 It's 2021, who could believe it? And it's Wednesday afternoon, and we know what time that is. It's called Hawaii, the State of Clean Energy Day. I'm really pleased to be joined by Maria Tome from the Hawaii State Energy Office. And just a quick little announcement, we're gonna be talking about the Hawaii Energy Policy Forum. And then we're gonna talk briefly about the legislative briefing that's gonna be held on Friday, the 15th of January. Later this month, Maria and I have now volunteered, I use the word volunteered, become the co-chairs of the Energy Policy Forum, having replacing the previous Sherilyn Wee who left to go through the I think consumer advocate, isn't it, Maria? Yes, yes. So we're picking up the slack at a meeting of the steering committee. We volunteered and our bosses are allowing us to carry on the legacy of the Hawaii Energy Policy Forum started by Senator Sherilyn Moriwaki. So let's have the first slide and I'll talk a little bit about our history. So yeah, we actually started in May of 2002. I mean, can you believe that, Maria? Yeah, I wasn't involved in the forum on that date, but yeah, it was good. I remember using a lot of the forum informational material and found it very interesting. So I had a good first impression of that. Well, I wasn't there in 2002, but my boss, Rick Roshlow from HNEI said, Mitch, why don't you go over there and take in the meeting some months later? And I've been there ever since. So I think I probably joined towards the end of 2002, just as they were writing some of the reports. But anyway, just to tell you, we're gonna tell you a history of the energy policy forum. So it's really made up of energy stakeholders and we were convened to develop a new energy strategy. And at the start, as I said, we commissioned five major studies and we held an energy policy summit in December of 2003 and then we produced a report or a plan, a long-term energy strategy. So that was the product of all this effort and work. So the next slide, please. So anyway, the compelling cause for Hawaii is the Hawaii's energy challenge. What is that challenge? It's that we're a distant and isolated state, island state with no indigenous fossil fuels. So like we're 2,500 miles away from the nearest land and we have to import every, most of our energy. And as you all know out there, we suffer from very high energy prices. We did then in 2003, 2002, and we still suffer from high energy prices, but hopefully we're gonna get a lot better, but it's been slow. So next slide, please. The challenges in 2002 was that we were making slow to no progress towards energy independence. You know, we were becoming less energy efficient since 2001 than more energy efficient. This is back in the day. I'm not talking about today. This is when we first formed and we're trying to solve those problems. And we had an energy mix that was like hovered around 89, 90% fossil fuels and we just couldn't break through that. And the 10% was mostly because the sugar plantations were reducing energy. Isn't that correct, Maria? Yeah, yeah. And then it got worse when the sugar plantations started to close. Right. So we asked the question in 2002, who's driving the bus here? You're like, you know, nothing was happening. There was no measurable improvement or progress. You know, there was no coordinated effort or plan. Political will was lacking and no plan. There was a really adversarial climate. There are lots of lawsuits going around. Anybody tried to do anything, particularly the electric utility were blocked for all sorts of reasons. Serious policy gaps or no policy. And the regulators, that's the PUC and the consumer advocate were really under resource. Like they had no resources to hire the appropriate staff and they had a huge job and they couldn't do it because they didn't have enough resources to do it. Even though in those days and still there was a small tax on everybody's energy bill that was supposed to go towards regulation. That's not right, Maria. Yeah. Yeah. I remember that as being one of the first real accomplishments of the energy policy for, you know, later I think we'll talk about the governance and the word consensus. That was, you know, one of the things everybody agreed was an issue that could be addressed and should be addressed. Right. So we decided to change all that. That's why we brought, you know, pulled together the forum and decided to continue on. It said, look, we put up our hands and we said, we'll drive the bus. And because nobody else was driving that bus. So somebody had to drive it. So, you know, based on the principle of, you know, people make things happen, you know, it's not just going to happen in a vacuum unless somebody steps up to the plate. It probably won't happen because we're all comfortable in our day jobs and oh well, whatever. So it takes committed stakeholders and champions and a community will like, I will get this done. And so it's decided to put it into the university because the university is essentially a neutral party. We're not politicized. We don't, you know, we're not choosing sides. And so you had a neutral forum so that nobody could say we were biased to start the forum. And this was under now Senator Sharon Marwaki started this. And if anybody knows Sharon, man, she steps up to the plate and she gets stuff done. And so she was our fearless leader, truly fearless. And so the university, you know, we analyze the situation. We, you know, did these fact-based studies, not just, you know, baloney, but the real thing, we got actual data. And it was meant to be a non-adversarial and collegial environment, which is what the university, you know, environment is. You know, it's a free speaking place where people can, you know, brainstorm and no idea is a bad idea. You don't get attacked for your ideas. And so we carried that forward to the policy forum. We wanted that same kind of corporate client where people are not afraid to speak their mind. Even if their idea is lousy, you know, we're gonna let them tell us their plan because you never know what if a lousy idea might come a good idea because people get to talk about it. And from their point of view, it's a good idea. So we have this non-adversarial collegial environment. So we set objectives and developed a strategy. And Nina Marita came out with an action plan that was really brilliant. It was like a 10 point plan. Like keep it simple, not a great big thick document that takes you like forever to read through, but just a little list of action items. And it was really a brilliant concept. And so we took action and let us drive that bus. So we had this 10 point plan and anytime we gave any kind of legislative testimony or whatever, we always referred to it. We kept on keeping it in front of the legislator so they always knew we had a plan. And if you bear with me, it's still pretty well our plan. Number one was expand renewable opportunities. And number two was energy efficiency in public buildings. Number three, increase solar water and energy efficient appliances. Four, policies and regulations to encourage efficiency and renewables. Five, preserve regulatory protections. Six, invest in planning for sustainable communities. Seven, improve transportation, energy efficiency and options. Man, you know, doesn't this sound like, yep. These are all very similar, yeah. Yes, and we've made progress in all of these areas. Number eight, support research and development of alternative fuels. Number nine, encourage development production and use some biofuels. And 10, ensure secure systems for fuel and electricity grid. So yeah, yep, yep, yep. I think we'd probably rearrange them slightly and maybe reward them slightly, but the assets is there and, you know, we really have made progress on, you know, some substantial ones. It's really slow, you know, it's taken so much effort, but that's what it takes, time and effort. And of course, knowing what needs to be done first, you know, and moving towards those things that are ready and ripe for development at the time that they are ripe for development. So yeah, it was a good list. We make progress in all of those tasks. Yeah. And we can see it today reflected in our energy use, you know, I mean, here now we have a goal of 100% clean energy by 2045. I mean, who would have ever thought we could ever get that through, you know? It's such a huge goal to get through, but it passed and the, you know, the electric utility, you know, they're making pretty good progress. I mean, they're hitting their milestones. I mean, maybe it's gonna be harder as you get down to the end, like all the low hanging fruit is being picked, but nevertheless, they're going ahead, you know, really strong, they're closing down old fossil fuel plants where you've got all sorts of PV coming in at utility scale. And a ton of action on individual parts, you know, as far as the energy efficiency and the rooftop solar, you know, huge, huge advancements there, you know, as well. So, you know, grabbing the technologies and having the market signals align, I think we're very, very effective. But, you know, we're not done yet. Not by a long shot, but it's very important to have a forum, you know, a place where folks can discuss, not just the popular topics, but the boring topics, the dry topics, the difficult topics. Yeah, I know later on in your slide deck, it talks about how things are discussed. Right. By the way, we progressed on and so we had two phases. First, we developed the grand strategy, which we've just talked about. Meena Merida came up with the 10-point plan and addressed all these things. And really, we had all the people, we had like about 40 or 50 people in the room, all with different agendas and everything else like that. But in this kind of neutral climate, everybody wanted it to work. I mean, everybody in that room wanted the best for Hawaii. And they put their personal and even perhaps their business interests aside for the common good and made compromises where they could. Like, okay, we don't like that solution, but if you did it this way, we might let, we might be able to do that. Yeah, I think that, sorry. The key word I think is that they could live with it. Exactly. So, and we're a consensus organization. It's not like Mitch and Maria can just ram anything through. We all have to reach a consensus, which in some ways means like, yeah, we're unified, everybody believes this, but in other ways, it means that we can't just put out our own policy or ideas unless the whole group has agreed with that. So one of the advantages of that is it shows the legislators, like when you present them with some new ideas and it's a consensus from all the various organizations that are represented, that the legislators have confidence that this is pretty well accepted. And if they come out with a policy that addresses whatever idea we came out with, that they're not going to get into a big food fight and they're going to find that the local population, the voters are going to generally agree with it and not have people marching in the streets. And so it makes it a lot easier for them to pass good policy knowing that there's a consensus in the community to support that. It's much easier for them to do that. And so we developed this long-term strategy and we did achieve that consensus like I just talked about. And then we went to a phase two it's like what I call making it happen. Like, okay, we do a lot of these reports. It's not just why every government does these reports. And a lot of effort goes into them and then they end up sitting on the shelf. We call that shelf wear. And so nobody ever does anything about it. It's just forgotten. Everybody gets busy and they don't push it. So we decided, the forum decided we're going to push this. And so we've been pushing it for like the last 19 years. So we developed a vision and a mission. We developed the action plan which we just talked about with some timelines. Although, you know, it's hard to make, you know hit all your milestones in this kind of environment because it's a lot of political. We got the 10 point action plan. And then we made some rules of the sandbox. We call it the sandbox. We were all in this game together. It's like being in kindergarten where you have the rules of the sandbox and to address the governance issues. Like, how do we work together effectively? So we developed an organizational structure. We looked at membership criteria and selection. We wanted to have a broad group of people that covered a lot of various industry sectors. We just didn't want it dominated by one group as we wanted to get a lot of opinions. And once again, we pushed the consensus process. So we developed some budgets because, you know this isn't free. And thank God, HNEI stepped up to the plate and has been supporting the forum for the last 19 years along with some others, but mostly, you know the College of Social Sciences put in in kind. They supported, for example some salaries of their staff and all that kind of stuff. So that's not all HNEI, but you know it was university supported this. So the university is doing good. I mean, this is what universities need to do for the community. We need to come up with solutions for today's problems. And that's precisely what we're doing. And actually, you know, oh, sorry. Yeah, you know, I don't know if people have noticed that actually Hawaii Energy Policy Forum was in the College of Social Sciences. And you know, one of the reasons for that is that this is an example of a working together in this forum and observing how it worked at last. It's actually very successful, you know when we in the public administration program that you know, I got a master's in we had a lot of fun discussing how do you create effective groups to tackle complex issues across jurisdictions? We had federal, state, county, private sector, you know, discussing not only the policy topics but also very technical topics at times, you know and so it was how do you structure something so that you have effective communication in a way that respects people's ideas and knowledge and also welcomes in the new folks who have been thrust into a position of being active in the energy area. You know, how do you frame the questions in a way that gets input that's helpful? And so part of this, it was actually an experiment in a way and I think it did show that some of the roles of how you create and nurture and sustain these groups actually worked quite well, you know as you mentioned, it's been 19 years. So, you know, you have to have a safe space for the discussions and you have to respect the information but you also have to have agreement on how to disagree. The word consensus is a very interesting one with such a broad range of interests. It's very difficult to reach consensus on a lot of things but the process of seeking consensus is what everybody who's involved in it values I think because that way you can raise a question or an issue or a proposal and you can hear from the folks who are actually engaged in every day working on these topics, how they react to it, what questions they have, what concerns they have and others can respond and point out what from their experience and knowledge has been a problem or a solution to those. And so seeking to reach consensus very often is very interesting and important to coming up with better solutions even if you don't reach the consensus, you know and some folks say, oh, it's all about, you know reaching the consensus or nowadays, oh, I gotta win, right? I gotta win and they gotta lose. That's a whole different dynamic. That's counterproductive to actually finding solutions that are effective and sustainable. So anyway, so I did wanna point out, you know kudos to the College of Social Sciences for their wisdom in, you know managing some of this stuff. And since it's part of the fabric and the culture of the organization sometimes it's just taken for granted, you know it's like, you know if you can create the conditions for success you're, you've created something of value so it's not just, you know what topics are discussed or what agreements are reached but what is the framework for that to happen? You know, and the word got out like we were invited by Puerto Rico to go and go to Puerto Rico and tell them how we did it because they were having the same kinds of problems. And so Sharon Moriwaki went to Puerto Rico and spent two or three days there educating them on how we, you know this whole, you know the energy policy form what we did, how we did it, the whole nine yards and a very good reception. So, so there you go not only resolving Hawaii's problems but you know Puerto Rico is a lot like Hawaii you know, really high energy costs, et cetera. So they really appreciated what we had accomplished here. So one other thing is we also we don't just get complacent every year we have an annual self-assessment we continually tune the model and, you know we've made some major structural changes as the years have gone through, you know some things have dropped off the table and other things have been put on the table and we have new people that come in once again refreshing the ideas and different points of view so it's a very fertile and interesting forum the word forum is to have a forum and discuss things. I just want to touch briefly if I may on our governance structure. So it starts off with the forum well, we have a PI who is in the College of Social Sciences as Maria said. So it starts off with him or her and then in our case and then the forum manages itself and so we start off, we have two co-chairs and now it's just, you know we've just entered our chairs, Maria and myself just in the last couple of weeks. Weeks, yeah, a couple of weeks, yeah. Of course we had to get buying in from our masters to allow us to do this and I'm happy to say Rick Rashlow said, yeah, okay and supported me and in your case, you know. Scott Glenn, yeah. So then we have a steering group and so we have these working groups and the steering group is made up of the chairs of these various working groups. We have five or six working groups that sometimes changes depending on the requirements and the steering group sets the overall agenda. Like they look at all the things that we possibly do and they zero in on to the priority they make the priorities of what we're gonna go after they select the projects and they approve budgets. So, you know, somebody comes in with a good idea they make a pitch and, you know if they require just a little bit of funding to maybe bring a speaker in or have a meeting, you know whatever how we work into Hawaii that the forum helps about with that. So then we have these working groups and they're assigned some of these 10 point plan responsibilities. So there's develop action plans. They propose new policies or ideas for the legislature. They vet, you know check out new legislation that's coming in and run it by the membership to say, to get a response like from the membership what do you think about this legislation? You know, the pros and the cons and then, you know, tell the legislators what we think about it. And then we brief the general membership and then the final one is the general membership. That's all the people in the forum and that they approve all these projects and plans and, you know, provide the consensus and work to develop a consensus view like so. So that's how it works. The continuing challenges, I just, you know we're almost out of time and I know we want to talk about the legislative brief. So I think all this will be my last slide but achieving consensus can be difficult. It's not easy because everybody has their position for a variety of reasons. So you have to work at it. There's a huge commitment in being part of the policy forum. You have to actually do some work. It's not just showing up. I mean, if you're on a committee, you know you have to actually do a lot of work. So for example, myself I do one of these shows every week it doesn't instantly happen. You got to go out and find somebody. You got to get slides organized and everything else like that. And so it's a heavy workload. You got to manage that collegial. People do get mad at you, angry with each other. And it takes money and we always have to look for money and we have to keep the momentum going. You know, the enthusiasm going. And you do that by the annual evaluation of your organization and how can we change are we doing the right things? Are we focused on the right issues? Keeping that vision and mission intact and then the continuity of management. Like where do we go? So for example, Maria and I have stepped up the plate to continue it on as people have gone off on their careers to do other things. So now, now's your turn, Maria. We're going to talk about the HSEO and 24-1 legislative briefing. So over to you. Okay, thanks. So next slide, if you please. So for several years, yes. So for several years, the Hawaii Energy Policy Forum had done a briefing for the legislature and it's taken various forms. At one point it was quite a long and elaborate thing, you know, several hours and it had exhibitors and everything else. And the idea was to get the folks who are in the energy area down to the legislature and have them share information and be there to answer the questions that the legislators or their staffs might have and to give also formal presentations on, okay, where are we this year? You know, because things change from one year to the next, you know, you've got technology changes, cost changes, policy changes, the different drivers, whether it's environmental concerns, cost concerns, energy security, you know, these change from year to year and the people change. And so we thought, you know, the once a year going down and having this event was one of the things that Energy Policy Forum did. So in the grand tradition of momentary and sad, you know, just kidding. So since, I mean, this year is different. So it's going to be on Zoom and the Hawaii State Energy Office is taking the lead on this with the Energy Policy Forum supporting. And we hope that folks will find it possible to go to this link and take a look at this year's event. It's going to be on the 15th of January. So that's next week, Friday. It's two, maybe two and a half hours long, starting at 2 p.m. So Friday, 2 p.m., 2 to 4.15, 4.30, you know, we're trying to keep it within the time that people have, but also allow for some questions. But it's going to be a little bit like popcorn because we've got about three minutes per speaker. We've got a great lineup and the topics as, you know, as you look at these and compare them to that 10 point plan, there's a lot of overlap. But this year we're especially concerned with these five energy assurance and resilience, critical solar pathways to 100% renewable energy, energy efficiency and affordability. That's a really important topic to many, many folks. Transportation and finally utility regulatory review because some very impressive things have been happening at the public utilities commission and with our regulated utilities. So we hope that you are able to join us on the 15th, 2 to 4.15 p.m. There is no charge, but you do need to pre-register. So please click on the link, sign up and we'll see you there on Friday. I think you will enjoy it and you'll come away better informed about things that you didn't even know if you didn't know. I know I do every year, you know, after these events, I really appreciate the opportunity. So thank you very much. Okay, well thank you everyone. That's the end of our show today. And thanks Maria for coming on board and helping me out. And thank you all out there for watching this and please pass this information around to your friends and families or whoever in your network. And just all they have to do is click on that link to register, you need it because you need to have the zoom in link. And that's how you get it. So with that next, I'll see you all next Wednesday on Hawaii, the state of clean energy, aloha.