 Welcome to Think Tech Hawaii's Movers, Shakers and Reformers, Politics in Hawaii series. I'm your host, Carl Campania. The big news that's been going on for the last couple of days is, well, unfortunately, first of all, it's the Sally Yates conversation and all of the meetings and interrogations going on, perhaps interrogations is too strong over word, but with regards to what's going on in the White House and Donald Trump and now the firing of James Comey, the FBI director and how coincidental that is, that all of that is happening, that's all the huge stuff going on. So the real question that I have is, as we look at all of that, and yes, I'm jumping right into this. I have very little setup for this and we're going to go into more conversation with my guest here in a minute, but I really want to talk about this piece for a moment and ask a question. If we've got a potential situation that in any way mirrors or resembles Watergate, in which case this one kind of does, and some people have acknowledged, yeah, it kind of does, why are we not addressing it? Why are we not calling for independent investigations requiring it? Why is the GOP continuing to obstruct? And Mitch McConnell today, not even an hour ago, said that he intends to obstruct any request or suggestion that we do an independent inquiry into Donald Trump's connections to Russia and any of his campaign people and staff throughout the entire campaign and since then. Refusing, doesn't want to see it. Donald Trump yesterday with a letter fires James Comey a couple of days, like a day after the testimony given by Sally Yates, a couple of days after James Comey asked for more money for investigation into the Trump connection with Russia and now he's fired. So if you go through that, Sally Yates was fired, Biharo was fired, James Comey was fired. All of the people who were investigating any aspect of what Trump was doing with his businesses and or with his ties to Russia, sometimes those are the same, they've all been fired. And we have Sessions, the new Attorney General, who is supposed to have recused himself from everything, from Hillary Clinton's emails straight through to right now and all of the conversations having to do with Trump Russia. He was supposed to have recused himself as of a couple of months ago. What does he do? He's the one who actually wrote a secondary letter to go along with the Deputy Attorney General, suggesting that they fire James Comey because of his handling of the Hillary Clinton emails, very coincidental that it happens at this moment that all of this comes together right now. My question is, how is it and why is it that they are continuing, the entire GOP from Trump and the entire GOP is complicit and is collaborating? Why are they continuing to be complicit and collaborative with this president in this situation? Why are they not requiring and coming out demanding this special investigation? Why? What is it that they have to hide? What is it that Trump has to hide and why is it that they're choosing a party over country because that's what they're doing? That's my question and I really want an answer to that. My guest today is not going to be able to answer that question but I wanted to get this out because, yeah, it's something we need to think about, something we need to really drive. There are marches coming up, there are demonstrations coming up, there are things coming up trying to demand this stuff and we all need to be there. I'll say it again, our voice is necessary, we must raise our voice and it's the voice of the people that provides the purpose for what we're doing and we need your voice there and then we need our actions in order to be the strength. We all need to be there, we all need to do something because it's not about party, it's about country and it's about our democracy and that's what's being attacked at the moment. So, okay, sorry, I had to go off on that rant for a minute but okay. All right, for the rest of the show we're going to talk about something else. We're going to talk about the policy of power and by policy of power I mean electricity and fuel and what really helps this country go from that perspective. So, we're going to get into that and some of the challenges nationally and locally going on with that. So with that I will introduce my guest Mr. Cy Weiss. Cy has been, thank you, welcome to the show Cy. Cy has spent, what was it, six years in DC working on energy policy I believe and we're going to learn a bit more about what he was doing there and implications and what made him want to leave possibly and then what some of those impacts are here so Cy's got some experience there. Cy, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. Thank you for joining us. I appreciate it. Please tell us a bit about yourself, where you come from, what you've been doing and what kind of got you where you are right now with this conversation. Yeah, so just a correction I'm actually, I spent about six months in DC. Six months, okay. Yeah, excuse me, yeah, six months but I spent about six months on the mainland going both to school and also working. I studied environmental science, specifically sustainability and policy as well as economics. We're at. So Southern Oregon University. Okay. It's a small little hippie town called Ashland. Ashland, yeah. Shakespeare Festival and whatnot. So I... But you had to spend six months in DC. In DC, yes, correct. What were you doing there? So I was working for a policy firm called American Council on Renewable Energy. They're also called ACOR. We represented Fortune 500 companies such as GE, Goldman Sachs, Google, basically all the big players that had assets in renewable energy. So we looked at advocating for wind, geothermal, photovoltaics, both thermal, solar as well, in addition to biomass and biofuels. So we had an array of basically a smorgasbord of different energy types that we advocated for. And my time spent there was a lot of fun. Very engaging with both the industry leaders as well as politicians and people at the Capitol and just bringing everyone to the table and discussing how can we move our energy policy forward that benefits all Americans. And when were you there? I was there the fall and winter of 2014. Okay. Fall and winter of 2014. And that was part of the completion of your degree or after your degree? That was after the completion of my degree. So the first thing you did after you got your degree is you went straight to, I jumped right into the DC engine over there. Yeah. So actually, our office was on 1600 and K. I'm not sure if you know where that is exactly in DC, but that was just literally just down the street from the White House. Wow. Okay. So you were there for six months in the thick of those conversations. Right. You're taking furious notes. I was. And I was planning to stay there longer. But you know, what we'll talk about on this show is the reason why I came back to our beautiful state of Hawaii. Yeah. Yeah. So okay. With that, you came back to Hawaii. Where are you from? Tell us a bit about that. Yeah. So I'm originally from the big end, a small little rainy town called Hilo. I graduated from Hilo High School. And then like I said, I moved on to go to school in Oregon. In Oregon then. I moved on to DC and then back to here in Honolulu. When did you get back here? I got back here almost two years ago. So June will be two years. All right. And okay. So you're right in the middle then of having these conversations. You're right in the middle of the policy discussions and arguments from in 2014 as far as how we can move the country forward, how we can make it better from an energy perspective, both electricity and fuel for the country. Exactly. What would you say was the greatest lesson that you have learned in that six month period of time? Well, great question. So we were actually a nonpartisan organization. So we didn't choose either side of the aisle. We were right in the middle. We wanted to bring all stakeholders. And to me, I think that was the biggest lesson for me is how to bring everyone together. Because at the end of the day, either if you wave a red flag or a blue flag, we all are under the same flag, which is the American flag. Ultimately. And we need to remember that. Right. Exactly. We don't always seem to remember that. Exactly. Yeah. So at that time is how do we create the language to bring everyone to the table? So we all agree on the same energy policy issues. Okay. So how do we create the policy language that can make people agree? So some people are going to agree on spec because it's what some people believe is better for the environment. Other people will need to be convinced because, well, I don't care about the environment part. But what I see is regulations and I see it's going to cost more and I see all these different issues. So were you able to be successful in getting some of that? Or not you personally, but your group? Our group, our communications group was, I would say pretty successful in bringing everyone to the table in terms of everyone understanding the benefits of renewable energy to our economy. So we specifically, one of our campaigns were to pinpoint certain states that had large, excuse me, a lot of jobs in renewable energy. So we focused in states like Texas and Iowa, which are large deployers of wind. Not a lot of people know that I think. That Texas and Iowa, which are two fairly strongly Republican states, so politics has to be there for a moment, strongly Republican states and Texas in particular that has a huge stake in the oil industry. Does Iowa have a stake in the oil industry? No, but they are big producers of corn and that corn is primarily used for ethanol. For ethanol, okay, which is one of the things we've tried here in Hawaii that doesn't work here in Hawaii for a couple of reasons that previous shows we've talked about. So, okay, so important little snippet there to know that Iowa and Texas are really big in the wind industry. Yes, some of the largest producers in our country. That's fascinating, that's fascinating. Okay, okay, so okay, well go on, go on, go on. So yeah, so the success around those states, if we look at this as a case study, is that we've over a time period, and it's not something that happens overnight, every strong policy to advocate for farmers to farm basically wind. So we write in the farm bill that wind is a commodity that you can farm and you can produce, and there are incentives for producing wind, the largest incentive of being the production tax credit, which is a big thing for both investors and landowners. Yeah, because it could be broken up in different ways. You've got your land use credits, you've got your production credits, and those can go to different locations, as well as your technology credits can add it in as well. As you layer these in, it makes investors very happy. Exactly, and the farmer winds out as well because it's another revenue stream for them. It's another revenue stream, perhaps being able to use a piece of land that they can't otherwise grow something out. Exactly, and they're not pressured to rely on that one crop. And it just makes exactly diversification, and it's going to be extremely important going into the future because with inevitable human-caused climate change, with the changing of seasons and how that affects crop production, farmers are going to be needing to look for another revenue stream down the road, and we think that either. That's an important topic all into itself as far as our farmers are concerned, and whether we're talking locally, and by the way, I don't know if you know this, but we have 7,000 local farmers in Hawaii. That's a lot. Some of them are really small, but they're actually farmers, and some obviously larger ones. So across the country, what do farmers do? They produce food for us to eat, and if they're having a hard time, if they're struggling, which is why we always have ag bills, which is why we're always trying to supplement and incentivize and create various ways to make sure that we're keeping them going, right? But then we also have some groups and some organizations that take advantage of that as well. To call a few out, we've got the Monsantos and the Pioneers, who they do some good work in some areas, but some of the ways they go about it, pesticides and some of the other means and methods that they use aren't always environmentally friendly or locally friendly, and that's a whole other topic, but it's important to recognize that trying to find ways to work with not just investors, but the farmers, trying to find ways to keep the farmers moving, diversify them, make sure they've got a stable baseline revenue for themselves, right? And there's an awesome quote by Richard Ha, actually a farmer on the Big Island, good family friend of mine. He says, the farmer's gonna farm as long as they can make money, and so we have to have an incentive for our farmers to be able to have some kind of way to bring in some revenue. We love them to farm food, but if we diversify food and energy, I think it's a win-win for everybody. Yeah, agreed, agreed, agreed. I'm very proud of the fact that I got to write a resolution this year that is calling for biofuels and really having the full supply chain by setting up biofuels industry here in Hawaii and have that coincide with food growth so that we are supplementing in that same way and providing more opportunities for farmers to utilize their land for biofuels as well as for food because of that baseline revenue thing. If we can give the farmers that baseline revenue, they're gonna be able to grow, if they're gonna be able to expand and grow more food and more options so that we can get more locally produced food, eventually maybe we can start exporting some of that. Exactly, exactly. Not to get too much in the weeds, no pun intended, but a farmer on average makes 2,000 to 5,000 per wind turbine. So that's a lot for a farmer per month. I think it's an annual basis. 2,000 to 5,000 dollars per turbine. Per turbine? Yeah, per wind turbine on their land. Here in Hawaii? I think this is mainland prices in the Midwest. Okay, okay, okay. And it's a very, it's a very, it's a sliding number. So it depends on where you are in the United States and the power prices. Yes, because it's always based on regional pricing and what those incentives are and how they work. Exactly, and talking about regional pricing, I think there's also, we gotta look at regional energy choices too because we can't just be polarized in one energy choice. We can't be 100% solar. We're already halfway through the show. How about that? Okay. Time flies fast. Thank you for joining us. Thank you, Cy, for joining us again. Mr. Cy Wise has joined us to talk about energy policy and we dug in a little bit there. We're gonna get a bit more going. So thank you for joining us. This is Think Tech Hawaii's Movers, Shakers and Reformers Politics in Hawaii. We'll be back in one minute. Thank you. Freedom, is it a feeling? Is it a place? Is it an idea? At DiveHeart, we believe freedom is all of these and more regardless of your ability. DiveHeart wants to help you escape the bonds of this world and defy gravity. Since 2001, DiveHeart has helped children, adults and veterans of all abilities go where they have never gone before. DiveHeart has helped them transition to their new normal. Search DiveHeart.org and share our mission with others and in the process help people of all abilities imagine the possibilities in their lives. Aloha, my name is Steven Phillip Katz. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist and I'm the host of Shrink Wrap Hawaii where I talk to other shrinks. Did you ever want to get your head shrunk? Well, this is the best place to come to pick one. I've been doing this. We must have 60 shows with a whole bunch of shrinks that you can look at. I'm here on Tuesdays at three o'clock every other Tuesday. I hope you are too. Aloha. Yeah. Welcome back to Think Tech Hawaii's Movers, Shakers and Reformers, Politics in Hawaii series. I'm your host, Carl Campania. Once again, please welcome Mr. Sai Weiss to the show. We're talking about policy of power. So what I want to do now is shift a bit to not just the reason you came home, but what were the conditions? So two years ago you came back. You left DC for the six months that you spent there trying to create some policy stuff and there were some changes happening and there was some tumult happening and obviously there have been changes since then and some of them more drastic. So let's start by saying, OK, what were the conditions at the time you were there? And how did some of that maybe lead you to wanting to leave DC? Right. So when I got there, the midterm election was actually going on. And so the House actually just flipped to be a majority Republican. So even though we are a nonpartisan organization, we really didn't have to convince Democrats about renewable energy. It would be like preaching to the choir. But our biggest effort was to talk to Republicans and conservatives about renewable energy policy. So that shifted. Well, that's your question about that, though. With that being your focus, you had to learn the words to say to them. You had to learn what messaging would get through to them. Was that hard to do or was that something that was easy to discover? I think if you really boil it down and you look at some of their values, you can bring that into the discussion. So for example, one of the things that conservative energy policymakers tout is that we should get rid of government incentives for picking winners and losers. And at ACOR, we're actually pretty ambitious and we actually said, sure, let's take all government incentives out. Because if we actually, even the playing field, renewables would win. Yeah, because you're talking about the subsidies that go for oil and petroleum. Exactly. So that is. Which they refuse, by the way. They don't admit. There's so many conversations I've had with people who are even some who are pro-renewable energy but still refuse to admit the significant billions of dollars worth of subsidies that go to the oil industry. So it's fascinating. So OK, I'm sorry, go on. No, exactly. And so we wanted a diversification of our energy resources. And that's one of the things that we use as leverage, was to say, well, if you are going by that logic, then we should go full throttle. And that would actually benefit renewables, like I said, in the end. And it would save taxpayers money. Absolutely, because it's otherwise hypocritical. Exactly. And so the nature of different countries is you tend to prop up an area of the economy in its infancy. And that's the role of governments around the world. What they do is they. So for example, a case study would be Korea and automakers. So after the Korean War, they slowly became industrialized. And one of the things they wanted to do, and they looked at Japan as a playbook, was we want to build cars and sell it to the world. And prop up our economy. So the Korean government actually went in and helped to prop up and incentivize and provide low-interest loans to these auto manufacturers. And now there's Korean cars running around every day, competing with both the Japanese, American, and European automakers. They were the first ones to offer the 10-year warranties and all that as well. Right, right. So 10-year, 100,000-mile warranties. Exactly. So that's just a case study of what government does in terms of helping industries prop up. So the oil and gas industry actually had the same thing when it was in its infancy, believe it or not, during the Industrial Revolution, right? Yeah, going back into the 1800s, the late 1800s, and through the 1920s and 30s. Exactly. And so when the petroleum production became more efficient, more cost-effective, and more actually more understood, then you had the government start to slowly scale back. But not actually fully scale back, because we have a lot of revenue. Exactly. Right, and it's almost like a drug, as soon as the money comes in, you don't want to say no. But we want to say, well, petroleum and fossil fuels had their day in the sun, and now it's time for a renewable energy transition. Exactly. Let's ratchet this down over here so we can ratchet up over here. Exactly. Because this, well, as those of us in the choir believe, that's the future of what the future should be for many of us who believe that. Right, right. So that's the kind of rhetoric we were going to use. And of course, at the end of the day, they don't want to listen to that. No, that's not a Republican talking point there. Right, so at the end of the day, that's when we come up with the notion that let's just get rid of all of government subsidies altogether if that's the way it's going to be. And that's a strategy. That's a strategy tactic that you'll use in order to say, OK, well, if you want to get rid of the renewable energy ones, you've got to get rid of yours too. OK, no, we don't want to do that. All right, fine. Let's get that off the table. Let's move to the next thing. It seems to me, thinking about it, I don't have a Republican brain. But what I've seen in the conversations is what seems to drive them is, where is the money? And how does the money flow? And how do we make sure that, number one, there's a balance that's happening and the transition is managed? And how do we maintain the money for the power sources that want the money? Right. So it seems like that conversation needs to be there. There have been some YouTube videos here. There are people talking about, well, this is an easy way to do that is tie it to the money and tie it to how, if you just invest in this instead of that, your money will still be there kind of a thing. So we have to get back to this other part of it. But so you had some success there, trying to get that language for some policy. And that was through, that was after the midterm elections, became Republican controlled. Was there actual success there? Or what happened? And then clearly, things were starting to go downhill. Right. And it was mostly surface level talks at that point. And we actually had a transition in our leadership within the organization that actually fully prompted me to actually just leave altogether. OK. So first of all, ACOR was working with what was at the time a primarily Democrat controlled house. And then it flipped and became a Republican controlled house. So you went from being able to get some positive policy in to having surface level conversation only with the Republican controlled house. Right. And then you got a new leadership at ACOR. Right. And not only that, but with the 100% renewable energy goal was established in Hawaii. And that was the leading, the straw that broke the camel's back. I said, Hawaii's wanting to do it. Hawaii wants to go 100%. They want to invest the time and money and sweat equity in making this reality happen. And so I said, this is where I want to focus my energy. OK. You want to come home. Right. Come home and help it. Yeah. And exactly and cultivate the needed strength to make that reality, to make it a reality. And what have you found since you've returned in that area? So I've worked in various energy companies here since then, since I've returned. And with the energy metering policies changing and storage and its infancy, things have been a little bit of a roller coaster or in the solar industry. I'm sure you've heard this term about the solar coaster. It's been up and down. But I have hope in that in the next five to six years, we'll see a smooth transition to where renewables actually will have solid footing, will have two legs to run, and be able to fully compete with fossil fuels on a levelized cost basis. And that's just ingenuity, the economics around it, and sound policy. Well, yes. But then also going back to the biofuels thing is, and I know you've went into some of that as well, with biomass stuff, that's where if we're able to actually establish a biofuels industry here and really grow that up, and each island could have its own version of it. And we created a fuel standard, renewable fuel standard, which we kind of have. But it isn't as clear, and it isn't directed the way we want it to be. One of the bills that we had this year that didn't pass was creating that renewable fuel standards by 2045 to 100% the same way. It didn't pass. So how does that jive with your belief that, hey, it's 100%, we want to go there. You wanted to come back home to help it happen, and bills like that don't pass? What does that mean to you and your understanding of the progress? It's not going to be easy. I mean, it's not going to be something that happens overnight. But I think over time, sooner that would be nice. But I think with policies and legislators that are going in and out of becoming in and out of office, I think that there is hope. I'm very hopeful in that there is an awakening within our society that this is a priority. And I not only see this as an environmental issue, Carl, I also see this as a national security issue. First and foremost. So it's a national security issue. It's an energy security issue. Yes. And being an island nation, it's going to be. Sustainability. Yeah, exactly. And it's going to be extremely pertinent going into the future, knowing that our United States military can be able to fuel ourselves and do not be feeling the shocks of oil prices when we do go into some kind of large global conflict. Well, that was sort of the premise behind the great green fleet that they wanted a few years ago. And they were able to achieve some of that. And that's where the whole gift pack program that I actually got to participate in some of. And that has led us to. And so we understand one of the stakeholders is here in Hawaii, let alone nationally or globally, is our Department of Defense. And their interest in having drop-in green fuels is significant. So that's one of the stakeholders. The airline industry is a stakeholder. So we've got two large stakeholders say, yes, we want this. And the reason we want this is the point you just made. Stable cost, stable pricing. We don't have the price shocks that go on. Everybody would be, from a business perspective, again, if you want to talk Republican, from a business perspective, from a bottom line perspective, I would rather know that I'm going to pay $60 per barrel for the next 20 years than $60, $40, $170, $120, $60. You have no idea from year to year or even quarter to quarter where you're going to be. Right. And I totally agree. And I think that we can't just hang our hat on policy. It's going to take ingenuity. So it's going to take the businesses and entrepreneurs to find solutions that drive down costs for consumers and for energy producers. That way, we can compete and provide a plentiful, affordable renewable energy. I agree with that. So we have just a couple of minutes left. What policy and then what action do you think we need to be looking at for the next legislative session or for this next year and years to come? What is it that you think we, from the experiences you've had and from the conversations, policy conversations going back to, we didn't even get into the EPA part, but conversations that have happened, where are we in that perspective? Or what do you think we really need? What are a couple of ideas that we need to make sure that we're addressing to help us achieve that? We need to elect officials that support renewable energy, period. And we need to. Not all of our officials do, it seems. And it's not just on the Republican-Democrat line. So we need to make sure that people are congruent with our national security issues, with our environmental issues, and with the issues of bringing down costs for Hawaii residents. Because at the end of the day, we pay almost the highest cost of living in the United States. So it would be. Per capita as well, if you look at it that way. San Francisco has high cost of living as well. New York has high cost of living. But when you compare all of that and look at Hawaii and then look at how our revenues work here, and the challenges of being an island this far away as well. Exactly. So a price shock would be a huge disadvantage to our Hawaii residents. Because we can't afford that. We literally cannot afford that. So that's the security part. It's having it available and having the security knowing that we don't have to worry about being left without in the middle of the island, the island in the middle of the ocean, in the middle of the Pacific, being left without it. So OK. We are at the end of our show. So unfortunately, we didn't get to. There's a lot more we can talk about. We can talk about this all night if we wanted to. I would like you to come back again to talk. We'll try to pinpoint a couple more specific issues that I'd like to talk about, the EPA and the US Department of Energy as well. So we can have you come back as well and talk about that. So thank you for joining us. Thank you, Mr. Sy Weiss. Thank you for all of you for listening in. This is Think Tech Hawaii's Movers, Shakers, and Reformers of Politics in Hawaii series. Thank you to the staff and the crew and everyone here at Think Tech Hawaii. We'll see you next week. And I'm going to have Mr. Tim Vandevere, Chair of the Democratic Party of Hawaii, here talking about some of the initiatives that he's working on with the party. So thank you. Thank you.