January 14, 2025 News Read > Hawaii Free Press

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Tuesday, January 14, 2025

January 14, 2025 News Read
By Andrew Walden @ 4:17 PM :: 294 Views

UHERO: Maui wildfires trigger population loss, economic impact

No-Fault Insurance for Electricity-Caused Wildfires?

HECO Unveils Expanded Wildfire Safety Strategy

Hawaii 2nd Most Racially Integrated State

Gabbard Nomination: Senate braces for 'train wreck'

NBC: … Along with Hegseth, several other Trump picks have faced bipartisan skepticism from senators, including Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman from Hawaii who is now a Republican, to be the director of national intelligence, and former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for health secretary. Hearings for Gabbard and Kennedy haven’t been scheduled yet.

Gabbard has faced questions about her past dealings with foreign adversaries like former Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. She recently shifted her views on a key intelligence gathering authority that she previously sought to dismantle when she served in the House of Representatives.

In a statement to NBC News, Gabbard said that if confirmed, she would work to uphold Section 702 of the Foreign Surveillance Act — an intelligence gathering tool passed by Congress after Sept. 11, 2001, that allows the government to conduct targeted surveillance of foreign nationals living outside the U.S. without needing to obtain a warrant.

Still, Democrats aren’t convinced. Gabbard was “noticeably noncommittal” about her stance on the national security tool in her meeting with the Intelligence Committee’s top Democrat, Sen. Mark Warner, of Virginia, a source familiar with the matter said.

The shift comes as Senate Republicans are pushing to hold Gabbard’s confirmation hearing before Trump is sworn in. Senate Intelligence Chair Tom Cotton, R-Ark., intended to holding the hearing before Jan. 20, but her FBI background check and Office of Government Ethics paperwork had still not been received by the committee as of Friday, a source familiar with the matter told NBC News….

TH: Gabbard appears to be the only member of Trump’s national security team without a scheduled hearing. Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said Sunday that a “paperwork problem” with the Office of Government Ethics is holding up the hearing for President-elect Trump’s pick to lead the U.S. intelligence community, former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (Hawaii).

(TRANSLATION: They’ve seen her FBI dossier showing cult drug running and ponzi schemes. Now the Senate must wait for Chris Butler to agree to let her withdraw from consideration.)

read … Senate braces for 'train wreck' as hearings kick off for Trump Cabinet picks

Keep promised income tax cuts intact

CB: … Critics of the 2024 legislative session’s tax cuts have worried that the state cannot afford them. But Green said his budget factors in the tax cuts and still shows huge surpluses each year moving forward, growing from $1 billion in fiscal 2026 to $4.6 billion in 2031.

He acknowledged that about $300 million more might be needed over the next two years to account for collective bargaining negotiations and wildfire mitigation, but the budget has enough wiggle room to afford this amount and still run billion-dollar surpluses.

If the Legislature goes along with the governor’s proposals, general fund spending would actually go down by 1.85% or about $210 million compared to fiscal 2025 and leave a balanced state budget as required by the state Constitution.

Much of that reduction is from naturally expiring, nonrecurring expenditures of the Hawaii Housing Finance and Development Corp., the annual general funding for which typically hovers near zero anyway.

Some state departments are likely to see moderate funding increases. The Department of Education’s budget is expected to increase by 6%, health’s by 1% and agriculture’s by 53%.

The overall general fund budget for the executive branch is set to grow by 1%, or about $151 million, while the general fund budget as a whole will shrink by 1.85%, or $210 million.

The upshot is that the state government doesn’t need any more money at the moment, but Hawaii’s struggling residents do. This year’s tax cuts will address that need, not just for 2025, but for every year going forward ….

read … Keep promised income tax cuts intact

Struggling To Survive: Hawaiʻi Residents Take On Debt, Think About Leaving

CB: … They are among a quarter of households in Hawaiʻi who spent more than their income in 2024. To make up the difference, people used savings and credit cards and cut expenses. They worked more hours or an extra job. They sold belongings. They borrowed money from family and friends, or banks or other lenders and overdrew their checking accounts….

read … Struggling To Survive: Hawaiʻi Residents Take On Debt, Think About Leaving - Honolulu Civil Beat

Fireworks: Green proposes $300 fines, more prison time

AP: … The potential new measures include $300 tickets police could issue to those who shoot off fireworks and class A felony charges and decades in prison for those whose use of fireworks leads to serious injury or death. The governor plans to include the proposals in a bill he will send lawmakers for the new legislative session beginning Wednesday.….

read … Hawaii's governor responds to deadly fireworks blast with proposed $300 fines, more prison time - ABC News

PUC to Review HECO Wildfire Safety Strategy

IM: … A Wildfire Relief Fund could be created to make timely and efficient payments to future victims of catastrophic wildfires. This was considered by the 2024 Legislature when it held hearings on SB3344 SD2 HD2….

HECO testified on the bill. "The amendments specify that the total capitalization amount for the Fund will be $1 billion, which includes $333.3 million for the State, $333.3 million for Hawaiian Electric, and $333.3 million to be split among remaining contributors….

The Public Utilities Commission will review HECO`s Wildfire Safety Strategy 2025-2027 in a non-docket in which stakeholder intervention is pre-emptively forbidden.

Life of the Land filed a request to convert the proceeding to a docket that allows intervention. Life of the Land also filed a motion to intervene. Commission review of disasters impacting utilities – lava eruptions, catastrophic wildfires, generation failures that cause rolling backouts, etc., should be conducted in transparent open proceedings…

BACKGROUND: HECO Unveils Expanded Wildfire Safety Strategy

read … Hawaii Wildfire Relief Fund is Questionable

Could power cutoff hinder hydrants?

SA: … President Biden said that intentional power outages to prevent more fires in L.A. contributed to the lack of water to fight the fires; without electricity, pumps couldn’t get the water to the hydrants. Could the same thing happen in Hawaii under Hawaiian Electric’s Public Safety Power Shutoff plan? ….

We don’t have specific information about the county water departments’ emergency procedures, so you should direct any specific questions to them,” Darren Pai, a spokesperson for Hawaiian Electric, said Friday in an email.

We emailed the Honolulu Board of Water Supply on Friday, asking for a brief description of BWS’ emergency procedures to keep city water flowing to fire hydrants during a PSPS; we asked whether BWS has backup generators in place at all times. A spokesperson emailed Monday to say that she was preparing a response but that it wouldn’t be ready by deadline; we’ll publish it in a subsequent column….

UPDATE: Kokua Line: How would water agency handle power shutoff? | Honolulu Star-Advertiser

read … Kokua Line: Could power cutoff hinder hydrants? | Honolulu Star-Advertiser

Hawaiʻi Agriculture Department Loses Another Deputy

CB: … The recent departure of a second deputy director in the state Department of Agriculture is stoking anxiety over its ability to reinvigorate a sagging industry in Hawaiʻi.

Dexter Kishida submitted his resignation last month, officially starting a new role on Jan. 2 with the Department of Transportation. That’s where his predecessor, Morris Atta, went when he stepped down soon after Agriculture Director Sharon Hurd was confirmed in late March 2023….

(CLUE: DoT = More Contracts.)

Veteran agriculture department employee Dean Matsukawa came out of retirement to replace Kishida. He started Friday.

Lawmakers have criticized the department for its inability to fill longstanding vacancies and being slow to change and stuck in its ways, as the state confronts rapidly spreading invasive species. Little fire ants and coconut rhinoceros beetles are particularly problematic, causing public outcry throughout 2024….

read … Hawaiʻi Agriculture Department Loses Another Deputy

Homeless Schizo Only Got Treatment Due to Mistaken Identity

HNN: … The man who was locked up for someone else’s crime and forced to take psychiatric medicine for nearly three years has filed a second lawsuit, this time in state court.

(REALITY: He is very lucky!)

Joshua Spriestersbach’s recent case accuses the state public defender’s office of legal malpractice.

The office represented him in 2017 when Spriestersbach was arrested for a probation violation.

But Spriestersbach wasn’t on probation.

The arresting Honolulu police officer misidentified him as Thomas Castleberry, a convicted thief and drug user who was not even in Hawaii at the time.

Spriestersbach was held under Castleberry’s name at the Oahu Community Correctional Center and then the Hawaii State Hospital.

There, he was (luckily) forced to take (the) psychiatric medication (he desperately needed) and was not allowed to leave (and return to living on a concrete sidewalk), according to the court records.

The state lawsuit alleges that the public defender’s office “acted with malice in that they deliberately and negligently” ignored and took no action to his repeated and easily verifiable assertions of innocence for more than two years.” ….

(And because he was stabilized at the Lunatic Asylum, he now lives on his sister’s farm in Vermont. He is very lucky to have been forced off the streets into a lunatic asylum. We need to arrest the rest of them and forcibly medicate them as well. This is how homelessness can be solved.)

read … Victim of mistaken identity held in state hospital for years files 2nd lawsuit

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