Truly honor Kamehameha

It is clear that honoring King Kamehameha and the Hawaiian people needs to be much more than a parade, an apology, and dealing with receiving a pittance from the very people who stole this beautiful nation for monetary and military gain.

If the United States of America would take a position of truly honoring King Kamehameha and the Hawaiian people, it would provide serious financial return, serious land return, and start some governmental return to Hawaiians who are interested in growing our lost culture and heritage back to greatness to honor our monarchy, our lands and our children.

Steve Holck
Kailua

HMSA needs bigger risk pool

James Richardson’s taking the Hawaii Medical Service Association to task for its request for a 49 percent Obamacare rate increase was right on the mark (“Connector clients treated unfairly,” Letters, Star-Advertiser, June 10).

From the outset, HMSA has skimmed off the better portion of the already small risk pool by encouraging them to sign up directly with HMSA.

This leaves the smaller risk pool of those needing subsidies, and the recently added pool of migrants from Compact of Free Association countries.

Richardson is correct: The object of insurance is to enlarge the risk pool, not to shrink it.

It is scary that the insurer with a near monopoly over Hawaii health insurance doesn’t understand this most fundamental concept of its business.

Richard Manetta
Wilhelmina Rise

Either way, taxpayers pay

It’s a shame I did not get to see state Rep. Chris Lee’s face when he said, “Right now, fossil fuels like coal and liquified natural gas are not covered by the barrel tax, so if there’s a spill, for example, those companies don’t pay for the cleanup and that falls on taxpayers” (“Measures aim to free state of fossil fuel use in 30 years,” Star-Advertiser, June 11).

Did he say this with a straight face?

Either way it falls on the taxpayers, since the barrel tax gets passed on to the taxpayers.

I also missed the part where the governor signed into law the requirement that legislators take the rail to work, or at least public transportation, to help reduce carbon emissions.

I’m sure the Legislature will send that bill to the governor, right after they pass a bill limiting legislators to two terms.

Joseph A. Holtzmann
Pearl City

We can’t rely on wind and solar

A hundred years ago, many bagasse-burning, low-cost renewable electric energy generators were installed in Hawaii’s sugar mills.

Today only one sugar plantation remains, providing 4 percent of Maui’s electric energy.

The Big Island’s geothermal plant provides 24 percent of that island’s electric energy.

The state gets about 10 percent of its electric energy from wind and solar sources.

However, wind and solar cannot provide dependable electric power during the utility’s evening peak, so they cannot be used to replace existing oil burning generators.

The latest development is an offer by NextEra Energy to merge with Hawaiian Electric Industries.

Another company is apparently going ahead with a 20-megawatt ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) power plant on Kwajalein Island. 

OTEC might offer a realistic opportunity for NextEra to introduce to Hawaii a utility-scale renewable generator that, unlike the proposed massive offshore wind farms, can run at full load 24 hours a day and thereby actually replace HECO’s oil-burning generators.

Alan S. Lloyd
Kailua

It’s not easy being homeless

Being homeless is exhausting, especially with all the regulations and harassment from city officials.

How does the City Council expect those people to sleep? Suspended in midair? Standing up?

The reason they are sleeping on the sidewalks in the first place is because city laws prohibit it everywhere else.

Nobody sleeps, or has their children sleep, on concrete slabs by choice.

Perhaps we should have the Council members, with their families, camp on the dusty sidewalks of Kakaako, between the asphalt and gravel embankment, for a couple of years.

Maybe they would come up with a more creative solution than their thoughtless, heartless sit-lie bans.

Richard Morse
Kahala