 This is Think Tech Hawaii. Community matters here. You're the voice. He's the voice. That's Representative Chris Lee. This is Think Tech, if you didn't know. Hawaii the state of clean energy. And we're talking about a midterm report for the Hawaii Energy Committee of which Representative Lee is the chair. And what else is it? A superlative leader. He got out. Whatever titles you want to give me. Okay. This is Jeff Hodo, the former consumer advocate. We talk about that now and for years to come. Also an energy lawyer among other things. Our co-host today for Think Tech. Thank you, gentlemen, for being here. So our mission today is to find out what's going in your committee. And I just wonder how could things be going in your committee if you're here? What are they doing right now, Chris? Oh, we're efficient. It's multi-tasking. And I'm both here. We're also doing an interview over at KHON while we speak. Oh, right. And at the legislature, yes. It's amazing. I knew you could do it. That's right. So what does it look like, this ledge? In other words, why is this ledge different from all of the ledges when it comes to energy? You know, this one's because I think there's a greater focus on energy in this legislature than there has been in previous ones. Most legislatures the past few years have been very busy looking at multiple issues. You had rail in the past. You had all kinds of other things which sucked up all the oxygen in the room. But I think as you heard, even in the governor's state of the state address that opened the legislature, there was a huge focus on what we're doing in the energy space and how we're evolving our economy and taking next steps on climate change and all this stuff. And because now the rest of the world, really, and certainly the rest of the country is looking to us as a leading state on this, we have an opportunity to really make some big strides and set the path for the rest of the nation. Are we making the strides you want to make? Are you happy with the strides we are making? Well, we're halfway through the legislative session right now. So we just hit crossover where the House bills go to the Senate. The Senate bills go to the House. So I'd say we're mid-stride. All right. That means you have to come back later. Yes. Full stride. And we'll ask the same question again. Well, let's get specific. What kinds of bills are pending? What kinds are drawing your attention? I think there's bills that address energy generally. What are we doing with our tax credits and incentives? How are we responding to what Washington's been doing and the potential instability perhaps in the national energy arena? And what are we doing on our local front to continue to promote renewable technology and make things possible for consumers to be able to get into EVs and take advantage of new technology that's out there in the market? I think that's really where we're focused. And really all of that in the context of the big question, which is how do we prepare for the next hurricane? How do we avoid becoming the next Puerto Rico? Wow. A few things. Do you sleep at night? Well, no. I sleep at home and I'm here doing an interview simultaneously. That's how this works. Sounds like my head would explode, actually, on day one. So, Jeff, you have areas of interest. Why don't you post them to Chris? Well, I have the definitive list from the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative who on their website posted a number of energy-related bills. So, Chris mentioned resiliency. So, can we talk a little bit about House Bill 2249 and what it means and how it's important? 2249 out of the 3,000-plus bills. Let me just look at the description so I know which one this is. This is... Okay, yes. So, 2249. One of the things that we know is that we are vulnerable here in Hawaii to hurricanes, to other sorts of disasters, which can disrupt the grid. You get one albizia tree that falls apart on a power line and pretty soon halve the islands out. So, what can we do in that context to be able to prepare? There's a number of options, a number of bills moving on this. This particular one really looks at how do we finance the kinds of upgrades that we need. So, we've for many years had our GEMS program, which has had its fits and starts and so forth, but they're still north of $50 million in capital sitting there available. And so, if resiliency is a priority, because we never know when we're going to get hit by the next hurricane, can we leverage some of this funding to be able to address that? So, this bill takes about $20 million out of that fund to apply toward police stations, fire stations, emergency health centers, things like that that are critical infrastructure in the times of an emergency and tries to enable them to be able to take advantage of battery storage and other sorts of technologies that, when the power goes out, those places are still online and they can still deliver critical services at a moment's notice. And the second part of the bill, which is really important, is creating a broader task force to really figure out of all our infrastructure throughout the state, public and private and everything else, what are the critical components that we need in place to figure out as we go forward where we focus our next steps. That's something that I think we have to do. We will regret it like nothing else if we do nothing and a hurricane rolls around like Eniki again. So, what's that bill called for? So, it sets up a working group to really dive into that and evaluate everything out there that's on our grid and identify those key priorities that need help first. What's the deadline on it? I mean, to get the working group to give you suggestions. So, hopefully they'll be coming back, assuming the bill passes, they'll be doing their work over the next six months or a year and come back to us this time next year with some sort of recommendations. Tight deadline. But it's important. No, it is. But it's a big job too because we've got 1.4 million people here in the state and all the infrastructure that we rely on and we've got to figure out of that where do we put our money first? Is there funding for the task force? That's what we're going to have to figure out as we go forward. If this is a priority for the legislature and I believe it should be, a little bit of funding here could save hundreds of millions of dollars, billions of dollars in the future that we can avoid because we will have upgraded our infrastructure and will be resilient against the kinds of disasters that we know are coming. Yeah, therefore it should be at the top of the priority list because it could mean everything to us. I think it's one of those that we have to take seriously. Can I go back to Gems for a minute? Sure. Gems, as I recall, was a fund that was created by selling bonds which the public would have to repay. I mean, ultimately, if you spend Gems, it's the public's money. It's not, I wouldn't call it a tax, it's the public's money. Yeah, it's financed out of the public benefits fee, theoretically. So the idea is you've got to use it for a public purpose and I think in this case, because we all need these kinds of emergency services and we all rely on the electric grid, there's certainly a nexus there to be able to invest the money appropriately so that everybody sees a benefit in time of need. Yeah, I mean, the interesting thing about Gems is Gems has not been very successful. You said ups and downs, but a lot of that is down. They haven't been able to make the loans that were contemplated when legislation was passed. And so very few loans have happened. Very few projects have been funded with Gems' money. Therefore, I mean, I would say just as a member of the public, it ain't working really well. So let's use it for something else. Let's use it for this. I mean, to me, I think that's a pretty good idea for a fund that has not been well deployed right now, up till now. So use it for a better purpose. Is this part of the thinking involved? I think it's part of it. I mean, I think the markets changed for sure, and there's been a lot of questions raised as some of the programming at Gems over the years. But I think ultimately now we're at a point where the legislature had decided last year to put $46 million of the Gems' money toward energy efficiency in public schools, for which there was a huge outcry from the public. And I think that's something because public schools are taxpayer resources that benefits everyone. This would be, I think, in a similar fashion designed to help everybody. We went out already, the $46 million. And so this $20 million is coming out of the balance, and the balance is around $50 million. Yeah, that's a bit north of that. Yeah, yeah. It was originally $150 million. Roughly, yeah. Yeah, as I remember. Anyway, okay, that's really interesting. And I mean, to follow up on the point that Jeff was making and that you're making, this is the most important thing for us. It's not specifically energy. It's not a matter of dealing with resilience and sustainability and extreme weather, which we know is happening. There's another storm right now forming up on the East Coast. We only had one a few days ago. They haven't even recovered or fixed it up yet, cleaned it up yet. And so it's clear, despite what the White House may think about this, climate change is actually creating storms. And furthermore, as we discussed at the Energy Briefing on January 15 or so, this is an El Nino year. It could be a very busy year for the Weather Service. And for all of us as we sit with bated breath waiting to see what's coming our way. Yeah, okay. Well, this is a very, this is a high priority issue for sure. The faster you move, the better, in my opinion. You want to get to some other point? Well, I think that's a good segue to talk about some of these RPS bills that you've got. Sure. RPS is a renewable portfolio standard that's already been passed for the electric utility. You're looking to pass one for transportation as well as for gas. So let's talk about those two. Sure, sure. In general, I think just backing up for just a little bit, we clearly have a dependency on imported fossil fuel and this is no new thing for everybody else. But two-thirds of that does come from transportation. So we can get into those bills in a minute to address that, to reduce our dependency there and ultimately save money for everybody. Another portion of it is you have the electric utility RPS. We also have gas utilities in the state which deliver power in some places. And so there have been bills the last, I think three or four years now, that look at how do you incorporate those utilities under a statewide RPS because we are just as vulnerable to disruption from that energy supply. And so these bills are now, before the legislature, one's moving from the House to the Senate coming up and I believe that's HB, I think, 1801. HB 1801, that's the bill that is meant to correct what's perceived as a loophole in the electric RPS. So you've got this RPS that applies to electricity 100% by the year 2045. But what it doesn't address is if individual customers decide to self-generate electricity, they could self-generate using a fossil fuel and that doesn't count toward the RPS as the law currently stands. So as I understand, HB 1801, it's meant to try to address that. But the difficulty I'm having is it seems focused on the gas utility, Hawaii gas, and to make complete disclosure, I do sit on the board of Hawaii gas, so I have an interest here. We still love you. Thank you, Chris. I appreciate that. Jay's not saying anything. Oh, I'm waiting to, I have to frame it up right. We love you a lot, Jeff. No matter what you do, Jeff. In any event, Hawaii gas could do a combined heat and power unit for a hotel, for example. And if this bill passes, the RPS would then apply to that because that unit, because it would remain grid connected. But if that same CHP unit were fueled by diesel fuel, for example, this bill wouldn't apply to that. So you've still got a loophole in this RPS. So could you address that? Yeah, I think this kind of case in particular is one of the things that's been a sticking point in the discussions over the bill over the last few years, which is probably why it's still before us today. So I think one of the things that we're trying to do is work between all the stakeholders to figure out how can you make something that actually makes sense, that works, that achieves the end goal of ultimately eliminating the volatility in our energy markets, but also allows flexibility such that we can realistically get there. I think that's something that both everybody from HIKO to Hawaii Gas and all the other stakeholders in the energy space have been trying to hammer out. And we're advancing this bill, and what we had in the last committee was, again, a differing of opinions from those stakeholders. So I think the important thing is to keep the bill moving so that it forces people to come to the table and actually get to some sort of compromise where everybody gets a little bit, everybody gives a little bit, but ultimately the public as a whole is better off. I thought there was some discussion at some point of turning this bill or having a portion of this bill direct a task force, starting another task force to address this issue. Is that still alive? Well, right now, in its current form, it's not a task force. Inevitably, that's always part of the discussion. I think the hard thing is over the last several summers, we've had both D-bed as a convener, has tried to get Hawaii gas together with the utility and all the other stakeholders to come up with some sort of compromise and while not formally a task force, it's the exact same kind of negotiation and compromise, but unfortunately unsuccessfully. And so this is now, you know, year three or maybe even four on this issue. So I think the real question is, how do we proceed from here and will a task force ultimately achieve anything or will it not or will the legislature just have to unilaterally step in at some point because ultimately we know where technology is going, we know where the economy is going, and unfortunately where the volatility coming into our market is ultimately hitting rate pairs and businesses and everybody else. So at some point we have to do something. So we're hoping that by pushing things forward this year, people do legitimately come to the table and want to have a serious discussion, even when it's difficult to have sometimes. Can I just offer a thought or maybe a question? You know, is it necessary that the legislature get involved in this? Isn't this kind of policy best handled by some regulating agency? Why? Is this the most efficient way to develop the mix? And the mix would change, right? Circumstances could change. And we know that, you know, the discussions about the mix have taken place for so long with such little hard copy, such little actual result, wouldn't it be better to, you know, let regulators do it? You know, in a perfect world, the legislature wouldn't have to do anything, I think. I'm hoping for that. I want you to go home and take a nap. Well, I was going to have a tax credit for Jay's house, but I guess it's off the table. No, I think you do bring up a good point, right? I think there is definitely a place for an entity like the Public Utilities Commission as a regulator of utilities to step in and take action on various things. I do think also in the context of our changing economy and the energy market overall, what was normally, traditionally, within the bounds of the PUC now is a bit fuzzy, and you have questions over to what extent can they influence the direction of the marketplace. And a great example is transportation. For example, the PUC can't create a unilateral RPS for transportation or anything like that, but yet transportation is such an integral part of the energy future as we move along because it is one and the same. And as we move to EVs and everything else, that becomes part of the electric grid, which can provide significant public benefit and play into costs. That's true. Everything is changing. To me, it raises the question, is our existing structure or existing approach on this sort of thing, keeping up with the fact that the economy is changing, the weather is changing, the technology is changing, the society is changing. Our need, our dependency on these things is changing. And to me, it does make my head explode, which is why I want to take a short break. It's Chris Lee. Jeff Ohno would be right back. You'll see. Nothing is making sense for me and there's got to be solutions how to make a brighter day. Good afternoon. My name is Howard Wigg. I am the proud host of Code Green, a program on Think Tech Hawaii. We show at 3 o'clock in the afternoon every other Monday. My guests are specialists both from here and the mainland on energy efficiency, which means you do more for less electricity and you're generally safer and more comfortable while you're keeping dollars in your pocket. I was not the originator. We're back. We're alive. We're having such a good time. With our old friend Jeff Ohno. Old is right. And our supreme energy leader, Representative Chris Lee. And we're talking about what's going on midterm here in the legislature. Especially during the break, why don't you pose it? So the question is, you know, the legislature has been doing a great job passing these renewable portfolio standards, increasing the electricity one to 100% by 2045. The question is, you know, instead of looking at these RPS bills, shouldn't we be looking at legislation that enables us to get to 100% that enables developers, power generation developers to get their renewable energy projects in the ground to help us meet that 100% RPS? Implementation type legislation. Yeah, you know, I think that's a really good point. I think it's spot on. You know, one of the big hold ups that I think anybody watching this, if they've ever tried to install solar panels or batteries or anything, will tell you about is the permitting process. And that's something which can eat up time, money and fundamentally stall projects. And especially now when you have technology that is changing so rapidly. PV panels that have come down in price and batteries which are infinitely evolving. If you're a permitting agency, how do you deal with this? And that's something that's been frustrating for a lot of people out there. So one of the bills we're moving this year actually sort of creates basically almost an academy to really take the permit staff at the city and county, at the state from behind their desks and actually put some through this kind of education to look at here's the technology, here's what's happening, really involve them from the start so that they know exactly what they're able to do and not do much more quickly rather than letting something sit on somebody's desk for months because they simply don't know how to handle it. And that's something which I think people have been crying out for. And it's true in the larger projects as well. You know, you've got significant, we were just on Kauai last week dedicating what we think may be the world's largest solar plus storage array. And those sorts of things aren't cheap, they don't come fast, but man, are they able to move now because we're able to get alignment where you have simple solutions to what used to be incredibly complex and just unknown permitting questions. And so I think continuing down that path is really important, especially for the small-scale residential market where you have so much variety in technology now and options that anyone can buy into. There was a piece of the paper, actually I think it was about or by Marco Mangostorf, one of our contributors, on the fact that on the Big Island, surprisingly, the number of permits for solar, rooftop solar, which was way down last year, has magically sprung up again. I don't know what that's about. What can you do? It's a matter of policy. Should we be trying to increase that number all over the state and helping the industry but also helping rooftop solar in lieu or maybe other kinds of serious capital investment solar at the utility level? And I suppose also, should we have credits, new credits, expanded credits, anything pending like that? There are a few things pending. And just to answer your first question more broadly, I don't think it's an either or. I don't think we have to trade off investment in a large-scale project against small-scale investment that a homeowner might choose to make because it's in their own financial interest. I think that's something which we're long beyond. That being said, there are definitely things moving forward. What was the second part of your question before I forget? When you talk about the old guys here, it's me too. I had to fix up this market so it was like right, right, no. So I think there are bills moving right now. For example, the federal government has a 30% credit for renewable energy technology, solar, all that sort of thing. The state, up until this point, has had a 35% credit which has made possible a lot of the investment that's come into the state. And I think right now what we're seeing in a couple bills before the legislature is the changing of those credits. So instead of just a straight 35% of those sorts of things, now we're transitioning into storage. Battery storage where you have a lot of investment momentum right now. Because ultimately the moves the PUC and other regulatory bodies, not the legislature, regulatory bodies leading the way are making, really are creating new demand response programs and utility rate models and all sorts of things that can be taken advantage of really down to the consumer that will empower them to be able to earn back from their investment in these sorts of storage technologies which also benefit the grid. It's a truly sharing economy going forward into the 21st century of electricity and power from which anybody can benefit. So now, can we change those incentives to help promote that? And I think that's really what's on the table. Yeah, the whole connection between batteries and rooftop solar cells is so important because I think people want to be at the leading edge. They want to be early adopters. They want to have two of them. The old days of just spending $25,000 on rooftop solar and not having batteries, I think those days are passing. Everybody wants them both now and you can help give them both. I mean, how does it work right now and how would it change? So right now if you're a homeowner, for example, and you want to put what have you on your house, the PUC just recently came out with a new set of options for you, but generally speaking at this point, what I should say in the past, you used to just be able to put solar on, you get your credit, you're 35% and 30% federal credit, and you would be under the old NEM program today now. You're far more likely going to be putting that in coupled with battery storage and the presumption there is that in the near future the PUC and a couple dockets it's working on will be able to create new rate design so that you'll be able to store power, provide it back to the grid when it's needed by everybody else and be able to be compensated a little bit for that. So there's value for the entire grid there and that's something that should be part of the investment you make, not only for yourself, but for everyone. Yeah, I mean, it's really, you're in an interesting spot because some things, at least to me, seem clear to get to the 100%. But then when you open the door in the morning and you see the email come in and you see all this contention and all these respective stakeholders with different views, some say yes, some say no, some say, how do you deal with that, aside from exploding your head? How do you deal with that? Well, you just don't open the door. Who would oppose these kinds of things? Is it legitimate? What weight do you give when they come around and oppose what seems to be an obvious direction? I think oh, did you want to jump in? Well, sometimes the consumer advocate there. Yeah, but you know what? We've had such stellar consumer advocates in the state's modern history. I can't think of a single instance in which that would be the case. No, but I think, you know, we're lucky here in Hawaii because I was just in California having a conversation with their legislative leadership and their utility commissioners and their energy commission and the challenges they're facing, even in a state like California, which is by all means, way ahead of the rest of the country is behind where we're at. And we are fortunate in so far as we have, I think, general agreement amongst all stakeholders, whether you're a utility or a refinery or a homeowner or even the consumer advocate, because the direction we need to go ultimately, I think, is embracing the kind of innovation and technology in the market that we're seeing. So how do we align everybody and that process isn't, I think, pitting people black and white against each other. I think everybody agrees generally in the same direction that we're going. It's how do you work out the details along the way and it's those more minor disagreements over how we get there. I think that is now what's up for discussion. What about cars and electric vehicles? We have what, I think, 6,000... You're about to tell me something crazy that we're going to have all kinds of... Well, you know what? When cars fly in space, Jay. That's the answer to that. Wait. You know, we have 6,000 electric cars in the state. We don't have enough, it was something recently, we don't have enough charging stations. We need to have more. We have a million fossil fuel cars, which is a lot of cars, really, and we don't have the growth in electric cars that we should have. I mean, what can we do about that? There's no credit right now in electric cars. No state credit. No state credit for buying an electric car. Do you drive an electric car? No. I don't drive an electric car. Okay. Now that's what I call... Maybe we need a state credit. No, so I think while other states do have credits, and they've been incredibly successful in some places at boosting adoption, and it's especially important because it's cheaper today to drive and operate an EV than it is a regular gas car, and within about 5 to 6 years, almost every major study and every major auto manufacturer has shown that it's going to be cheaper to produce an electric car than a traditional gas car. So the faster we can get people into electric vehicles, the cheaper it will be for them to commute, and because of the nexus between electric vehicles and the grid, which can plug in and act as storage and provide all kinds of benefits there, the faster we do that, the faster that homeowners who might not even drive may be able to save some dollars too. So what we're doing, even though we don't have upfront credits to buy electric vehicles for consumers, we do have benefits elsewhere. For example, you're able to drive in HOV lanes, and you can charge your vehicle for free and all that sort of thing. And we're at a point where we are seeing adoption skyrocket. It's not linear, it's exponential. We're seeing a 30 plus percent increase in purchases of EVs year over year, and that's something which, as the price comes down, will certainly grow. But I think you bring up a good point, which is you need the charging infrastructure to be able to support that. And it's really a chicken and egg, right? Who's going to buy an electric car if you can't charge it anywhere? Who's going to put it on the charging station if there are no electric cars? So, we have a couple bills moving this year, one in particular which Jeff and I were talking about a minute ago, which sets out the trajectory long-term goals to say, you know what, we want to have charging infrastructure in place to enable everybody to take advantage. And it starts by, I think, building actually on the commitments that counties have made just recently this year, which was a big deal. They came together and said, you know what? By 2035 we want our public transportation to be available and clean. By 2045 we want to have everybody else on board too and enable them to have the kinds of savings that many people who drive EVs, which is apparently not us, are already seeing. So, our bill basically doubles down on that and says, we're right there with you from the state side. We will commit our resources, our energy office will help the counties figure out those questions. And we're going to set goals for reducing fossil fuel consumption in the transportation sector, which is two-thirds of all the fossil fuel consumed in the state over time. And the neat thing is as we've been traveling around to California to the East Coast to other countries even, we've been building relationships with the kinds of companies, innovative startups that are doing a lot of the neat work in this space, creating new kinds of charging, new financial models for charging. And that's something that we're competing against places like California on. So if we make these kinds of commitments, we know that we're going to be getting a lot of the investment here in Hawaii to build out a lot of these sorts of new models to enable people to take that. Have investors put the money in instead of the state? Oh, absolutely. Or for that matter, the utility have investors put in, have them set it up so they can earn a return. And then they will come. The charging stations will come. We were talking with a small business owner who's a friend of a friend of mine and they called up because they said, you know, these bills, if you make us put in more charging stations, it's going to hurt us because we're going to have to pay for that because we're going to have to get to the spots and I said, well, wait a minute. There's a reason why electric vehicle infrastructure has proliferated so fast in many other cities like Los Angeles and other places. And it's because the businesses have put in charging infrastructure and it benefits them too because now you come in as a customer, you swipe your credit card, you charge your car, business gets a small cut, everybody wins. And the guy sat there and thought about it and said, okay, well, sign me up. That's right. That's what I'm going to go about. I mean, every legislator I know always says, one bill, maybe more. I'm wrestling with it. I want input. I want you guys to talk to me, tell me your opinions, tell me your advocate, your positions, whatever it is so I can understand the public view of this. Have you got any bills like that? You want to talk to them? They're right out there. Yeah, yeah. Which camera am I looking at? The one with the red light. Okay. No, I think the truth is we want to hear from everybody. I think we've been down this road before where some bills don't get a lot of attention and then at the last minute there's a new story about something and all of a sudden all these people write in and often there are things that we had not considered as a legislature, situations that may not have been brought up before so we can tweak the bills and make them better along the way. That's why it's so important to pay attention. So come write Jeff and Jay and me and everybody else of the legislature because we're in the middle of our session right now and this is the time. You know, if we move these bills forward it'll be a huge step for the state in many ways but it'll also be having tangible impacts and benefits for the public and if you want to be a part of that make sure, for example, if you live in an apartment building that you have access to an electric vehicle charger which right now is very difficult this is something that you'll want to weigh in on. So I think now's the time and the answer is everything. Wake up all these bills, tell us what you want to see. I bet you never thought coming into the Energy Environmental Committee and being the chair supreme chair of the Energy Committee. I just do what Jeff tells me. All right, energies are that you would be faced with so many you know, areas that are linked up and overlapping and connected with other areas of legislative and regulatory activity. I mean as it works out everything you do has an effect on somebody else and a lot of what they do has an effect on you. How do you get together? Get up in the morning and walk down a transportation and say, hey you guys, I'm doing this why don't you come along with, is that the way what happens? No, I mean it is very much like that you know, I think having dinner with a few folks from a whole different sector working on human services issues one day we realized, wait a minute Department of Wine homelands isn't really taking advantage of the kinds of renewable technology that will lower costs for their people. I mean we just never made that connection and it's like that across the board so the more people we can talk to I think the more we are able to make things work for everyone and it's true I mean it's Hawaii right, this is how things work there's no better way than having face-to-face sit down and explaining someone's problem so that you can answer it. It pays, it's leadership. So Jeff it's time for you as a co-host to ask a question and find the essential truth in what we have said. I want to leave it with this question you know, I look at these the electricity RPS transportation RPS now gas RPS it looks to me that we're accelerating the likelihood of the one or both refineries shutting down. Who is looking after the consumer to make sure that we have enough we will have enough jet fuel we will have enough diesel to power the trucks that are still going to run on diesel we'll have enough NAFTA so that KIUC can run its KAPIA plant you know who's looking at those things and how do we assure ourselves that our energy balance isn't going to be totally out of kilter when we do these things. No I think that's an awesome probably essential and necessary question that too few people are talking about and actually there's a bill last year energy security I can't remember the number that started to ask some of these questions and for us I think it's twofold answer. One is how do we accelerate all the stuff we're doing to ensure that we don't need to rely on systems which have strings of chains of delivery that are thousands of miles long in the first place which is why we're doing all this electrification and everything else but secondly in the short term until we get there the correct severe question what do we do until then and so we've had a couple of scares with this in the past with the refinery potentially closing three or four years ago. Fortunately open to back up but we know for example working with our partners in other states like in California in particular where they have a lot of this kind of thing going on that inevitably things are going to have to change so how do we get ahead of that as much as possible and how do we get out a long timeline so that we can adapt and do so without disruption and that means in a lot of cases in the case of refineries for example how do you replace ultimately those kinds of imported commodities with locally grown similar sorts of fuel stock and so we've got you know pacific biodiesel and others that are starting to work on that and trying to scale up to replace some of that. We know the DOD has been working on some of its own projects and for us there are bills right now moving to the legislature to start to look at how do we really transition because we're not going to lose jet fuel we're going to need that for the next foreseeable lifetime. We hope we need it. Well yes but can we get it more sustainably and do it locally and we know already the airlines for example are under international mandates to change up their fuel mix and to be more carbon responsible and so in that context if we can grow those local markets the airlines have said they will come in and buy it for sure even Hawaiian Airlines for example which is going to be making tens of millions of dollars of commitments to offset its own footprint can be invested right here and that's something that we know especially with our climate initiative here in the state is totally possible because even creating our carbon task force last year we've already had discussions with a lot of folks in the states that are doing this work where we can leverage those technologies and those credits here in the state to be able to create the scale of that kind of production to eventually offset the kind of reliance on imported fuel that goes through our refineries today and that will keep refineries open refining that product into the foreseeable future keep those jobs going but do so for a sustainable fuel source I think that's exciting. So you ask who's thinking about it we're trying. You know what you guys we're out of time and all three of us have obligations elsewhere including getting back to the ledge and unless we close up now we're all going to turn into pumpkins so I want to thank you Chris for coming down Representative Chris Lee House Energy Committee and Jeff O'Neill former consumer advocate and the co-host of this show thank you so much gentlemen thank you all