Hawaiian Electric is touting reaching 30% renewable energy on Oahu in 2020. Scott Seu, Hawaiian Electric’s CEO, said: “That’s why having 36% of single-family homes using rooftop solar is such an important element of the renewable portfolio” (“Hawaiian Electric hit 34.5% green energy in 2020,” Star-Advertiser, Feb. 16).

A bill moving through the Legislature (Senate Bill 1237) threatens a slowdown in the solar business by cutting the cap amount available for tax credit. Solar tax credits help people afford solar panels, which lower their electric bills. They also help keep solar companies in business.

Shouldn’t we be incentivizing clean technologies that save homeowners money year after year? And keep people working? What about Hawaii’s goal of 100% renewable energy by 2045?

Jan Pappas

Aiea

An Obama marker for Waimanalo project

So state Sen. Stanley Chang wants to honor Barack Obama with nine special historical markers at places around Hawaii that were significant to the former president during his time here (“Bill would place historical markers at 9 sites to honor Barack Obama,” Star-Advertiser, Feb. 10).

I’ve got a nomination for a 10th marker that would be placed at the site of the large home being developed on a prime stretch of Waimanalo coastline. The property includes a crumbling seawall that would be improved and expanded, thanks to the various loopholes exploited by Obama’s buddy Marty Nesbitt.

The problems with seawalls have been known for years. A report in 1997 emphasized that the seawalls were destroying coastal ecosystems and limiting the public’s access to beaches and the ocean, a right enshrined in the Hawaii Constitution.

At the very least, as a former community organizer, Obama should make himself amenable to addressing the concerns of the Native Hawaiian community whose way of life will be affected by a development that perhaps should never have been approved in the first place.

Nancy Davlantes

Kaneohe

Natural-gas problems shut down Texas power

After Dionne Searcy of The New York Times published an article titled, “No, frozen wind turbines aren’t the main cause of the Texas blackouts,” covering the growing energy disaster gripping the southern U.S., the Star-Advertiser then published sections of the same article with the headline, “Blame shifts to green energy as crisis turns political” (Star-Advertiser, Feb. 18).

The point of Searcy’s article couldn’t have been more clear about “frigid temperatures that stalled natural gas production” as the primary cause of the energy system failures.

Searcy’s article then went on to say that mischaracterizations by Texas politicians came “despite the fact that the burning of fossil fuels … is helping to drive the phenomenon of increasingly dangerous hurricanes and other storms, as well as unusual weather patterns.”

The misleading Star-Advertiser headline suggests a completely different point of view than the actual substance of the article. Our only local paper should be better than that.

John Cheever

Kalani Iki

Hawaii still needs fossil-fuel plants

The windmills and natural gas pumps froze, and the natural gas power plants ran out of fuel. Coal power plants typically kept a month’s supply of coal handy, but those polluters were scrapped, and the greens hate nuclear. There were no monster lithium storage batteries. I wonder if Texans were so focused on renewables that like Californians, they neglected their poles, wires and transformers.

Without electricity or natural gas, home water pipes froze and broke, so Texans have to boil their water, but with what? Electric cars, cell phones and the internet won’t work without electricity, and neither will gasoline pumps at filling stations.

I hope that Hawaiian Electric Co. and our Legislature learn from this disaster that Hawaii needs its fossil-fuel power plants.

Gordon Kitsuwa

Kaimuki

Stop criminals from importing fireworks

Mahalo to state Rep. Aaron Johanson, Honolulu Fire Chief Manuel Neves and advocate Stephanie Kendrick, for their action and attention to the pervasive and inescapable problem of illegal fireworks on Oahu (“Hawaii lawmakers eye stiffer penalties for illegal fireworks,” Star-Advertiser, Feb. 16).

We are under assault from criminals who import, purchase, sell and explode homemade bombs and aerial explosions. It is not just harmless or celebratory fun. Those who choose to make and explode these homemade bombs are nothing short of domestic terrorists.

While stiffer fines and penalties are a start, I propose getting Homeland Security or the FBI involved to assist the Honolulu Police Department in preventing these explosives from ever getting into Hawaii and tracking down those involved.

If we can inspect Christmas tree containers for pests, surely we can prevent the flow of illegal fireworks and explosives into our state.

Kimo Jenkins

Waialua

Legal troubles could haunt Trump in future

News reports before, during and after former President Donald Trump’s impeachment have taught us one truth that few of us understood previously: that a president can get away with anything as long as he does it just before he leaves office.

However, Trump’s legal problems may be only beginning. It depends on what turns up in New York and Georgia. In those cases he won’t have 43 blind Senate Republicans to get him off the hook.

Trump was right about one thing after his acquittal. The “Make America Great Again” movement has only just begun. It began the moment Trump was voted out of office.

Jim Gardner

Kaimuki

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