Big Island bioenergy firm appeals case to the Supreme Court again

Hu Honua Bioenergy LLC, which has been entangled in a multiyear fight to begin operating a biomass plant on Hawaii island, will have its case heard before the Hawaii Supreme Court for the third time as it attempts to win approval from the state Public Utilities Commission for the $474 million project.

The company, which does business as Honua Ola Bioenergy, filed an appeal Monday with the Supreme Court claiming that “the PUC still fully intends to kill Hu Honua’s renewable energy project again, without a fair and meaningful opportunity to be heard.”

“We want to ensure this is a fair process that follows the clear instructions the Hawaii Supreme Court has already provided twice to the PUC,” Honua Ola Bioenergy President Warren Lee said in an email. “What’s most important for Hawaii’s future is that we utilize more renewable energy instead of fossil fuels.”

Hu Honua plans to burn eucalyptus trees to produce energy at its plant that is 99% complete in Pepeekeo on the Hama­kua Coast.

Nonprofit environmental group Life of the Land, which has been opposed to the plant due to concerns over greenhouse gas emissions, criticized Hu Honua for taking the case back to the Supreme Court.

“Life of the Land asserts that this is not the time for an appeal,” Life of the Land Executive Director Henry Curtis said in an email. “We should go through the planned evidentiary hearing. There is nothing in the record that suggests that the Commission has pre-determined the outcome. Attempting to smear the Commission is heavy handed and wrong.”

In May the high court — following an appeal by Hu Honua — sent back the case to the PUC and said a waiver from competitive bidding was still in effect and instructed the PUC to hold an evidentiary hearing on greenhouse gas emissions in connection with Hu Honua’s amended power purchase agreement with Hawaiian Electric. That hearing was supposed to begin Jan. 31.

But Hu Honua said in its most recent appeal that the PUC insists upon holding the evidentiary hearing remotely and as soon as possible, without exhibit lists or written transcripts, “despite the debilitating impacts that it will have on Hu Honua’s ability to prepare and make its presentation at that hearing and in any further appeals which may become necessary.”

A legal challenge in 2017 by Life of the Land brought the case for the first time before the Supreme Court because the group said the PUC, among other things, failed to explicitly consider greenhouse gas emissions in determining whether to approve the amended power purchase agreement. The court ordered the PUC in 2019 to reconsider the power purchase agreement and hold an evidentiary hearing because the agency failed to “explicitly consider” the state’s goal of reducing greenhouse gases, which is required under state law.

The PUC at the time interpreted the Supreme Court’s order as nullifying the waiver and proceeded to reexamine the case and ultimately denied it on July 9, 2020.

Hu Honua filed a motion with the PUC for reconsideration, but the agency upheld its order and said the arguments by the company didn’t meet the legal requirements for reconsideration. Hu Honua appealed to the Supreme Court in September 2020, and the court sent back the case for the second time to the PUC in May.