Tobacco Tax Frankenbill: Smoking It Out
Hawaiians and the Law: Kelii Akina and Michael Lilly
SB 555 - Increasing the Food/Excise Tax Credit
Report: Illegals Pay $31M in Hawaii State Taxes
OHA Trustee: Telescope Protests About 'Finances, Growth Models'
Dan Ahuna: I have yet to hear any of those individuals leading this effort say that they are against the science behind the telescope.
What they are opposed to is the process by which the telescope has been allowed to begin construction, and they are opposed to the fact that the University of Hawaii and organizations backing the telescopes over the years have not held up their end of the deal and are not acting as good stewards of the mountain. I have yet to hear responses that dispose of these arguments....
Let us utilize this opportunity for engagement to re-examine our growth models and find creative ways to invest manpower, as well as finances, into industries that truly benefit our Hawaii, that respect its people and culture, and allows Hawaii to be a world leader in sustainable growth.
As Explained: Telescope: For OHA, it’s all About the Rent Money
read ... Pay OHA More Rent
Protesters: Science a European Idea which has Inundated our Society
Kahea: TMT's claim to a moral high ground in the name of science has been made loudly and consistently to an audience trained to think of "science" as an undeniable force of innovation and an institution that has produced nothing but good for human beings. Nuclear weapons aside, even if one were to concede the hallowed place of science in contemporary society, Mauna Kea reminds us that there are other knowledges and understandings developed, honed and cherished by human beings which native peoples globally have been striving to recover after the long wave of European ideas and beliefs inundated our societies and attempted to drown the observations and practices of thousands of years of experience.
At a moment in our history when we are more poised than ever to rediscover and resume the knowledge of our ancestors, it seems particularly cruel to destroy the resources that have survived the last two centuries of cultural upheaval. These natural pu‘u, viewplanes, and life forms, threatened and some already destroyed by astronomy development, are like our textbooks — poised to be burned just as we are approaching the library steps.
read ... Yes, they are anti-Science
Telescope: Enrich our legacy by moving forward
SA: The Thirty Meter Telescope is committed to supporting Hawaii's next generation of STEM students. I am evidence of that.
It helps sponsor the Akamai Workforce Initiative, which provides college students with internships at observatories and companies throughout Hawaii. Because of this, I have been able to do research, present at a symposium, and network with great people in some of Hawaii's leading tech field industries. TMT has done a lot to support me as a Hawaiian in the past.
So last Thursday, when the University of Hawaii's Board of Regents held a meeting to allow the general public to voice their opinions about the TMT, hearing parents of UH students speak so strongly against the telescope, well, it was extremely disappointing. Some even went as far as to state that if TMT is to be built, they will pull their children from the university. The absurdity of this declaration left me stunned. Why vilify the university? Why deny students the immense opportunity of higher learning? Doing either of those will accomplish nothing....
SA: Mauna Kea Letters
read ... Vilifying the University
Rail: No Plan for Cost Controls and No Plan for Operating Expenses
SA: How will the island pay for the rail line's operations once it's up and running?
It's not a new question, but the public has received no new answers in the past year as major construction pushes closer to town and the system's initial 2018 start approaches.
To date, the closest thing that rail officials have put forth resembling an operations plan consists of about six pages from a rail financial plan released three years ago to help secure more than $1.55 billion in federal funding.
Transit leaders say it could be another two years or so before a detailed plan emerges.
The lack of specifics has state lawmakers anxious as they consider what to do about rail, and whether to extend the rail tax to help the project climb out of a construction-related budget hole that could be as deep as $910 million.
The Senate Ways and Means Committee expressed that anxiety this month when its members passed a bill requiring that any rail tax extension passed in this session pay for capital costs only, and not for operations.
"We don't want to give the city a crutch, and a false crutch at that" to let the city spend those tax dollars on operations without a long-term plan, Ways and Means Chairwoman Sen. Jill Tokuda (D, Kailua-Kaneohe) said last week.
The committee has a "strong concern that the City and County of Honolulu does not have an adequate and sustainable plan to fund the operating and maintenance cost" for rail, its report added.
What's been clear for more than a year now is that rail leaders, including Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell and Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation Board Chairman Ivan Lui Kwan, want to lift the 2022 expiration date on Oahu's 0.5 percent general excise tax surcharge as a steady way to fund annual operations.
Caldwell has touted the idea because island visitors and tourists would contribute to the costs — not just local residents. But various local tax policy analysts, including the Tax Foundation and the Hawaii Appleseed Center for Law and Economic Justice, emphasize that the GET is a regressive tax that burdens the island's lower-income residents more heavily than its higher wage earners.
"Every time you open your wallet or use your credit card the GET is in there somehow," Appleseed staff attorney Jenny Lee said Wednesday. "The people who it hits harder are the people who produce things in Hawaii."
read ... Make them plan to stop wasting out money
Legislature nears finish with big issues unresolved
Borreca: The session ends May 7, but everything has to be on deck by May 1. Most of the state's big issues looming from January are still just that, big looming issues.
For instance, the announced $4.3 billion purchase of homegrown Hawaiian Electric by Florida-base NextEra Energy is still chugging along without the Legislature putting a fingerprint on the deal....
What to do about giving the city money to pay for its over-budget train is still up in the air, with legislative speculation that any last-minute guidance from Ige will be determinative. In other words, if Ige says he thinks it is needed, it will pass; if he threatens a veto, it may disappear.
Another open-ended budget item is what to do about the Hawaii Health Systems Corp., the financially battered institution running Hawaii's public hospitals. Attached to that problem is the quickly deteriorating financial situation on Maui, where administrators are threatening big layoffs if they are not able to join forces with a private health provider. The inability of the Legislature to ease something past the politically potent HGEA, whose members staff the hospitals, is the big reason nothing has happened so far.
House Speaker Joe Souki started the session by again arguing for an updated medical marijuana dispensary law and there are indications that some consensus is forming on the issue, but the issue is likely to be controversial. Without some support from Ige, the Legislature may not want to get into another divisive issue without organized support.
Early on in the session, Ige did come out supporting ways to raise Hawaii's voter-turnout numbers, including all-mail elections. Both the House and Senate have offered their own bills on the issue, so there are strong indications that the Legislature could move on it this year.
Finally, one year ago at this time, the Legislature was rushing to save a deal with the owners of the North Shore's Turtle Bay Resort to spend $40 million to buy a "conservation easement" protecting the area from development. Not enough time was included to finalize the needed bond sale, so the deal is still in peril....
SA: For lawmakers, time to hash out major issues
read ... Conference Committee Secrecy
Star-Adv: Time for Hawaii Public Hospitals to Privitize
SA: Public hospitals: Labor-union objections notwithstanding, the time has come for Hawaii's public hospitals to privatize, in order to cut costs and preserve health care services.
Lawmakers should approve a public-private partnership for the Maui region, which includes three hospitals, and hope that similar arrangements emerge for other struggling public hospitals.
read ... Privitize
Star Adv: Get Rid of Ethanol Mandate
SA: Ethanol: The Senate should prevail in its effort to abolish the state's mandate that all transportation fuel in Hawaii be blended with ethanol, a biofuel made from sugarcane or corn. A House measure calls for further study; that's unnecessary. Ample evidence exists from the nearly 10 years the mandate has been in place that it has failed to boost local agriculture or encourage local ethanol production, as intended. All the ethanol used in Hawaii is imported. Eliminate the mandate.
read ... Eliminate
Bean counting, corrections and nominees await Legislature
AP: — BEAN COUNTING — Where will all of the $26 billion in the two-year state budget go? A conference committee will begin combing through the latest draft of the state budget on Tuesday afternoon.
— CORRECTING CORRECTIONS — Dozens of corrections officers have repeatedly called in sick on holidays, leading the prison system to cancel visits to inmates and to have officers work overtime. A House resolution calls on the state auditor to investigate. That resolution will be heard in a Senate committee Monday afternoon.
— GOVERNOR'S NOMINEES — Senate committees will hear testimony on dozens of Gov. David Ige's nominees to various boards and panels. The full Senate may take a vote on William Balfour, a nominee for the Commission on Water Resource Management, who was approved by a Senate committee Friday. Some environmental groups have opposed the nominee.
read ... Bean Counting
State computer system initiative: Too huge, too costly
SA: Former state Chief Information Officer Sanjeev "Sonny" Bhagowalia had estimated the 12-year plan, dubbed the "Business and Information Technology/Information Resource Management Transformation Plan," would cost $1 billion to implement.
But Keone Kali, the state's current chief information officer, recently told members of the Senate Committee on Economic Development and Technology that the state hasn't been able to successfully execute information technology projects of more than $10 million.
In the case of the statewide transformation plan, "we have a 12-year plan that's 1,300 pages, and we're going to implement it over 12 years. Good luck managing that. Nobody can manage that," Kali told senators. "It's not manageable." ...
The 12-year plan was created with a $3 million seed grant in 2011 from the Omidyar Ohana Fund under the Hawaii Community Foundation, and the foundation later upped its total investment in the transformation effort to more than $5 million. Kali said developing the plan did not involve any state funding....
Gov. David Ige's office announced last month the state had canceled its request for proposals for the SURF project because the proposals from vendors were all too expensive.
The state spent $10.8 million developing that request for proposals and performing related research and studies, and spent another $321,303 on related legal costs, according to OIMT.
read ... Too costly
Guests at vacation rentals, B&Bs spend less on their island getaways
SA: In 2014, the typical hotel guest was spending $116.40 on lodging a day as compared with the typical rental and B&B guest who spent an average $70.20 and $73.10, respectively, according to the HTA, which compiled the data at the Honolulu Star-Advertiser's request.
Unfortunately for Hawaii's coffers, rental and B&B visitors also spend less overall. Last year, visitors who stayed in rental houses told HTA that their total daily spending — including lodging, food and other costs — was $149.90, or 36 percent less than their average hotel counterpart who spent $235.50. Likewise, B&B visitors reported they spent $173.60, or 26 percent less than hotel guests. If these guests had spent as much as the average hotel guest in 2014, it would have added millions more to Hawaii's economy.
read ... TVRs
Maui Politicians Squabble over EUTF's Lost $21M
MN: County Council Budget Committee Chairman Riki Hokama has the proper take on the county auditor's report that says the county lost out on $21 million for failing to send funds from fiscal years 2010 to 2014 to the state agency that provides health and life insurance benefits for county employees.
He says it's the past, nothing can be done about it now except learn from the experience. Hokama even accepted some of the blame for the decision not to send funds to the Hawaii Employer Union Health Benefits Trust Fund. The funds sat in the county treasury earning 1 percent when they could have been earning more than 10 percent with the EUTF.
Auditor Lance Taguchi has said the same. The audit was meant to be instructive, a tool to make improvements.
If only Mayor Alan Arakawa would take the same approach. He has chosen to attack the auditor, to deflect blame and steadfastly justify his administration's decision to withhold the funds. He even intimated that the City and County of Honolulu and Kauai County gambled with taxpayer funds by putting money into the EUTF during the years Maui County was not. Comparing this to a crapshoot is ludicrous.
read ... $21M Lost
Solar Power Battle Puts Hawaii at Forefront of Worldwide Changes
NYT: Allan Akamine has looked all around the winding, palm tree-lined cul-de-sacs of his suburban neighborhood in Mililani here on Oahu and, with an equal mix of frustration and bemusement, seen roof after roof bearing solar panels.
Mr. Akamine, 61, a manager for a cable company, has wanted nothing more than to lower his $600 to $700 monthly electric bill with a solar system of his own. But for 18 months or so, the state’s biggest utility barred him and thousands of other customers from getting one, citing concerns that power generated by rooftop systems was overwhelming its ability to handle it.
Only under strict orders from state energy officials did the utility, the Hawaiian Electric Company, recently rush to approve the lengthy backlog of solar applications, including Mr. Akamine’s.
It is the latest chapter in a closely watched battle that has put this state at the forefront of a global upheaval in the power business. Rooftop systems now sit atop roughly 12 percent of Hawaii’s homes, according to the federal Energy Information Administration, by far the highest proportion in the nation.
NYT: Utility vs. Homeowners Over Solar Power
Related: No Blackout: RevoluSun Exposed
read ... We are Guinea Pigs
NextEra sues U.S. Government for $97.5 million
IM: On April 18, 2015 NextEra Energy Inc. and subsidiary Florida Power & Light filed a federal lawsuit against the United States Government seeking more than $97.5 million in alleged tax refunds they say are owed to them.
Florida Power & Light owns two nuclear facilities on the Atlantic Ocean: Turkey Point 20 miles south of Miami and St. Lucie on Hutchinson Island, 120 miles north of Miami.
NextEra also owns three other nuclear facilities: Duane Arnold in Iowa, Point Beach in Wisconsin and Seabrook in New Hampshire.
The nuclear power plants generate highly radioactive waste. But it isn’t the waste that is at issue. Rather it is how the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) treats the financial losses.
The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 established a fee system for nuclear plant owners. The U.S. Department of Energy has collected $750 million a year in fees related to removal and storage of spent fuel rods. The DOE Special Fund now has $31 billion.
The government proposed storing the waste at Yucca Mountain but that proposal failed. Last year U.S. Appeals Court Judge Laurence Silberman terminated the fee system.
On April 14, 2015 NextEra filed a lawsuit (9:15-cv-80484-RLR) at the West Palm Beach Divisional Office of the U.S. District Court. The case was assigned to Judge Robin Rosenberg.
Nextera Energy, Inc. v.United States is available on PACER, the U.S. Court system internet search engine....
read ... Sues
More Positive than Negative from Police Body Cams
MN: ...Police Chief Tivoli Faaumu said he sees "more positive than negative" if the Maui Police Department were to implement a body-worn camera program.
"I know the statistics show a decrease in complaints against police officers because they had modified their behavior and everything is recorded," Faaumu said. "A lot of officers, if you know your actions are being recorded, then you're being mindful all the time.
"From what I gather so far, the majority feel it will be a good tool."
AP: Police unions, accustomed to closing ranks, rethink how to address shootings
read ... Positive
Group appeals Kulani court ruling--Complain Prison Not Enough Like a Resort
HTH: The 80-page appeal was filed by California attorney James Dombroski on behalf of Ohana Ho‘opakele. A lawsuit filed by the group to stop the state from reopening the minimum-security facility on the slopes of Mauna Loa was dismissed in November by Hilo Circuit Judge Glenn Hara.
The group wanted a puuhonua, or wellness center, on the site, and claimed the state had violated Act 117, which directed the state Department of Public Safety “in cooperation with Ohana Ho‘opakele and other restorative justice groups to prepare a plan for the creation of a pu‘uhonua, or wellness center … provided that the site formerly used as the Kulani correctional facility on the island of Hawaii shall be given preference….”
Palikapu Dedman, Ohana Ho‘opakele’s president, said in a statement the groups appeal of the ruling “will have an impact not only on whether the first modern Pu‘uhonua will be built at Kulani but also on the future standards of Environmental Assessments (EAs) related to native Hawaiian issues.”
read ... Group appeals Kulani court ruling
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