Chemical Company Behind Anti-Sunscreen Campaign
Nominations Open for Participants in Mauna Kea Working Group
How 'Affordable' Housing rules often result in no homebuilding
Union Negotiations: “$1.6B is not Enough”
CB: … But in Hawaii, state lawmakers are warning that some $1.6 billion in funds the state government is expected to get from that package may not be enough to shore up some of the major budget holes facing local leaders.
(This is a negotiating position for the State’s labor talks.)
The state must still figure out a way to pay back more than $700 million worth of loans borrowed to keep unemployment payments flowing. And the Legislature is still scrambling to find funds that can save state programs facing proposed cuts under Gov. David Ige’s budget.
“There’s so many different, big buckets that we’re going to have to try to fill,” Senate Ways and Means Chairman Donovan Dela Cruz said Wednesday during a Civil Beat-sponsored update on the legislative session.
The governor has also stopped payments into the state’s retirement health fund. While that may save more than $300 million this year, it also increases the amount of deferred healthcare payments for future government retirees.
The $1.6 billion must also last the state through 2024, Luke said. So the money must be spread out over the next three years. Luke said a significant chunk will be deposited into the state’s rainy day fund, which lawmakers drained last year to help cover government expenses.
Luke also said most cuts and layoffs proposed in Ige’s budget should be saved….
(Translation: Big Fat Pay raises coming June 30, 2021)
HSTA Operatives: Hughey said he also liked Kishimoto’s initial support for the pay differentials
read … Hawaii Money Chairs Share Their Thoughts On Taxes And The Budget
HART: Expect Honolulu’s Full Rail Line To Be Done In 2031
CB: … It will probably take another 10 years to build Oahu’s 20-mile, 21-station transit line all the way to Ala Moana Center, according to the Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transportation’s latest estimates.
Nathaniel “Nate” Meddings, HART’s director for project controls, is slated to brief the agency’s board on the new 2031 completion date — and the methodology behind it — at the next full board meeting on March 18, HART executive director Lori Kahikina told Civil Beat on Wednesday.
Meddings will also brief the board on HART’s official new cost estimate for the project at that meeting, Kahikina said. Updated unofficial estimates last fall put the cost at around $11 billion.….
The full 20-mile, 21-station line was originally supposed to be ready for service by January 2020.
HART still aims to have the line’s first half, to Aloha Stadium, ready for service by the end of this year. It’s not clear yet when the city might start that service, however….
SA: Honolulu rail project faces $3 billion budget shortfall
read … HART: Expect Honolulu’s Full Rail Line To Be Done In 2031
Schatz Cashflow Plan: ‘Native Wisdom’ Needs To Be Part Of $2T US Infrastructure Bill
CB: … During a hearing Wednesday Schatz said that he intends to introduce legislation — most likely as a part of President Joe Biden’s forthcoming $2 trillion infrastructure plan — but that first he wanted to hear from Native voices about what works and what doesn’t….
Representatives from a number of Native American tribes participated in the round table discussion as did Kamehameha Schools CEO Jack Wong and Kaeo Duarte, the vice president of Community and Aina Resiliency at the trust.
Together they spoke of the importance of collaboration with Indigenous communities when it comes to decision making and highlighted a project at Kaupulehu on the Big Island that essentially let the reef “rest” so that the marine ecosystem could recover.
“It worked even better than imagined,” Duarte said. “The species are recovering faster than expected and now the community, with government and researchers and scientists, are developing a long term plan rooted in indigenous values and that, importantly, are incorporating the knowledge of the people of that place.”
Among the challenges tribes and other Indigenous groups face is consultation with the federal government. There was also concern among some that tribes are competing for the same pool of government funding, which means any solutions to rebuild or retrofit infrastructure that is more resilient to climate change will be piecemeal and diluted….
Schatz said too often the federal government doesn’t take its consultation responsibilities with tribal governments and other Indigenous people seriously and that as chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee he will seek to change that.
“We wanted to demonstrate that we really were listening and interested, and that we’re going to take notes and allow that to inform our legislation,” Schatz said. “Another part of this is that we really do need ideas.”…
read … Magic Money from the Sky
HB683: Your Fuel Tax to fund ‘Sustainable’ Jet Fuel Scammers
CB: (Crisis? What crisis? We’re giving your barrel tax money away to our cronies.) A Hawaii House of Representatives bill on sustainable aviation fuel has attracted the notice of a team of researchers at England’s Oxford University who recently announced they’ve invented an efficient and cost-effective way of producing carbon-neutral jet fuel from atmospheric carbon dioxide.
(The words ‘cost-effective’ are a plain lie. LINK. But you are supposed to believe them and give them lots and lots of money. They really think you are that stupid.)
… Jet fuel combustion is Hawaii’s largest single source of carbon emissions, producing more than either automobiles or electric power generation. A single passenger’s round trip to the mainland is the rough equivalent to a year of automobile driving in CO2 emissions. For the environmentally conscious (brainwashed), it makes flying to see the grandkids into something of a guilt trip.
That’s why House Bill 683 was introduced by House Speaker Scott Saiki and Reps. Mark Nakashima, Aaron Ling Johanson, John Mizuno and Dee Morikawa. (Check their campaign contributors.) According to its description, the bill would provide “matching grants to any small business in Hawaii that is developing products related to sustainable aviation fuel or greenhouse gas reduction from commercial aviation operations.”
(Matching Grants! It’s Party Time!)
To date, efforts in that direction have been primarily in the area of biofuels, but the Oxford process, which creates jet fuel using only air, water, and renewable energy, would certainly qualify (LOL!) ….
(IQ Test: If there really was a new ‘sustainable’ jet fuel production process that was ‘cost-effective’, would it need funding from the State of Hawaii? How many times will you be fooled by this same pitch.)
A related bill, House Bill 327, would convene a sustainable aviation fuel task force within the Hawaii state energy office to develop a state action plan to reduce the greenhouse gas intensity of international air transportation from Hawaii. This bill has also passed out of committees in the House. Both bills are now expected to cross over to the Senate.
IM: Biomass Gasification Can Replace H-Power and Aviation Fossil Fuel -- But at What Cost?
Jan 2021: Barreling Toward a Tax Hike!
Flashback: Audit: State Gave Away $1B Act 221 Tax Credits Without Verification of Eligibility
read … Money Shower
Star-Adv Upset Because Legislators Not Subsidizing Electric Car Owners Enough
SA: … Among the measures introduced this year at the state Capitol that could move the clean transportation needle forward is House Bill 1141, which requires that an increasing percentage of rental cars used in Hawaii be zero-emission vehicles. Given that the rental car industry operates the state’s largest vehicle fleets, this is a sensible goal. However, there will be little customer demand for these vehicles in the absence of easily accessible charging stations.
Since 2012, Hawaii law has required that public parking lots with 100 or more stalls have a least one electric-vehicle (EV) charging station. But due to the law’s lack of an enforcement provision, many properties have failed to comply or have not maintained charging equipment. An advancing version of House Bill 803 would provide clarification, asserting that counties have authority to establish and enforce penalties. Also, the bill would increase the count of required EV stalls to five.
While the rental car proposal, HB 1141, appears to be stalled, an advancing related measure would establish a task force to frame “rental car modernization.” Senate Bill 768 aims to ensure EV charging infrastructure is installed to support a 100% zero- emission rental motor vehicle fleet by 2035. A rigorous statewide planning strategy is needed to avoid expensive post-construction retrofits.
The state missed an opportunity to prep for the future in its airports modernization project. While an emission-free shuttle is in the works at Daniel K. Inouye International Airport, its new consolidated car rental facility, fitted with 2,250 stalls, would require redesign and retrofitting to support a clean-energy fleet. Similarly, a Kahului Airport facility, which opened two years ago on Maui with upwards of 3,700 rental car stalls, would need an overhaul….
Reality: Moving the Smokestack: How Clean is Your Electric Vehicle?
read … Mo Momey
Younger kupuna frustrated about inability to get vaccine, AARP survey finds
SA: … A new AARP Hawaii survey showed significant concern among at-risk seniors who are still waiting for the state to open vaccinations to them.
The Department of Health has yet to allow those 65 and older to be immunized. More than 500 people responded to the survey issued online last week before the state opened up vaccinations to those 70 and older.
“I am 100% disabled in a very high-risk group and I keep trying to either get a vaccine or get scheduled on a registry to get a vaccine. State and health providers will not schedule people ahead of who they are currently vaccinating, and they keep dumping more people in front of me,” one survey respondent wrote. “They keep finding new essential workers and it seems like any employer can deem any of their workers as essential, even when they are not. But there is nobody standing up for totally disabled people who are living on disability and/or pensions because we don’t have bosses to vouch for us. I feel like I am being discriminated against for being disabled and under the age of 70.”
Roughly 94% of respondents 75 years or older said they had received at least one dose of the vaccine, though the AARP said it is not clear whether the state has been successful in reaching seniors without access to a computer, who are homebound or have limited English. About 60% of kupuna not yet eligible by age said they had also received at least one shot, indicating that “the process to get a shot works if you can use a computer and there are a lot of essential worker kupuna who are getting vaccinated.”…
read … Younger kupuna frustrated about inability to get vaccine, AARP survey finds
Can ‘Racial Data’ help the next group of COVID vax line-jumpers?
CB: … Hawaii is one of only nine states that still hasn’t shared any data about how many people have been vaccinated by race and ethnicity, raising city council members’ concerns that communities with high rates of COVID-19 aren’t getting adequate access to the shots.
An analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that as of this month, 41 states had released racial breakdowns of vaccinations. Hawaii was among nine that hadn’t yet done so, along with Arkansas, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming.
Brooks Baehr, spokesman for the Hawaii Department of Health, said Wednesday that the state is close to releasing the data….
(Now that public employees are finished jumping the line, lets use this ‘data’ to help tourism employees jump the line. Old people can wait.)
TOTALLY RELATED: COVID Vax—How Public Employees find ways to jump line
read … Critics Say More Data Needed To Avoid Racial Inequity in Hawaii’s Vaccine Rollout
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