Keeping the Country Country: Last month, Ikaika Anderson, chair of the Honolulu City Council’s Zoning and Planning Committee, proposed gutting all references in the draft Ko`olau Loa Sustainable Communities Plan (KLSCP) to a new residential community in Malaekahana. In his … Continued
When the Hawai`i Legislature passed Senate Bill 1087 in 2013, the bill was hailed as a way to democratize access to energy-saving technology, such as rooftop photovoltaic installations. Nearly two years later, as the program anticipated in the legislation is … Continued
March 2015
Two years after passage of a law intended to jumpstart the purchase of renewable energy technology by underserved customers, Environment Hawai`i takes a look at how the Department of Business, Economic Development, and Tourism has developed the Green Energy Market … Continued
The state Commission on Water Resource Management has asked Hawai`i County to front-load its assessment of the impacts that future water withdrawals in Waimea and Keauhou will have on native Hawaiian traditional and customary rights and on the environment. In … Continued
At the request of the state Department of Health (DOH), the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and various U.S. military agencies, two state Senate committees last month deferred a bill that would have effectively forced the Navy to completely double-line … Continued
That didn’t take long. On February 4, the state Public Utilities Commission (PUC) dismissed without prejudice a petition filed late last December by West Wind Works, LLC, Investricity, Ltd., and PSP III, LLC, seeking to revive their rejected 30 megawatt … Continued
Was the Department of Land and Natural Resources played by a would-be energy entrepreneur The closer one looks at the circumstances surrounding the development agreement that the department entered into with several companies promising to build a renewable energy park … Continued
February 2015
At worst, if the companies behind a proposed renewable energy park in `Ewa, O`ahu, can’t pull it off, the state Department of Land and Natural Resources loses half a million dollars in delinquent and potential development fees. Given the ongoing … Continued