Drawing on the lessons from Hawaii Superferry and the euphoria over the University of Hawai'i football team for inspiration, state House and Senate leaders yesterday said it is possible for people to overcome their differences and work together to find a balance between economic growth and environmental protection.

In speeches on the opening day of the state Legislature, lawmakers discussed the major themes of a session that will unfold against a backdrop of a slowing state economy. For the most part, they avoided specific policy details and instead spoke hopefully about the still elusive concept of sustainability.

It was a natural, given how Superferry and UH football dominated the public conversation over the past several months, for lawmakers to use the examples to make larger points about how progress can come from adversity.

State Senate President Colleen Hanabusa, D-21st (Nanakuli, Makaha), said the two events showed her — in stark terms — how the state was at a crossroads.

The controversy over whether Superferry should have been subjected to environmental review before it launched, she said, was "about people feeling irrelevant, ignored and helpless."

"It was about communities dividing, positions hardening and people losing hope. But worst of all, it was about fear: the fear that one's future was no longer within one's control; the fear that tomorrow belongs to them — and not to us; the fear that that ferry somehow symbolized our future, good or bad, and whether we like it or not; the fear of what is the future? What is the Hawai'i that we will have in 20 to 40 years?"

The Warriors' perfect regular season and Sugar Bowl experience, in contrast, was a "phenomenon that made it clear that the people of this state can pull together," she said.

CONDITIONS AT UH

State House Speaker Calvin Say, D-20th (St. Louis Heights, Palolo Valley, Wilhelmina Rise), said it was not time to reopen the Superferry debate, "but it is time to recognize this is not the way to solve Hawai'i's problems. Confrontation may bring temporary satisfaction to a few, but it will never bring long-term solutions for the many."

Say said he was saddened by the departure of UH football coach June Jones to Southern Methodist University in Dallas, but said his leaving drew attention to the deplorable conditions at the university.

Say promised UH administrators, on behalf of the House, that the House would do its share to reduce the UH repair and maintenance backlog.

"Regardless of the tough budget problems we face this year, we must find the money to help the university deal with this crisis," he said.

Over the next week, House and Senate Democrats will release the details of their majority packages, which will emphasize issues such as education, healthcare, environmental protection, agriculture and smart growth.

A joint Democratic package, scheduled for release tomorrow, will address UH repair and maintenance, housing and energy and the environment, including an assessment of the state's environmental review law that was at the crux of the Superferry debate.

NO SURRENDER ON TAXES

State Senate Minority Leader Fred Hemmings, R-25th (Kailua, Waimanalo, Hawai'i Kai), used his opening-day remarks to discuss environmental protection, the carrying capacity of tourism, and the limits of development. He offered to work constructively with Hanabusa on the Democrats' priorities, many of which he said Republicans share.

But Hemmings, who fought back a leadership challenge in his four-member caucus, said Republicans would not surrender on issues such as tax relief, greater accountability in public school spending and new laws to protect people from criminals.

State House Minority Leader Lynn Finnegan, R-32nd (Lower Pearlridge, 'Aiea, Halawa), gave perhaps the most substantive speech yesterday. She said House Republicans want to eliminate taxes on food, expand transitional services available at homeless shelters to all levels of government housing assistance for the poor, require interlock ignition devices for repeat drunken drivers and seek a management audit of the Department of Education.

House Republicans, she said, also favor medical-malpractice insurance reform and a constitutional convention in 2010.

Finnegan also mentioned repair and maintenance at UH, but pointedly asked how the situation reached crisis level.

"We have and will be appropriating millions of dollars to catch up on the long list of repairs. But how did we get to here in the first place? It has been decades of neglect," she said. "We need to look at ways to avoid this from happening again in the future. We owe it to you to plan, prepare and preserve our state facilities and our tax dollars."

STATE OF STATE SPEECH

Gov. Linda Lingle, who will discuss her initiatives for the session at her State of the State speech on Tuesday, told The Advertiser this week that she is encouraged by the common themes she shares with House and Senate Democrats, such as greater energy independence and a shift away from unchecked growth.

The Republican governor has increasingly been telling audiences that she and majority Democrats "are getting the big things right." Hanabusa and Say, to some extent, agree, citing issues such as keeping Kukui Gardens in Chinatown as affordable housing, working to place utility poles underground along the Leeward Coast, and the special session to save Superferry.

"Things are going in the direction we feel they should be going as far as what issues we focus on," Lingle said. "We have not, in my recollection — and this will be my sixth time going downstairs in this capacity — we have not veered off and gotten distracted on one issue the way I'd watched previously where it would be gambling for the whole session or it would be same-sex marriage for the whole session.

"I think just the avoidance of that has been a good thing, because it has allowed us all to keep focus where the community wants us focused, on these major issues that will impact what kind of future we'll have here."

Lingle said she would talk about the state's financial situation in her speech, not necessarily as a negative, but as context for the session. She said she still plans to call for modest, targeted tax relief because she believes it is essential public policy.

"It is just essential that we do something to bring down the cost of living for the families in our state," she said.

State lawmakers are required by the Hawai'i Constitution to adopt a tax refund this session because the budget surplus exceeded projected revenues by 5 percent for two straight years. But Democratic leaders are not contemplating significant tax relief because of the state's financial picture.

Opening day, a traditional day of food, song and talk story, had added buzz this year with the presence of some of the coaches and players from UH's Western Athletic Conference champion teams in football, women's volleyball and women's soccer. In the Senate, the recognition for Warriors' players in the gallery and later the introduction of new football coach Greg McMackin prompted standing ovations.

ANTI-GMO ACTIVISTS

Activists took advantage of the crowds and news media yesterday to urge the state House Agriculture Committee to hear a bill that would put a 10-year moratorium on experiments with genetically modified taro, which stalled last session.

Genetic engineering has been controversial but the cultural importance of taro makes it a particularly sensitive issue for some Native Hawaiians who do not want unrelated genes inserted into a plant they consider sacred.

However, some experts in taro, plant pathology and genetic engineering hosted their own session yesterday at the YWCA across from the state Capitol to explain how research creating resistant strains of taro could protect against devastating diseases.

Genetically modifying some taro, they believe, could potentially make it possible to protect traditional and organic strains of taro.

Anti-GMO taro protesters were not the only ones trying to get lawmakers' ears yesterday, but most were more subtle. Lobbyists, bureaucrats, retirees, schoolchildren and others mingled in crowded hallways and streamed into offices to talk with legislators and sample the buffets.

Lautoa Atisanoe Jr., a project coordinator for the state Public Housing Authority, for example, took a break to eat a plate of Filipino food before talking to lawmakers about affordable housing.

"Right now, I think we're in dire straits," he said. "I think they're ready to work together."

Fifth- and sixth-grade students from Waipahu Elementary School were there to take it all in — with plans to make a video about opening day for their multimedia class.

"It's going to have the message that people in politics are just like us," said sixth-grader Talaluva Salakielu.

Reach Derrick DePledge at ddepledge@honoluluadvertiser.com and Treena Shapiro at tshapiro@honoluluadvertiser.com.