$800 million Maui wildfire settlement closes in on final approval at Legislature

House and Senate conference committees are recommending final passage of House Bill 1001, which provides more than $800 million in fiscal years 2026 and 2027 for deposit into the Maui wildfires settlement fund for a “timely and compassionate resolution” for fire survivors.

The bill commits the state to spending $400 million in fiscal 2026 and $407.5 million in fiscal 2027. The funding is for the state’s share of a $4.037 billion global settlement of lawsuits from plaintiffs who suffered losses and injury in the Aug. 8, 2023, Maui wildfires that claimed at least 102 lives and destroyed more than 2,000 buildings. The Hawaiʻi Supreme Court approved the settlement in February.

Hawaiian Electric and its parent company, Hawaiian Electric Industries, the State of Hawaiʻi, Maui County, Kamehameha Schools, West Maui Land Co., Hawaiian Telcom and Spectrum/Charter Communications have agreed on the terms of the settlement.

According to a Senate Ways and Means Committee report on the bill, the panel found that the 2023 Maui wildfires “had a devastating impact on the residents of Maui,” and that “encouraging a swift and fair resolution to claims arising from this tragic event will help to alleviate the burden on the judicial system and foster community support, unity and recovery.”

The Senate Ways and Means Committee received written comments in support of the bill from the Office of the Governor, Attorney General, Maui County Council Chair Alice Lee and Hawaiʻi Association for Justice.

The bill also has been reviewed by the Senate Committee on Energy and Intergovernmental Affairs. The committee report notes the committee’s “recognition of concerns from both legislators and the public regarding the long-term financial ability of other defendant parties to timely fulfill their obligations under the Maui wildfires settlement agreements.”

The Senate Committee on Energy and Intergovernmental Affairs amended the measure to require:

• Each defendant party, other than the State, to submit to the Attorney General a plan and evidence of the respective defendant’s ability to pay its share of the settlement.
• All defendant parties, other than the State, pay their share of the settlement into escrow accounts before the State releases its share of the settlement.

The Ways and Means Committee shared the same concerns and “wants to ensure that all defendants named in the settlement can equitably pay their portion of the settlement in a timely manner.”

The committee noted that the administration of Gov. Josh Green did not provide periodic updates to the Legislature on the progress of global settlement negotiations as they were being conducted.

“Your committee believes that more transparency is needed to make it clear that all parties to the settlement will adhere to the terms of the settlement,” the Ways and Means Committee report says.

After receiving testimony from the state Department of the Attorney General, the committee amended the bill to remove language that would have required:

• Each defendant party to the settlement, except the state, to: submit a plan and evidence to the Attorney General of the defendant’s ability to pay its share of the settlement as the payments come due under the settlement; and pay into an escrow account the defendant’s share of the settlement 30 days before the payments become due under the settlement agreement.
• All defendant parties to pay their share of the settlement before the state released its share.

Written public testimony on the bill is available here, here, here and here.

House Bill 1001 now advances to the full House and Senate for final votes before being forwarded to Gov. Josh Green, who is expected to sign the measure into law.

In September, the Department of the Attorney General released a report prepared by the Fire Safety Research Institute that determined the wildfire disaster that reduced most of historic Lahaina town to ashes and debris did not stem from a single cause. Instead, the conflagration came about because of “a complex set of factors including weather and its impacts, risk and preparedness, decades-old infrastructure, organizational structure and incident management and coordination.”