Can this news really be true?

File this under "good news/bad news."

First, the good: Hawaiian Electric Industries Inc. says it has no plans to file for additional rate increases over the next three years — welcome relief for its consumers, who all have groaned as electric bills routinely have risen higher and higher.

The bad news: Yes, we in Hawaii pay the most in the nation for electricity, averaging 38.5 cents per kilowatt-hour. The national average is about 12.3 cents per kwh.

And HEI’s plan to hold the rate-increase line doesn’t mean HECO, HELCO and MECO consumers won’t see any increases in their bills. That’s because in May, increases to the "decoupling tariff" were ap- proved, to help HEI pay for capital expenditures while it pursues renewable energy initiatives.

Hawaii out front with voting law

It’s been a year since the nation’s high court stripped out a key provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, stirring talk on Capitol Hill about the prospects for legislation restoring some protections.

Elsewhere in the country, various local laws have limited voting times and places and heightened ID requirements.

By contrast, Hawaii has to look pretty good to voting rights advocates.

A new law will make it possible for absentee voters to register at early-voting places in 2016; same-day registration at election-day polling stations will start in 2018.

Hawaii lawmakers have opened wider the door to a bedrock right in a democratic society, and that’s reason to cheer heading toward the Fourth of July weekend.