Pacific Business News is reporting: Hawaiian Electric Co. can issue a request for proposal for an undersea cable even though legislation authorizing the RFP failed to pass this year. Neither HECO nor the state Energy Office would disclose the possible timing of an RFP, but both confirmed that it could proceed without the legislation. They […]
Broadband Attached to Big Wind Cable?
Gov. Neil Abercrombie today signed a bill into law to temporarily exempt the development of broadband infrastructure from state and county permitting requirements. The law allows for permitting exemptions for five years – from 2012 to 2017 – on broadband upgrades on existing utility poles and conduits used for telecommunications. Telecommunications companies would also be […]
Undersea Cable Route?
Reproduced from an editorial by Artice Swingle of I Aloha Moloka’i in the Moloka’i Dispatch
Friends of Lana’i: Big Wind
By ROBIN KAYE The June 14 article about Maui County’s powerful letter to the Public Utilities Commission – and the county’s decision to intervene in Hawaiian Electric Co.’s request to be reimbursed by ratepayers to the tune of $4 million – contained a number of inaccuracies. The article identifies two organizations that were denied intervention […]
Star Advertiser: Big Wind Must Be Transparent
The attempt by Honolulu-based Life of the Land to intervene so it could gain access to all the information about the project has been rejected by the PUC. The environmental organization’s executive director, Henry Curtis, said his attempt to obtain public documents from the state has been resisted. Curtis said the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism said it would cost Life of the Land $15,000 for photocopies of all its Big Wind material, and the PUC would charge $8,000 for copies of its documents.
PUC Chairwoman Hermina Morita says it complied with the law on Curtis’s request, which asked for an overabundance of information (see today’s Letters to the Editor), and that anyone can view the commission’s website.
But while the PUC is not bound by the information disclosure standards of other state agencies, it needs to be acutely aware that public accessibility and understanding is crucial to what would be the priciest, most controversial public utility project in the state’s history, even at this pre-EIS stage. The movers and shakers need to ensure comprehensive openness as the state environmental impact statement process unfolds with an abundance of hearings and thorough public scrutiny.
Friends of Lana’i Motion Denied
The state Public Utilities Commission has denied a request by a Lanai-based community group to intervene in the decision-making process involving large-scale wind energy projects on Lanai and Molokai. The PUC said the request by Friends of Lanai was “untimely” because it was made too long after the deadline for filing motions to intervene in […]