 Okay, we're back. This is Jay Fidel. It's Think Tech Hawaii. It's energy 808, the cutting edge, and we have a really important, interesting guest today. It's Commissioner Naomi Kawai of the PUC. Wow. Okay. And Marco Mangelsdorf is my co-host, and we're going to get into a discussion of what it's like to be a commissioner on the PUC. Very exciting stuff right after this message. Marco Mangelsdorf, welcome to the show. Naomi Kawai, welcome to the show. Marco, it's your turn to introduce Naomi. Well, mahalo to you Jay. Thank you so much, and especially to Naomi Kuei for joining us today. I've been looking forward to this. Naomi and I have been doing some corresponding over the past weeks, and it's great to have you on the show, Naomi. So mahalo, mahalo, Nui. And I think what I'd like to do is just kind of lead off with asking for kind of your personal intro as far as the path you took or have taken to now be one of three, one of three in the Triumvirate there, the Public Utilities Commission. So I'm all ears. He wants to know because he wants your job, Naomi. Give him the full bio so he can apply, I mean. No, no, no, no. Thank you, Marco. Thank you, Jay. Well, geez, I actually, when I graduated from college, I was very fortunate to work for then Council member Donna Kim, who really taught me about public service and kind of the benefits of, you know, working for in government and the public. And with that, he really served as a mentor on how to analyze things and got me interested in going to law school. So after several years, I did go off to Lewis and Clark, and I specialized in environmental land use law, which is what I intended. I practiced a couple years in Oregon and Washington before coming back. And I've been practicing over 25 years as a land use environmental law and regulatory attorney representing a variety of clients from small businesses, large developer types, as well as the government. You could fool us about that. You must have graduated law school very early, like four years old. I wish. So if I could just kind of follow up on that, I'm really kind of curious to hear. So at some point, we knew we knew last year that that there was going to be a six year term opening up at the public utilities commission, which is the purview of two, two bodies, so to speak. One is the governor, one is then and then the Senate for advice and consent. So at some point, you entered into some type of discussion with Governor, then Governor David E. Gayer, one of his, one of his lieutenants. And I'm wondering what was going through your mind in terms of, hmm, you know, you are well established already in your previous lifetime, right? Now, what was going through your mind as far as, well, this is an opportunity, right, to, to get into public service and, you know, ostensibly a six year commitment. And what was going through your mind in terms of the pluses and minuses? Was it a very difficult decision for you to leap when the opportunity of a commissionership came up? Yes or no. I really want to go back into government. And it was essentially my second big opportunity to actually go back to government. The first one being back in 1990, sorry, 2003, I was given the opportunity to join the AG's department. Unfortunately, the offer was made at a time that my son was being born and was just, was in a good time. And when I heard that the position at the PUC was opening up, I was truly very excited about it. I thought to myself that this is a great opportunity to use all my years of experience that I've gathered so far and all my years of representing private businesses and trying to really make government more efficient and more effective and serve the public in a different capacity, coming from the private sector and using my legal background in really representing government and the people of Hawaii. So it was just an outstanding opportunity for me, one that I couldn't imagine that I would be here, it's such an honor to be able to serve Hawaii in this capacity. And I'm just really fortunate that I was given this opportunity. So there's one more follow up on that if I may. So I always like to ask this question, which is, so we all come into a position like this or any kind of new job with certain kind of anticipation, expectations and assumptions, because it's part of human nature, right? It's kind of trying to put some known into the unknown. So compared to what you anticipated or what you expected, what has struck you the most in terms of surprises or, oh gee, I didn't even think of that. And yet you've been into it now for almost seven months. So what, what has surprised you the most? How hard my staff work. My staff is amazing. I never, you know, having filed things before the public utilities questions and you always wonder what's going on. Why is it taking so long for the commission staff to issue a decision or what's going through their mind? And you're just thinking to yourself, okay, well, this is typical government, they're not doing their job. When I came here, I'm like, okay, you know, we have to give the public and applicants predictability. That's what businesses want. One way or the other, if it's if we're going to go down with a project, we're going to go down with the project, we're going to go up, go up, but you have to give predictability to the private sector. That's the only way that private businesses are going to survive. Amazingly given the amount of dockets that are before the commission, I'm always amazed at how hard my staff work in researching the issues that we give them, responding to our questions. You know, when we go through the docket and the record, and we have questions, they're the first to either acknowledge that, yeah, there's a hole in the reasoning and the logic and the follow up. Or just, I might have just very simple questions about how things work. I mean, I'm not an energy attorney by any means and I don't didn't profess to be. So I had a lot of questions of staff on how things work and how does this turn to this and how does this interrelated this and they spent hours with me just going through and educating me on all the various energy docket. So I am just amazed at how professional and smart and dedicated my staff is at commission. And I think people should realize how hard the staff works. I really appreciate you sharing that because I've known a number of the staff over the years as well. And I just have always had the utmost admiration and the loa for how hard they work. And you're right, I mean, it's easy for people to kind of nash their teachers saying, what's taking the commission so darn long to decide this issue that when there's, you know, I don't have the stats in front of me, but compared to 10, 20 years ago, I mean, the volume, the volume, the depth, the intricacies, the complexities, I just got a belief of increased multifold. And yet it's not as if the commission's brain power in terms of manpower or people power has gone multifold. This is not possible in this age of, you know, you got to watch your budget and so forth. So I really appreciate your answer. So Jay, I'll pass it over to you. A couple of things to follow up. I talked about consistency. Now that's not the same thing as precedent, is it? It's kind of an analytical consistency to the other. So when, you know, Lidigan, if you want to call it Lidigan, Lidigan walks in the room, he can have or she can have some sort of sense of where this is going to go based on what you did before. I guess, you know what, where my question comes out, if you want to have consistency, you have to look before the seven months, you have to look in previous terms, previous compositions of the PUC in order to find out what they did in order to achieve that consistency, right? How do you do that? So I said, yes, you're absolutely correct, but keep in mind also a lot of those preceding decisions have been changed through legislation. So a lot of times I have to look at what was the legislative intent behind a law that the legislature passed. And they keep changing the laws. And so we're always, me and the staff are constantly saying, well, how does this affect our analysis in this particular docket? How does it change things? And then when we write our decisions, I have to make sure that when we're writing your decisions, we're adequately explaining how we arrived at each decision, especially if it differs from how we treated the issue in the path. And that's very important. One of the things that we're trying to do at the commission is actually issue a new set of inclinations. The last inclinations document was issued back in 2014. And with three new commissioners essentially on board and two very new commissioners, we thought it was important to give the public an idea of where we're heading and how we're looking at things and what we're trying to accomplish. Inclinations are inclinations unanimous? Or can you dissent from an inclination? What happens then if you don't agree? Actually, there's a lot of time. I think that the three commissioners here, we all have the same vision, the same end result. Now how we get there, we may differ. But we talk a lot and collaboratively try to problem solve through things that we might differ on. And if we have to write a dissenting opinion, we have to write a dissenting opinion. But I think we come from three different backgrounds. I respect each other's backgrounds. I think that's very important. The chair comes from a very knowledgeable planning background. And he knows the ins and outs and how everything is related from a planning standpoint. And he's been doing this for over 30 years. And he reminds us how our laws into play with other laws. That's very important. Me, I'm the legal background. I'm always looking at, okay, why does this, this doesn't make sense from a legal standpoint? How do we back this up? Where did you get this from? And then Commissioner Yost, I mean, he's also a lawyer, but he's more importantly, he came from a business aspect. And he knows how businesses will respond to things. And he's always questioning, hey, why are we taking this position? This doesn't make sense from a business perspective. So I think we respect each other's perspectives. And we try to make it work. Yeah. And you guys, you do have a diversity, although you and Yost are both lawyers and both from the call to business community, your view, your participation in the business community, but way different than his. So you have a certain diversity among the three of you. This is good. You agree that this is good? I think it's important. I mean, I can't imagine where we would have, we would all three come from the same sector. I don't know how past commissions did it. But the fact that we have this diversity of backgrounds and gives actually a different approach to problem solving, we all look at things and we kind of throw things, but what about this? What about this? And we're always bringing out ideas on how to accomplish our objectives. And we used to result that the legislature laid out for us. So I think it's valuable. That sounds terrific. You know, Marco, really, you ought to file the application. If you don't want to file the application, I'll file the application. Sounds terrific. File the application for what? For PUC. She told you how to do it already. I hope you made notes. No, I mean, you talk about change, you know. And before the show began, I was telling you about this hot scoop thing today over an Israeli, you know, engine that weighs 10 kilograms and can power a car for 750 miles, a new kind of electric approach. And so there's a change in the technology. Furthermore, the legislature, I don't want to say anything you don't know, but the legislature is in session and no commissioner's life or property is safe while the legislature is in session. So you guys follow this stuff. Do you follow the technology and do you follow the legislature? Yes, yes, yes, and yes. I mean, we're constantly attending forums, online, researching things. If anything, each one of us is going through literature and investigating things or articles. And we're always trying to keep on top of things and the newest trends, both in the United States, but internationally as well. The chair is, you know, very good at trying to bring people in to educate us on newest trends on energy development. In addition, we're always monitoring the legislature. The legislature causes up all the time and says, Hey, think about this, think about this. And it's great. I love the participation and all the ideas being tossed at us so that we can accomplish the goals. Oh, I'm so happy to hear you say that. You know, I think we believe strongly in trying to follow the action because the world is changing so much. So Marco asked you, you know, what surprises you had, what delights, if you will, you have in the last seven months. And so I would like to ask you the flip side of that. You know, what troubles have you had? What troubles do you see? What impediments are imposed on you that maybe you didn't expect about being a commissioner? Are you working too hard or are you have issues of one kind or another? Well, it is the state. You need to say no more. It can only move so fast. I only have so many resources to accomplish. I guess for me, no, I don't work any harder or less harder than I was in private sector. I think I'm working just as hard. The difference is I feel reenergized. You kind of get to a place in private practice where you're like, okay, I'm doing the same old thing, same old thing. With this, I feel like I'm so excited every single day to get up and research and read and learn new things. That's the great thing about this job is I get to learn so many new things that touches upon our daily lives and it's exciting. It's exciting to hear you say that. It's exciting. Really, that's fabulous. I was telling you before the show, too, we really appreciate commissioners coming on and talking to us and sharing their thoughts, being real people, if you will, and sharing their excitement with us. It's so important that we the public know you, we the public, and see it from your point of view. It's great to have you on the show. I just had to say that. Let's talk about some of the issues that are happening, that turn you on. Don't tell us anything that would violate any quasi-judicial limitation, but tell us what kind of dockets make you more interested and make you excited the way you are? I think one of the big things that we're working on as commission right now is the equity docket. Actually, my entire morning was spent on planning for the equity docket and what our objectives are and goals and how we're going to get more participation. For me, that's very important outreach. Being an environmental line use attorney, that's a big tenet of my practice, reaching out to the communities that are being affected and thinking of ways outside of the box, totally different from how the commission was doing things before and trying to do outreach to disadvantaged communities or affected people, people who are affected by our decisions either economically, geographically, or socially. That's what we're doing all morning is basically brainstorming on how to improve our outreach to those communities. We know our society, both federal and state, it has certain issues and it's incumbent on every one of us, including officials and non-officials, to do something. It sounds like you're in a kind of transition or transformation in your thinking, that is the PUC, because you undertake to do something for our society. How close am I to being right? I think you're right on the nose. I think that the three commissioners, if anything, we don't accept the thought that this is how it's always been done, so we're going to continue to do it. I think we come from the perspective of, in order for us to better serve our constituency, is we have to do things a little bit differently. We have to think outside of the box. We have to get to decisions faster. We have to do more outreach. We're always looking for ways to accomplish those goals different from what we've done in the past and staff that have been great in responding. I'm blown away by your comments. Really, Naomi, I'm not kidding. That's why I'm going to turn it back to Marco so he can continue and drill down on some of your initiatives. Well, maybe in the interest of getting a teeny, tiny scooplet. I want the so-called inclinations paper came out in 2014, written by memory serves Mike, Champley, Mina Maria, and Lorena Kiba. I remember reading it with really big eyes because it was pretty provocative in a number of places. Now it's nine years later. Things are different now from then, which is the nature of living your time, of course. When do you think that we can eagerly anticipate getting the PUCs new in the works, in the inclination paper, so that we can read it? Well, right now, we're just in the beginning phases. I think it would depend on whether or not Commissioner Yost is actually appointed to the position because obviously there's a different commissioner that comes on. The inclination paper will change, but we've already tossed out some ideas on what we like to see from the energy community. I'm described. I'm running down all the ideas. Probably, we're hoping this year, that's one of the main things for the chair. That's the thing that he keeps telling us every single week. I want to update the inclinations paper. I want to update the inclinations paper. It's high on his priority list, so that's the thing that we're going to be working on. It's great to hear that Leo is ... I recall him in a conversation I had with him as well, not too long ago that he mentioned. I thought, well, that sounds like an excellent idea. If I'm not mistaken, so we're now waiting for Governor Green to nominate an individual to serve the balance of what was Jennifer Potter's term, which goes until January 30th of next year, 2024, right? That could either be Colin, which I hope it is because I'm a big fan of Colin. The GOV could choose somebody else, and then whoever he chooses would go to the Senate. First, the Energy Committee, which now has Senator Linda Coyt as the new chair, who took over for Senator Wachai. They would make a decision as you went through, right? You went through the committee hearing, and then there's a floor vote on the Senate, and then that person would be no longer interim. I don't know the exact title is, but they would be there to serve Jenny's term until January 30th, or June 30th of next year. I would think the Governor is going to do that sooner. I know the Ledge just started their business, so to speak, but I would think Governor Green would do that fairly soon, so hopefully there will be greater certainty as far as the roadmap they had, so you guys can really start cranking on the Inplanations paper because it's truly such a dramatically new, different world now in 2023 compared to 2014 on so many levels. I'm really excited to read that. Right, I think from the energy sector side, there really is a need to update the Inclination paper. They are constantly asking us questions as to where we're leaning, how we're thinking about things, and so rather than doing it on a piecemeal basis, we're hoping to just update the Inclination paper so that they know exactly how we're thinking and how we're approaching problem solving. Well actually, if you give enough detail in the Inclination paper, they'll save time. They'll know where you're headed, and they won't have controversies over things you've already expressed yourself on. This is a good thing, you give them guidance, it's the right thing to do. We have issues in government about openness and trying to telegraph what you're going to do. This is really important, but the other issue, and you mentioned that earlier, is speed. We had the special agent in charge of the FBI on the show a couple of weeks ago, and I said to him, what are the myths that you want to dispel in the community? Tell us about the FBI, tell us how you want to straighten people's thinking out so they understand the FBI better. He said, well, the biggest myth is that we can't do anything fast, that we have to, we should be doing it faster. It takes a long time, in fact, that people have to understand it takes a long time to make our kids. We keep hearing that with regard to the Attorney General in Washington, and so forth. People in general, on every level, are always saying, why does government move so slowly? Why can't they just make a decision? Why do we always have to wait? Indeed, so many projects that the highways and byways of Hawaii are littered with companies that failed because they couldn't get a decision, not necessarily from the PUC, but from some permitting organization, fast enough, and they burned their capital and all finished now. So the question is, what can you do? What do you want to do? How can you do it to move things faster so that I as a citizen or a businessman would say, wow, those guys, they ruled really quickly. I'm impressed. I'm happy. That's the way I want government to be. I think internally, I'm trying to streamline the process on how we issue our decisions. So I'm hoping that that will shave off some time, at least by a month, and also minimize kind of some of the appeal issues. But I think holistically, and this is one thing that as a commission we've recognized is working with other agencies so that projects aren't stuck in this permitting hell. Essentially, it's what I call it. Not a lot of people realize it. Basically, from the time someone submits an application, it's a five to seven year process to bring something to fruition. And we need to somehow streamline these processes and work together collaboratively with other agencies so that we can figure out, okay, what is your concern? What is your concern that's trying to address this up front and tell the applicant, hey, these are our concerns. Address it in your application. And I think the PUC is recognizing that we've entered into MOU with DLNR and Water Commission. And we're trying to enter to other MOUs with other agencies. I'm glad to hear that. What about these cases that involve 85 groups that have something to say to you, and they all want to intervene and speak and repeat themselves? How do you deal with that? You have to listen to them. You have to give people their ability to give comments. I think that's part of the community outreach. I mean, yes, it's a lot of people, but their comments and concerns are just important. And they may provide something useful that you never thought about before. And that's one thing that I learned as an attorney on the development side. And it was painful for my clients here. Yeah, you got to listen to them. There's something useful out there. And it will come up to a better project. The point, yeah, it's a point well taken because right in that talk, maybe repeats itself, but in that talk, maybe an idea that gives you an idea. And before you know it, you have a dynamic creativity going on. And that way you can deal better with the change. Let me go to some of the things we wanted to ask you about initiatives or directions. One of them is the Homeland Electrics Utility Scale Solar Plus Storage Project. You want to comment on that at all? Not really. We're trying to make them work and it's slow. Okay, how about performance space? I think that's probably something that we are constantly evaluating with Hawaiian Electric. They just went through something. I think it works. I already have made some inclinations that I want to change it a bit, but I want to see it play out and give some particularity. But we have indicated to Hawaiian Electric where we have some issues. Well, I sure like that because it's dynamic. Everything changes. So there's nothing so unchangeable as change. And you've got to roll with it. You've got to find the new approach. And you've got to let people know. So I think that's very important that you entertain the notion of change. So one of the things that I was interested in asking you about was this hydrogen hub idea, which just came up a couple of days ago. And the energy department is going to give $7 billion around the country and $1 billion. Hopefully, if Hawaii plays its cards right, $1 billion for a hydrogen hub. How does that change the calculus for energy in Hawaii, do you think? And how does it change the role of the PUC? I mean, what is your role at all in a hydrogen hub? We already have several hydrogen programs. And if you take a look at state law, there is already established within D-Bid, I believe, a renewable hydrogen program to allow the state to transition to renewable hydrogen economy. And it's something that the legislature has been asking for for quite some time. So personally, I'm very excited about it. If we can develop the hydrogen technology here, that's unbelievable. It gives us one more option on the table for us to utilize in reaching our goals, our renewable energy goals. Yeah. To pull that together with the notion of consistency, what the hydrogen possibility needs is consistency. Consistency in the way you develop the hydrogen, build, make the hydrogen, the way you store the hydrogen, the way you ship the hydrogen, the way you burn the hydrogen. And as a hub out of one of seven or eight hubs in the country, you have a lot of Hawaii would have a lot of influence. As a hub, it could establish these things and it would be very persuasive, influential in the hydrogen world. Well, and think about where we are globally. I mean, we are essentially located halfway between the east and the west. And so from a economic perspective, I mean, that's very exciting for the state. Very exciting as a bridge between Asia and the United States. So yeah, it just makes a lot of sense. And I'm hoping that we survive to the next round. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we stand a good chance. I mean, somebody said on a radio that it was one out of three, the way it worked out numerically, one out of three chances. Yeah, that'd be fabulous. So, Marco, before we run here, I wanted to offer you the opportunity of asking about Molokai. You always ask about Molokai. You have a special thing about Molokai, so why don't you ask about it? Well, yeah, we're kind of short on time. But I wanted to to rift for a moment on the D word as in delays. And I mean, I've been in this business for a long, long time, and specifically her and Hawaii for 23 years. And, you know, I've seen my share of delays on multiple levels. And I just want to note, I think I sent you a piece on this earlier this week, Naomi, from the Wall Street Journal, which is, you know, with the Inflation Reduction Act and the release of a lot of money for green tech or projects across the United States, that what we are dealing with and what Hawaii Electric is dealing with, what developers are dealing with here in Hawaii is not by any means unique, that there it's more what's going on as well in the mainland with projects that are being delayed, delayed, delayed, utilities having a difficult time having adequate staff, adequate resources to be able to and just supply line issues, which of course, COVID has exacerbated that. So, you know, our field division, of course, is Hawaii, because we live here, right, is where we make our lives. This is not by any stretch or one off thing what we're dealing with here. This is nationwide. So I'm not using that as an excuse, but I just wanted to add that. Thank you. I totally agree. I mean, it's not a it's a nationwide issue. And talking to my colleagues on the mainland, they're all experiencing same type of issues that Hawaii is. And just kind of, you know, we can do better, right? We can always do better. And what we can do as a commission is basically try to speed up the process internally to not add to that delay. That's what we can do. So that didn't sound much like a discussion over Molokai, but hey. My dear grandmother, my dear beloved grandmother. Molokai is involved. So could you ask about Molokai before we run out of time, Marca? Sure, sure. So there was the announcement recently between Hawaiian Electric and Hoahu, not Oahu, but Hoahu Energy Cooperative, which has a number of partners as well, that there's agreement at least in principle for two projects on the island of Molokai, near and dear to my heart has been for 50 plus years to have utility scale, solar plus storage at the Palau, the one and only eco power plant there on the island, and then another smaller solar plus storage up in Kuala Foo. So what's your take on that? I mean, I know it's just new and you probably don't even have the documentation submitted yet, but I guess just kind of first glance what's your take? I know that Hawaiian Electric has been working really hard on getting something on Molokai. I don't know how many correspondences have we've gotten on their efforts to try and get something like this on Molokai. So I'm excited that there is some type of project in the works. I haven't seen the applications at all, so I can't comment one way or the other on any of the details, but yeah, I'm glad that we're at the next stage and I look forward to taking a look at the application and seeing how much of the energy it solves as well as what are the impacts to the community. Yeah, one of the cool things, of course, is that that's this relatively small island, comparatively speaking, 3,000 some odd rate pairs of numbers taken in general population, about 7,000. So when you throw several megawatts of solar plus storage, I mean, you can start getting into substantial percentages of the power demands of the island electricity-wise being met by renewable energy plus storage. So it's going to be, I have no doubt, a long, long slog because I've done commercial projects on Molokai and it's a different challenge than working on any of the other bigger islands. Right, just trying to get equipment there is a nightmare. I mean, so I agree with you. Thank you, Naomi. It's been great to have you on the show. You are such a nice person. We really appreciate having a discussion and Marco was a nice person too, although everybody feels exactly the same. Oh, Marco is always very nice. Such a total gentleman. Aloha, you both.