Even President Barack Obama was “tweeting” the news: Hawaii is on the verge of becoming the first renewable energy state.

From Fox News to the Scientific American, Hawaii scored big news coverage with a new law that increases the “Renewable Portfolio Standards” so that by 2045, Hawaii has a 100 percent renewable standard.

Supporters at a news conference held as Gov. David Ige signed the legislation proclaimed that Hawaii is becoming the clean-energy state.

The liberal news blog ThinkProgress gushed into the story by announcing, “Here’s Another Thing to Love About Hawaii.”

But, there is more than a little complexity in calculating the portfolio standards, said Henry Curtis, Life of the Land executive director.

“The renewable portfolio standards are not the same thing as saying renewable resources, so it is not the same as saying 100 percent renewable energy,” Curtis said in an interview.

In fact, Curtis said, the new law is more about what Hawaii wants to do as compared to what Hawaii is directly causing to happen.

“The law sends a message that we want to increase renewables, but there is nothing that compels us to do it. It sends a message that this is we want to do,” said Curtis.

The clearer message, Curtis suggested, would have been to just say that by 2045, Hawaii’s electrical producers will only sell power produced by renewables.

Still, even skeptics such as Curtis say the legislation puts Hawaii ahead of other states.

“It is saying that Hawaii is reaching out for a goal ahead of everybody else,” he said.

A second concern is that proscribing action 30 years into the future means that much is likely to change. For instance, it wasn’t until 1988 that scientists at the Toronto Conference first warned that “climate change and CO2 emissions should be cut by 20 percent by 2005.”

Finally, the Hawaii law is dotted with escape clauses.

An akamai New York Times blog written by Hawaii-born Lawrence Downes, noted that the law “outlines broad reasons the requirements may be waived.”

Downes said there is a Hawaii pidgin version of this sort of thinking: “If can, can. If no can, no can.”

In legal English, the key is that a public utility still has to be able to make a profit and do so in a rational market.

“Energy independence beyond 2030 shall be undertaken in a manner that benefits Hawaii’s economy and all electric customers, maintains customer affordability and does not induce renewable energy developers to artificially increase the price of renewable energy in Hawaii,” the law says.

Further on in the legislation, the stakes are raised to say the new energy generated to meet the renewable portfolio standard must be “beneficial to Hawaii’s economy in relation to comparable fossil fuel resources.”

Wording or phrases such as that are the reason why lawyers sleep well at night.

Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Reach him at rborreca@staradvertiser.com.