Energy

As a candidate, Neil Abercrombie said over and over again, “We Will Not Be Raising Any Taxes."

But as Governor, Neil Abercrombie has a different message for many of Hawaii’s seniors—you’re not contributing, you’re escaping your responsibilities and, as Governor, I will force you to “make positive contributions in our community.”

In the years that followed a congressman's ascendancy to the chairmanship of a powerful committee, the average firm in his state cut back capital expenditures by roughly 15 percent, according to their working paper, "Do Powerful Politicians Cause Corporate Downsizing?"

Hawaii's newly elected "DSA-er Democrat" Governor Neil "I am not a socialist" Abercrombie is the birthers' best friend -- and many commentators in Hawaii and across the nation are becoming increasingly annoyed by his antics. 

The Obama-style politics and the youthful 2010 class of freshmen Republicans in the U.S. House might be a passing fad or it might become a lasting trend.  Hawaii has sent a congressional delegation that is betting the modern movement toward a much quicker internet dominated system of governing, based on transparency rather than pork, is temporary and our nation will eventually return to the 20th Century seniority centric system of quiet machine based power-dealing.  The American people will render the verdict on Hawaii’s bet in the next couple of years.

Senator Charles Schumer and other congressional leaders have called on government safety agencies to investigate why such elevated levels of lead are coming into contact with our food and leaching into the environment. Perhaps even more alarming, a University of Arizona study found fecal coliform bacteria and E. coli in some of the bags.

EPA standard for lead in packaging materials is 100ppm.  Safeway tests 6.72 times the EPA limit.  Walgreens is 2.98 times, KTA Superstores 2.85 times, and Defense Comissary Agency tests 2.35 times the EPA standard. 

When the U.S. Supreme Court asks for a response from the side that had won the case in the lower court, that is a sign that the Court is thinking that it might possibly take the case. The response from Hawaii is due March 2.

Certain violations of S. 52 would subject a person to up to five years in prison, a fine of $500,000, or both.

With this energy efficiency bonus however comes the problem of disposing of fluorescent and CFL bulbs in landfills. Enter 2 more bills – which put mandates on disposing the CFL bulbs by retailers, wholesalers and manufacturers. Senate Bill 197 mandates companies that sell the CFL bulbs submit a plan to the Legislature by 1/1/2012 on how to manage the waste. And then there’s House Bill 1527 that requires retailers and wholesalers to accept used light bulbs for recycling from customers.

SB602 proposes an amendment to the state constitution to legalize slot machines and video poker machines that are not visible from the street in designated resort areas within Waikiki.

Amends chapter 37, Hawaii Revised Statutes, to include agency-wide technology and computer systems with an estimated useful life of greater than seven years as capital investments to allow all costs to be financed with bond funds and depreciated as capital investments.

Physician Assisted Suicide Bill (SB 803)  Scheduled for Hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee

Monday, February 7, 2011 2:45 p.m. State Capitol - Auditorium (bottom level of the capitol)

Governor Neil Abercrombie today announced the appointment of State Representative Hermina Morita as the chair of the Public Utilities Commission (PUC).

Hopefully, every member of Congress will recognize by then that earmarks are a wasteful, unnecessary part of the budget process that should never be restored. CAGW will also be monitoring how members of Congress may attempt to circumvent the moratorium, through ‘phonemarking’ or other underhanded techniques.”

What would you call a health-insurance program that has worse health outcomes for cancer and heart disease than Medicare or private insurance, that pays doctors and specialists so little that they often refuse to see patients, and that’s driving state budgets into bankruptcy? If you’re the Obama administration, apparently, you call it a success and make it the cornerstone of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act....

Fontaine: “We heard from a Maui roofing contractor who said that if he received a $70K fine … he would have to earn $7M in additional business in order to make up the fine because his profit margin is so slim.”

"It is not your love that sustains the marriage, but ... the marriage that sustains your love." - Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 1943

SB 232 SD1 Relating to Civil Unions is scheduled for hearing next week Tuesday. In addition to this bill, another civil union bill (HB 1453 Relating to Legal Relationships) will also be heard.

The US Senate voted 81-17 to repeal the Obamacare "1099-MISC" tax hike and information reporting requirement.  Hawaii Senators Dan Akaka and Dan Inouye were among a rump group of 17 Obamacare bitter-enders.

…others on retirement watch, including Sens. Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii), Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) and Jim Webb (D-Va.), offered no indication they will run again in 2012.

Akaka, 86, raised less than $2,000 in the fourth quarter and had just $66,000 in the bank as of Dec. 31....

Five years ago, Hawaii passed a law requiring that gasoline sold in the state must include 10 percent ethanol. The intent was “to provide energy independence from foreign oil, reduce statewide gasoline consumption, and establish industrial plants to produce ethanol locally.”

Fast forward to today and the intention of the law is shown to be a bust -- all of Hawaii’s ethanol comes from overseas and no ethanol plants have been built here. Because of this, Sen. Mike Gabbard has introduced a bill to repeal the 10 percent ethanol requirement for gasoline sold in Hawaii.

This will be Governor Abercrombie’s first appointment to the BOE.  In November 2010, Hawai‘i voters approved a Constitutional Amendment that gives the Governor the authority to appoint members of the BOE. The state Legislature is discussing legislation specifying the appointment process.

“It is my intention to replace Dr. Isa with a member who will continue serving on the Board of Education for the long term,” added Governor Abercrombie.

Although the Flag Bill (HB1468) must eventually be heard – the Flag Bill will NOT be heard tomorrow.  This delay however gives all us who are passionate about displaying our flag on our own property more time to contact and urge Representative Cabanilla, Chairman of the House Committee on Housing, to put the flag bill – HB 1468—on the schedule for a hearing.

However, the bill that will be heard tomorrow, HB 1464, also deals with homeowner community associations and the lack of transparency by some homeowner community association boards in their decisions and actions and the lack of fairness by some of these boards in their treatment of their association members. 

In detective novels and television crime dramas like "CSI," the nation's morgues are staffed by highly trained medical professionals equipped with the most sophisticated tools of 21st-century science. Operating at the nexus of medicine and criminal justice, these death detectives thoroughly investigate each and every suspicious fatality.

The reality, though, is far different. In a joint reporting effort, ProPublica, PBS "Frontline" and NPR spent a year looking at the nation's 2,300 coroner and medical examiner offices and found a deeply dysfunctional system that quite literally buries its mistakes.

And Knight laments that while the Hawaii Senate has bought into the "separation of church and state argument," it does not seem to have any trouble promoting Islam.

"In 2009, the Hawaii Senate chamber approved an Islam Day resolution, and it shows that there's a double standard here," the senior writer decides. "Something that celebrates or acknowledges Christianity, it's verboten. But when you celebrate Islam or anything else, then it's OK. That's multiculturalism; that means anything but Christianity."

The bill says that every qualified applicant “is required to authorize the attorney general to collect and transmit the necessary personal information required for registering the qualified applicant with the county clerk.”

 Along with Massachusetts and Connecticut, Hawaii leads the country with the highest ratio of bonded debt to personal income as well as having some of the highest long-term debt as a percentage of the state gross domestic product.

When are you just going to leave us alone to live our lives in peace?

Just because Maui and Kauai and San Francisco and other progressive enclaves have done it does not mean we have to be so foolish also.

Recent Congressional Votes

• Senate: Secret Holds Elimination
• House: Non-Security Discretionary Spending Limit
• House: Presidential Campaign Fund Termination

This bill, HB 1468, brings Hawaii into compliance with the federal law as well as ensuring that these home owners may display their American Flag continuously 365 days a year despite any association board's regulation, covenant, or similar binding agreement to the contrary.  It also removes any fee you would have to pay to display our Flag.  HB1468 IS BEING HEARD WED FEB 2, 8:30AM IN CONFERENCE ROOM 325 AT THE CAPITOL.

The most important message is what it doesn't tell us. It doesn't tell us whether the person who died consented when the lethal dose was administered.

Further to that, the physician is rarely present at the time the lethal dose is administered. If the person does not consent, who would know?

The reporting system has a conflict of interest, whereby the physician who wrote the lethal prescription submits the report. The physician will not admit to abuse.

The Senate Committee on Agriculture, chaired by Senator Clarence Nishihara and Vice Chair Gil Kahele, will hear SB 711 relating to genetically engineered fish at a hearing immediately following the joint hearing with the Committee on Energy and Environment which is hearing the other two anti-biotech bills.

Four assisted suicide bills have been introduced in the State House and Senate.  None of them have yet been scheduled for committee hearings.  The bills can be tracked here ....

The bill will now crossover from the Senate to the House.  We are anticipating the bill will be heard in the House Judiciary committee and will let you know once the hearing is scheduled.

Today, Moody's Investors Service just put a price tag on the failed leadership of the Democratic Party in Hawaii.  According to Moody's, Hawaii has the highest debt burden in the nation.  Because the Democrats keep spending beyond our means, every man, woman and child in Hawaii now owes the State $7,987.00. 

The Hawaii Meth Project today announced its inaugural Teen Advisory Council, formed to promote and facilitate peer outreach.  Members of the Teen Advisory Council are playing a key role in the Hawaii Meth Project’s community action plan by encouraging teen volunteerism and identifying peer outreach opportunities at school and in the community to raise awareness about the dangers and risks of methamphetamine use.

SB 712 would require the Hawaii Dept. of Agriculture to make public the location of field tests of genetically engineered plants.

SB 713 would require a label that says "Genetically Engineered" to be placed on whole foods sold in Hawaii.  Since the transgenic papaya is currently the only produce that would be targeted by this law, its passage would have catastrophic economic consequences on Hawaii's papaya farmers since the label is intended to scare people from purchasing the fruit.

The DOT has a bill in both the Senate (SB1131) and House (HB1531) that calls for $4 billion for a 6-year plan to provide safer and well maintained roads and bridges statewide. This is a far cry from the current $250 million funding per year the department gets to pay for the $7 billion in infrastructure and program needs it says currently exist.

Honolulu—Today the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii released the “The Real State of the State: An Uncensored Look at the Fiscal Challenges Facing Hawaii.” Responding to Governor Neil Abercrombie’s recent “State of the State” address which only scratched the surface, this illuminating expose dives deep into the evidence and causes of the state’s financial crisis.

"The State House of Representatives needs to address the lack of transparency and public participation in the legislative process by using the technology we have at our disposal today by immediately communicating to the public through video, webcasting and audio transmission," said Representative Thielen.

...that could imperil a cherished practice of U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye of Hawaii.  Inouye, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, has long defended earmarks as a constitutional prerogative. He once called himself the "No. 1 earmarks guy" in Congress.

Moody's says that the evaluation of current and projected pension liabilities is an important area of focus in its rating reviews.

• Gregory Jackson, Director of the Office of Veteran Services
• Jesse Souki, Director of the Office of Planning
• Russell A. Suzuki, First Deputy Attorney General
• Keith Kamita, Deputy Director of Law Enforcement for the Department of Public Safety
• Martha Torney, Deputy Director of Administration for the Department of Public Safety

This information also applies to Native Hawaiian firms, many of which are doing exactly the same thing.

Hawaii lacks the most basic protections for women, unborn children, and the terminally-ill. The state fails to provide for informed consent for abortion, to require parental involvement in a minor's abortion decision, or to ensure that abortion clinics maintain minimum health and safety standards. It also fails to ban destructive embryo research, human cloning, and assisted suicide.

In going through your bills and the other priorities you outlined in your speech, we have a few questions that will help us as we move forward. While we understand more questions and answers will arise as we go through the legislative process, these are the top 10 questions we would like to have discussed as soon as possible.

Thanks to the high cost of motor vehicle fuel--which in Hawaii includes the second highest gasoline taxes in the country at 63.5 cents per gallon--people have started buying alternative cars and cars which get better fuel mileage. The unintended consequence of increasing the cost of motor vehicle fuel is that there is less money going into the state coffers....

I’d like to address several issues with you this morning: our mission, our caseload, our programs, and our needs that have been impacted by the economic downturn.