Political insider’s role in state energy policy is called into question

Robbie Alm has a dozen years of experience in the top management ranks of the state’s largest utility, Hawaiian Electric Co ., and he has the ear of Gov. David Ige.That makes some people nervous.

Hawaii’s political and business establishments are eyeing up the planned $4.3 billion purchase of HECO by the much larger, Florida-based NextEra Energy Inc., and the state’s energy future hangs in the balance.

The NextEra transaction would be the largest business deal in Hawaii history, and raises emotional as well as pocketbook issues. It underscores questions of local versus mainland control, the future of rooftop solar in Hawaii, and whether the state’s future holds out any possibility of more affordable energy for consumers.

Alm, 64, is a lawyer and a longtime political insider who once worked for the late U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye and served in former Gov. John Waihee’s Cabinet. He later moved into the private sector, and has two decades of experience working for First Hawaiian Bank and HECO.

He also opposes the NextEra deal now pending before the state Public Utilities Commission, a position that puts him in direct opposition to the board of directors of his former employer, HECO.

Any potential buyer of HECO has "the burden of proof" to convince Hawaii residents that they embrace the state, its policy directions and its culture, "and just bluntly, I haven’t seen that yet from NextEra," Alm said.

Alm and Ige have known each other for decades, and Ige invited Alm to serve in his Cabinet after Ige won his upset victory over former Gov. Neil Abercrombie in the Democratic primary last year. Alm declined the Cabinet offer, but served on Ige’s transition team.

He helped interview applicants who applied to serve on the Cabinet, and Alm coached some of the people who were finally selected, but he has no official title of his own. He is unpaid, but has a desk in the governor’s office.

Alm is an outspoken advocate for switching Hawaii utilities entirely to renewable energy sources, and years ago made an unsuccessful bid to become chief executive at HECO. He finally departed from his position as executive vice president of the utility in 2013.

Alm said he wants a "nonreserved commitment" from NextEra to move HECO to 100 percent renewable sources such as solar, wind and biofuels, and he worries NextEra is "hedging" on that issue.

"In all the years I spent at Hawaiian Electric, to me the whole thing was, how does Hawaii get off oil, go 100 percent renewable and be self-sufficient on our own resources?" Alm said. "That to me overlays everything else. How do we get ourselves off of oil?"

Hawaii has made extraordinary progress in shifting to renewable sources, and Alm said the local community is committed to that transition. When Alm sizes up NextEra, he asks, "Are you embracing that? Are you respectful of that? I mean, there’s tremendous good work going on here. Or are you God’s gift to us, and you’re not coming here to learn and be part of us, you’re coming here to fix us?

"You know, we get both kinds of people coming to Hawaii, and we get both kinds of companies coming to Hawaii," Alm said. "So, I’d like to see NextEra be embracing of this place, and what we’ve done and who we are and what we’re trying to be, without hedging and reserving."

Alm’s opposition to the sale runs contrary to his personal financial interest, since Alm is a stockholder in HECO, and stockholders would gain from the merger. He said his decision to oppose the NextEra merger is based on factors that are more important than his personal investment in the company.

With all of the top-tier energy issues at stake in the NextEra deal, many observers assume Alm plays a key role in the governor’s deliberations on the proposed sale. But Alm and Ige say that’s wrong, and each told the Star-Advertiser they never discussed the NextEra transaction.

Alm said he and the governor have discussed the state’s 100 percent renewable goal, the differences between various types of renewables, the possibility of an interisland power cable and more, but Alm said he doesn’t remember that NextEra ever came up.

"I kind of think that one is his, that he’s got that, and he had it from Day 1 in his own mind," Alm said of Ige’s NextEra decision.

Ige says he asked Alm to provide his expertise to help resolve some sticky problems, including the controversy over the development of the Thirty Meter Telescope on Mauna Kea, and the effort to privatize the state-run Maui Memorial Medical Center.

Alm doesn’t get involved in issues until Ige asks him to, and Alm "hasn’t been involved in any of the conversations about NextEra," nor has he been involved in the issue of whether HECO should adopt liquefied natural gas as a utility fuel, Ige said.

Those statements by Ige and Alm prompted skeptical reactions from observers involved in the NextEra transaction or energy policy in general. Those observers did not want to be publicly identified, but they noted Alm and Ige arrived at some strikingly similar conclusions about the Next-Era sale and related energy issues in Hawaii.

In May, Ige signed a bill making Hawaii the first state to set a goal of switching to 100 percent renewable energy for electricity production by 2045. In July, Ige publicly opposed the NextEra deal, and urged the state Public Utilities Commission to reject it.

In August, Ige announced to an international conference that he opposes the use of liquefied natural gas by utilities that produce electricity for Hawaii. Next-Era’s plan for Hawaii incorporates LNG as an important utility fuel, and Ige’s flat rejection of that energy source raised more doubts about the merger.

Each of those executive decisions mirrors Alm’s views on Hawaii’s preferred energy future — Alm does not support the use of LNG as a utility fuel — and many observers believe Alm has at least some involvement in energy issues. For example, Alm made a courtesy call to HECO Chief Executive Officer Alan Oshima before Ige’s August speech to give HECO advance notice of Ige’s unexpected rejection of LNG, Oshima said.

Former PUC Chairwoman Hermina Morita described Ige’s rejection of LNG as a "nuclear bomb," and wrote on her blog that Ige should explain his "dictatorial pronouncement."

"Now with numerous planning efforts in limbo because of this announcement, public and private stakeholders that have invested significant time and resources to help Hawaii reach its aggressive clean energy goals are owed an explanation and transparency on how he came upon this conclusion," she wrote in her "Energy Dynamics" blog.

As Ige rolls out his administration’s energy policy, Alm’s presence in the governor’s office makes some uneasy because they are convinced he wields behind-the-scenes influence.

"I think the biggest concern is that this governor has run on a transparency platform, but now you have a person (in Alm) who is very knowledgeable, his most recent job was right in this space, it’s on the street that he is providing extensive counsel to the governor, but it’s kind of ghostlike," said one observer who asked not to be identified. "The fact that he is nowhere to be found in these discussions, it’s hard to have a thoughtful debate."

Oshima said simply that "nobody knows" what role Alm plays. Oshima said Alm was never present for his meetings with the governor to discuss Ige’s opposition to the NextEra merger and LNG.

When asked if Alm’s role is a concern for HECO given his opposition to the merger, Oshima replied, "Yes, and no. I’m an eternal optimist … I always believe that when people assume the responsibility of public service, that they will do the right thing based on the law and the facts."

Others are quite pleased with the positions Ige is taking on energy issues, and are more comfortable with Alm’s presumed involvement. Jeff Mikulina, executive director of Blue Planet Foundation, said representatives of his board of directors recently wrote to Ige to thank him for his positions on renewable energy.

"If that’s the outcome, then I guess we’re happy with the advice he’s receiving and whatever is happening behind the scenes," Mikulina said. Blue Planet is a clean-energy advocacy organization, and Mikulina said he has met with Alm to discuss energy issues.

House Energy and Environmental Protection Committee Chairman Chris Lee said Hawaii’s energy policy is "up in the air" today, and he believes it is valuable to have a utility insider in the governor’s office to provide a realistic assessment of what needs to change. Lee also opposes the NextEra sale, arguing it will result in artificially high electric bills for Hawaii.

"Knowing that Robbie in the past has been a champion for change, especially with respect to renewables and lowering costs and just doing things differently, that is something that is particularly valuable now," Lee said. "As much as folks might want to paint his involvement as a question mark right now, I think so far it’s been really quite positive for consumers."

Officials with NextEra declined comment for this article.