It might not be the boon to state coffers that some might expect, but hey, a million here, a million there, and pretty soon, we’re talking real money.

That’s why it seems only fair, especially to Hawaii’s brick-and-mortar shops, that online retailer Amazon.com on Saturday started collecting the state’s general excise tax on purchases. Consumers here might be chagrined at paying the 4 percent tax, plus Oahu’s 0.5 percent surcharge for rail, but it seemed inevitable. After all, Hawaii was among the last four holdouts with a statewide sales-linked tax where Amazon had not been collecting it. A best estimate is that the new policy will reap Hawaii $7.5 million annually, about half of what taxing all online sales would bring.

Build energy efficiency into buildings

Aggressive public policies in pursuit of a worthy goal — such as the state’s 100 percent clean-energy target — require aggressive measures.

Gov. David Ige has proceeded on one of these, recently signing off on new mandates for energy efficiency, requiring solar water-heating systems in new homes, ceiling fans in rooms and better control of electricity use in hotels. Representatives of the building industry have said this will add cost to a home. Perhaps, but energy independence to this island state is too important a goal to simply accept even that assumption as a given.