate work they were promised the Green Fee would finance. So while beaches and reefs may still receive most of the money, the connection between the fee visitors pay and the promise they were given becomes harder to resolve.

That has not happened to most of the first $129 million. But what has happened is that visitors still can’t follow the money from payment to promised results.

Where Hawaii’s Green Fee money is actually going.

Anyone expecting the entire $129 million to have simply vanished into unrelated state expenses and the general fund will be happy to find that didn’t happen in the actual plan. A large share of the funding is directed toward environmental protection, climate resilience and projects visitors would readily recognize as connected with Hawaii’s natural resources. But not everything.

The original recommendations included nearly $20 million for beach restoration work at Ala Moana, Waikiki and West Maui. Those are places where erosion, disappearing sand and repeated restoration proposals have become increasingly visible to residents and visitors alike.

Other funding is headed towards community reforestation, habitat recovery and invasive-species control. Mosquito reduction intended to protect Hawaii’s remaining native forest birds is also included, along with marine management, coral work, fishpond restoration and projects connecting watersheds with the reefs below them.

As expected, wildfire prevention appears prominently too. That includes efforts to reduce invasive guinea grass and other vegetation that can turn dry areas into fuel, along with broader work intended to make communities more resilient before another emergency begins.

Cesspool conversions to septic systems and wastewater projects may not be the most visible or expected use of visitor money, but their connection with Hawaii’s beaches and coastal water quality is direct. Poorly treated wastewater does not remain underground, and protecting reefs eventually requires dealing with what enters the water from the land.

Some of this work has already begun moving beyond a line in the budget. The Department of Land and Natural Resources recently opened an approximately $8 million request for proposals through its Hoola Aina program for community forest, watershed, wetland and invasive-species projects, with proposals due August 17. That is not yet a completed conservation project visitors can see.

Most of the spending still looks similar to the promise Hawaii made when it asked visitors to pay more. The money is more pointed toward beaches, forests, reefs, wildfire prevention and environmental systems under growing pressure than anything else.

Why visitors still can’t track Green Fee money goals.

Beyond the slaughterhouse and other pet projects seemingly unrelated to the Green Fee’s stated purposes, a visitor paying the Green Fee still has no easy way to see how much has been collected, where each dollar has been committed, and what the funded projects eventually achieve. That may in fact be the more consequential problem, more than the slaughterhouse or the sports study.

Hawaii lawmakers also recognized the same gap during the 2026 session. House Bill 1949 proposed a public Green Fee Resiliency Impact Dashboard that would show revenue collected, project allocations, money obligated and spent, project locations, timelines and measurable results.

The proposal itself said the public lacked a readily accessible source showing how Green Fee revenue was being used, a notable admission for a fee already appearing on visitor lodging bills. The problem is that the Senate committee handling the bill deferred it back in April, which effectively killed it for the 2026 session.

Visitors can look for government announcements, legislative documents and individual agency programs. What they cannot find is one clear public place showing how much Green Fee revenue has actually been collected, how much each project has been awarded, whether contracts have been issued, when work is happening and whether the promised environmental results occurred.

That difference will become more important as these first projects advance. Announcing $20 million for beaches or $8 million for conservation creates an expectation, but an appropriation is not the same as listing a restored beach or reef.

What comes next for Hawaii’s Green Fee accountability?

The first $129 million plan does not address the easiest versions of either side of this debate. The money has not all disappeared into unrelated spending, but neither has every allocation remained within the boundaries visitors probably expected. And none of it is within easy reach of the visitors paying

Most of the plan still funds recognizable environmental, climate and resilience work. But outliers are pointing toward a much broader interpretation of what the Green Fee was intended to support.

Does this first spending plan still justify the Green Fee visitors are now paying? Or should Hawaii place stronger restrictions on what that money can finance before the definition stretches further?

Lead Photo Credit: © Beat of Hawaii.

By Rob and Jeff, Beat of Hawaii.

Some of the most meaningful parts of Hawaii are the ones visitors walk right past without knowing they are there. We’ve spent nearly 20 years finding them firsthand for BOH as full-time Hawaii residents reporting on travel, culture, and island life, and telling you what they mean for your trip. Join us →