Honolulu Star-Advertiser: Aloha PUC Commissioners

Honolulu Star-Advertiser: Aloha PUC Commissioners

We, the workers at the Honua Ola Bioenergy facility, respectfully ask the Public Utilities Commission to think about us before rendering your decision on whether Honua Ola will be allowed to produce clean renewable energy 24/7.

Chair Jay Griffin, Commissioner Jennifer Potter, and Commissioner Leo Asuncion, the careers we have spent years training for will vanish without this project. Without our jobs, it will be hard to feed our families and pay the rent, just as our state is suffering an unprecedented economic crisis. We have spent many years building a state-of-the-art facility and training to operate it. Now, it’s 99% complete and ready to produce the renewable energy needed to replace fossil fuels.

We love Hawai‘i Island. We grew up here. We’re raising our families here. We would never harm our environment and the community — our friends and neighbors. On the contrary, we care deeply about the ocean, land and air. Honua Ola’s commitment to plant more trees than it will harvest will make our facility carbon negative and help reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) and fight climate change.

Honua Ola will also help eliminate fossil fuels and support additional solar and other renewable energy technologies on the grid to make our island stronger and more energy self-sufficient. All we need is the go-ahead. Approving Honua Ola will mean more than 200 high-paying jobs, a new forestry industry, and the expansion of local agriculture over the next 30 years. Shutting down Honua Ola will maintain our dependence on imported oil and expose us to large price swings.

The PUC, including Chair Griffin in 2017, twice approved Honua Ola’s waiver and power purchase agreement and ordered Honua Ola to complete the project. As Chair Griffin stated in 2019, we’re in this situation because the PUC failed to follow the law and consider GHG in its 2017 decision.

Chair Griffin also stated the PUC would hold an evidentiary hearing because it needed to hear evidence on GHG and that the PUC would follow exactly what the Supreme Court instructed.
However, that did not happen. Please follow the Court’s direction this time.

We are asking the PUC to allow Honua Ola the opportunity to present evidence on the significant reduction of GHG emissions that can be realized and let us deliver all of the benefits Honua Ola can provide — for the future of our families, our communities, and the island we love.

Mahalo,

Honolulu Star-Advertiser, September 3, 2020