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Life of the Land, whose 2017 appeal to the state Supreme Court led to the state Public Utilities Commission rejecting Honua Ola Bioenergy’s power purchase agreement with Hawaii Electric Light Co., filed a motion Wednesday with the PUC saying that Honua does not meet the standard for reconsideration.
The nonprofit environmental group also took umbrage at comments made by Honua in which, Life of the Land claims, Honua misrepresented the state Supreme Court decision, erred in identifying the issues on the table, attacked Life of the Land’s character and maligned Life of the Land.
Honua filed a motion with the PUC on Monday to reconsider its decision after the agency ruled on July 9 that
it was terminating HELCO’s waiver for competitive bidding that the PUC previously approved in 2017 when it approved the power purchase agreement.
The company, formerly known as Hu Honua Bioenergy, is 99% finished with a project converting the old Hilo Coast Processing Co. facility in Pepeekeo into a biomass plant that would burn trees to generate electricity. The agreement between HELCO, now known as Hawaiian Electric, and Honua called for the utility to buy power that would be produced by burning eucalyptus trees growing along the Hamakua Coast, as well as other timber.
Honua’s deal with HELCO was challenged after the 2017 PUC decision by Life of the Land, which argued the PUC violated state law when it approved the agreement. In May 2019 the state Supreme Court agreed and rejected the deal between HELCO and Honua, writing in its order that when the PUC approved the power purchase agreement, it failed to“explicitly consider” the state’s goal of reducing greenhouse gases, which is required under state law. The PUC’s decision was vacated, and the case was remanded to the PUC to consider the emission of greenhouse gases in its decision and to allow Life of the Land to be part of the proceedings.
Life of the Land had appealed the PUC decision on three grounds — the agency failed to explicitly consider greenhouse gas emissions in determining whether to approve the amended PPA, as required by state law; denied Life of the Land due process to protect its interest in a clean and healthful environment by restricting its participation in the proceeding; and abused its discretion and violated due process by denying Life of the Land full party status in the proceeding.
Honua said in its motion for reconsideration that the PUC’s order “revoking (the competitive bidding) waiver mistakenly, unreasonably, unlawfully, and erroneously frames the Commission’s decision as a decision to deny HELCO’s request for a waiver from the Competitive Bidding Framework.”
“The PUC did not deny a request for a waiver, it revoked its 2017 waiver approval,” Honua said Wednesday in reiterating that it meets the standard for reconsideration. “Life of the Land would have the PUC disregard the hundreds of millions of dollars spent in reliance on the PUC’s 2017 waiver approval and more than 200 jobs for Hawaii Island residents. Life of the Land never appealed the waiver approval to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court did not address the waiver.”
But Life of the Land said in its motion Wednesday that the PUC said in 2017 that a waiver for competitive bidding is conditioned on the underlying circumstances and may expire, and that Honua did not object at that time. Life of the Land said that the Supreme Court’s decision to vacate the approval of the deal did not affirm the waiver approval and that Honua is wrong in claiming that the Supreme Court remanded the proceeding to the PUC for the limited purpose of considering the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
“Hu Honua pretends to misunderstand approving a new contract and updating an old contract,” Life of the Land said.
“Since Hu Honua didn’t object when it came up with the PUC in 2017, you don’t get a second bite at the apple,” Henry Curtis, executive director of Life of the Land, said Wednesday in a phone interview.
The PUC said in its July 9 ruling that the greenhouse gas emission issue is moot because it denied the waiver. The PUC reasoned that the biomass plant would be more expensive than other renewable energy sources with similar operational characteristics and that a waiver from competitive
bidding is considered the
exception, not the rule.
Life of the Land also said in its motion that Honua is seeking to inflame the issue and cited what Honua wrote in its motion that the order revoking the waiver is “a knowing and intentional violation of Hu Honua’s constitutional right by the Commissioners.”
LOL also objected to the comment by Honua President and CEO Warren Lee that “we are not going to accept a ruling from a state commission whose members — I believe — do not know or care about our island, our community or our people … They just don’t care that we are in the middle of a pandemic … Or maybe they do care, but they just don’t show it.”
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