The Conference Committee members agreed yesterday on the final draft and voted unanimously to pass the bill. This final version of the bill prohibits all trade, possession and sale of shark fins and all shark harvest in the State and State waters. See the bill here.
The amendments added were an exemption for researchers and also a one year grace period to allow restaurants to clear out their existing inventory. Although many restaurants have already decided to remove shark fin soup from their menus voluntarily. The effective date of the bill has been set for July 1st, 2010. There are still two more votes to go - one in the Senate and one in the House. Hopefully both of these votes will take place this Friday. If it passes both votes, then it will go to the Governor to be signed into law.
Thank you all so much for all your letters and phone calls. It truly has made an enormous impact!!
At this time, let's take a moment to send a quick note to each of the Conference Committee members for putting in the extra effort to work through their differences and finalize the language of the bill very quickly. Without their cooperation and hard work, this bill could have easily missed the deadline and been pushed off to next year's legislative session. And please send an extra special thank you to Senator Clayton Hee!!
Following are the email addresses and phone numbers for each of the Conference Committee members:
Hawaii House of Representatives:
Representative Jon Riki Karamatsu - ph 808 586-8490 - e-mailrepkaramatsu@Capitol.hawaii.gov
Representative Ken Ito - ph 808 586-8470 - e-mail repito@Capitol.hawaii.gov
Representative Angus McKelvey - ph 808 586-6160 - e-mailrepmckelvey@Capitol.hawaii.gov
Representative Gene Ward - ph 808-586-6420 - email repward@Capitol.hawaii.gov
Hawaii Senate:
Senator Clayton Hee - ph 808-586-7330 - e-mail senhee@Capitol.hawaii.gov
Senator Brian T.Taniguchi - ph 808-586-6460 - e-mail sentaniguchi@Capitol.hawaii.gov
Senator Takamine - ph 808-586-7335 - e-mail sentakamine@capitol.hawaii.gov
Senator Sam Slom - ph 808-586-8420 - e-mail senslom@Capitol.hawaii.gov
