 Hey, welcome to Stand Energy Man here in Tink-Tak, Hawaii, Stand, Osterman, coming to you live and direct from the beautiful megalopolis of Kailua, Hawaii. And today's show is going to be different. I like doing different when I can do different. I mean, it's probably going to be more like a, I don't want to say lecture, because I hate lectures, I can't even sit through them, but a little bit more of an in-depth study on energy and law. And it's going to kind of wander around. So I'll just tell you that upfront, but I'll start off by telling you that, you know, my background is mostly government and military. I spent 35 years in the Air Force, and I also spent six years in state government and about a year and a half in county government as a police officer. So law has always been kind of important to me. And as a military officer, there, you know, there's not very many people in the U.S. that actually serve in the military. I heard it's around 10% of the population in the U.S. has actually served in the military. And out of that 10%, there's probably maybe one and a half or 2% that are officers. And out of those one and a half or 2%, there's really not very many that have actually been commanders. And so a little bit of history, this will be really short on being a commander. Commanders actually get put on a special set of orders called G-Series orders. And G-Series orders give that commander some incredible authority under the military system. I mean, quite literally, when you have a G-Series commander and he orders his people to go into combat, they have to follow the order. If not, that commander can take out his weapon and shoot the individual on his own team that's not following the order. That's how serious a G-Series command authority is in our government. And so it's not something that commanders take lightly and it's not something that people that work for commanders take lightly, obviously, because it could mean their own demise if they refuse to follow an order. But one thing that's really important for a commander to understand is there's only one condition that a subordinate can refuse to obey an order that potentially comes with a penalty of death. And that is you're not required to obey an illegal order. And that's why I'd like to start the conversation today because quite frankly, having worked for the government for so many years, I can tell you it's really frustrating to look at all the state statutes, all the city ordinances and all the federal laws and then look at all the regulations that come under those laws and say, my God, how can anybody know all this stuff? How can anybody get an order from a commander or a governor or a president and say, oh, but that's not legal unless you happen to be pretty well read lawyer. I don't know too many lawyers that have actually read all those statutes, all those ordinances and all those laws and all the regulations that go with them. So the law's gotten very complicated. I'm gonna start off by just sharing a couple thoughts and questions before I get into two of the laws that I wanna talk about that'll kind of illustrate the case I'm trying to make. So first of all, one of the most important things that I think the framers of our government set out were that we are free people in this country, that we vote to change the government as a peaceful way of transitioning if the government's not doing what the people desire. And that's a pretty unique characteristic of the United States because it allows for a peaceful transition from one leader to another leader. And it's an expression of what the will of the people is. But our whole constitution and our whole way of government and the lifestyle that we have based on our constitution and our declaration of independence is one of liberty and personal freedom. The Thomas Jefferson had a really great quote. It's actually, and Franklin kind of, I don't wanna say copied it but he has a very similar quote. And this one says, when you abandon freedom to achieve security, you lose both and you deserve neither. That's a really important thought. We have going on in our country right now, the fact that we have people issuing orders at every level of government, whether it's mayors, governors, president, managers in the military, they're issuing orders. And I don't think that they're calculating that some of these orders A, quite possibly illegal and B, a lot of them deny us our first amendment right of freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, a lot of our basic constitutional rights. So here's some points I'd like to make just to whip through some thoughts. Governments write laws and that's to put order and structure around our society. The government is supposed to budget and stay within its budget. Well, our federal government hasn't budgeted properly as far as I can tell for over 20 years. And that's how you get things like sequestration and you get deficit spending and you get some really dangerous stuff in terms of dangerous for your economy. Government is supposed to appropriate sufficient money according to what they budgeted to support laws and enforce laws. So for example, when the government right now is going through funding the Department of Defense, they're supposed to be a military budget that's submitted. We call it a POM and it's only, it goes into your cycles and the POM is looked at by the Congress and the Congress budgets money for it and authorizes the military to spend that money for the things that they budgeted for. But most of our federal government and state government just don't seem to follow that very well. And if it gets down to following the money, it's pretty tough to follow the money. Another point is many of the laws that are on the books, they stay there forever and some of them are totally obsolete. I'm sure that if you spent the time, like I spent about an hour and a half today, just looking for one particular law that I'm gonna talk about. And I was amazed. Did you know there's a law in Hawaii that your homeowners association cannot prohibit you from putting up a clothesline on your property? Oh yeah, that's in law in Hawaii. On the books, still enforceable. You'd be amazed how much stuff is on the books. You'd also be amazed how much of it is probably illegal and also how much of it is obsolete. So many laws are illegal but they're never challenged in court. Why? Because it costs money to go to court. And unless you have a whole lot of money to hire lawyers and spending a bunch of time in court with the lawyers, and most people don't, they're not gonna fight a whole lot, even for laws that probably are not worth having on the books, maybe are not even legal. It says many government agencies also make rules that have the force of law and may also even levy costs to the individual citizens. And those should be defined as taxes, but they're not. Try and go on your tax next year and try and deduct the cost of your vehicle registration. And you'll find out that not very much of it is actually tax deductible because it's not considered a real tax because it's just a fee that some agency is charging you to get stuff done. Another thing, and this kind of goes back to that military command official, but everyone acting in an official capacity on behalf of the government is required to tell the truth and follow the laws of the county, the state and the federal government in carrying out their duties. Now, one of my military, we call them AFCs or specialties, was public affairs officer. And as a public affairs officer, which is a state military journalist or a military spokesman for the Air Force, is that you have to tell the truth. If you don't tell the truth, you can be court-martialed or lying to the public about the Air Force. They drove that home really hard in the school, which is a three-month school. And that's a responsibility, but it's also a responsibility for every government official to have. And we seem to be throwing around the word lie a lot on media, I don't care whether it's left-wing media, right-wing media, anybody's media, word lie seems to be popping up an awful lot when you talk about government. And I don't think that's a real healthy thing for anybody, whether you're right, wrong, left, right, doesn't matter. We shouldn't have the word lie popping up in any discussion about what we're trying to do in the government. So what happens when a government official doesn't tell the truth, does lie to the public, does overstep their bounds in the law, does do something illegal, shouldn't they be held accountable? That doesn't also seem to be happening a whole lot today. And that's a little bit disturbing. So my bottom question is, as we look at some of these laws, who protects citizens from the government? So I happened to be reading another article today and had a really neat quote in it that describes government in a kind of a, and this is from a book, a book that was written by Ann Rand, A-Y-N, Ann Rand called Atlas Shrugged. And it's a quote from a character in the book that's trying to describe the function of government. And this is from a Dr. Ferris. And he says, did you really think that we want those laws to be observed? That we want, no, we want them broken. You'd better get it straight, that that's not a bunch of Boy Scouts you're up against. Then you'll know that this is not the age for beautiful gestures. We're after power and we mean it. There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What is there? What's in there for anyone? Let's just pass the kind of laws that can either be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted. And you create a nation of lawbreakers. And then you cash in on guilt and now that's a system, Mr. Reardon. That's the game. And once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with. I just thought that was an interesting passage from a book today because it almost sums up how everybody feels we're just totally beside ourselves as we look at the world functioning and dysfunctioning, especially in our government. So today I'd like to talk about a couple of laws that you probably never heard of. And these are laws on the books. And what I think is important about these laws on the books is that they were written number one. The first one is a federal law on the federal books written by a Hawaii Senator, actually a Hawaii politician who was both a Congressman and a Senator over his career. And it was written, he proposed it in 1989. That's 31 years ago, 32 years ago. And it's written by a gentleman named Spark Matsunaga. The name of the bill is the Hydrogen Research Development and Demonstration Program Act of 1990. The bill was actually signed into law in December of 1990. And basically what it does is it establishes inside the Department of Energy a special program with funding to start developing hydrogen technology to replace fossil fuels. This is before climate change. This is before a lot of stuff that we have decided is a existential threat to our pure existence. And it's 31 years ago. And as I look at this law, it says Congress finds that this is a national of national interest to accelerate efforts to develop domestic capability to economically produce hydrogen in quantities that will make a significant contribution towards reducing the nation's independence on conventional fuels. The purpose is it stated in the act is to direct the Secretary of Energy to come up with a five-year comprehensive program and the Secretary to develop technology assessment and information transfer programs and also to develop renewable energy resources as primary sources of energy for the production of hydrogen. It goes through some definitions. It goes through a whole bunch of other, rigmarole that you see in laws. And then there it says under plan, the Secretary shall prepare a comprehensive five-year program management plan for research and development activities which shall be conducted over the period of no less than five years. And the Secretary shall also consult the administration for NASA and the Secretary of Transportation and the hydrogen technology advisory panel established under this law. And the heads of other such federal agencies and such public, private organizations he deems appropriate. It also requires that a report come back within 180 days. It's establishing how they're gonna set this thing up. And it talks about a demonstration plan the Secretary will implement over the next four to five years to get things moving. There's a section on research, renewable energy priorities, new technologies, information and passing out information and educating the public on the safety aspects of hydrogen and the value of using it to replace fossil fuels. It has a section on demonstrations, large scale and small scale. It has a section on technology transfer programs between universities and the private sector. It has applications for aerospace experience, research programs, commercial capabilities and industrial needs. And it has all kinds of details on coordination between federal agencies. And then it describes that technical panel. It also authorizes $3 million in 1992, $7 million for 1993, $10 million for 1994. And it presses for ongoing funding in the out years starting in 1990. Have you ever heard of this law? Have you ever heard a politician talk about this law? Are there all this climate change stuff that is apparently an existential threat to our very existence? Have you heard anybody talk about this law? No, never. Not even once in my whole lifetime. I had a private citizen who happens to be the head of the Hawaii Auto Dealers Association and a historian tell me about this law and I looked it up and I have it right here. I have it. I could, you can read the whole thing. I didn't read the whole thing. 30 years ago, we have laws on the books we don't even talk about. We don't even look at. We don't take seriously, but we thump the table like climate change should have been addressed last week and we haven't got it finished yet. Government by its nature and the military specifically is designed not to move radically fast especially in its structure. And that's because it's uneconomical to move radically fast. To completely go green in 10 years is asinine. It's stupid. It's crazy. If we'd started 30 years ago, we'd be way ahead of the game right now. But we have people write great laws that nobody did spit about and that's really unfortunate. There is a second law I wanna talk about. The statute is 196-10 Hawaii Revised Statutes. Hawaii Renewable Hydrogen Program. There is established within the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism a Hawaii Renewable Hydrogen Program to manage the state's transition through a renewable hydrogen economy. The program shall design, implement and administer activities that include strategic partnerships, engineering and economic valuations, electric grid reliability and security projects, hydrogen demonstration projects, statewide hydrogen economy, public education and outreach projects, promotion of Hawaii's renewable hydrogen resources to potential partners and investors and a plan to implement during 2007 to 2010 to more fully deploy hydrogen technologies and infrastructure capable of supporting the island of Hawaii specifically the county of Hawaii and their energy needs by expanding installation, developing integrated energy systems, construction of additional hydrogen refueling stations and promotion of building design and constructions that fully incorporate clean energy assets including reliance on hydrogen fueled energy generation and vehicles. And this plan is supposed to start being implemented in 2007 to 2010. It's also got in the next paragraph the plan for actual implementation as we get through this research part it covers between 2010 and 2020. Most of it applies directly to the big island with the intention of expanding what's learned on the big island to the rest of the state. It encourages the adoption of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles and it also directs that continually funding the hydrogen investment capital special fund should be set up and support investment in hydrogen infrastructure including production, storage and dispensing facilities starting in 2007 to 2020. Have you ever heard of that law? Have you ever heard a legislator even talk about that law? It's on the books. This isn't something that was proposed to the legislature and never made it through crossover never made it through the legislature. That is a law signed by the governor into law in 2007 I believe 2006 maybe. You ever hear of it? Nah. So we have laws that are totally ignored that have been totally ignored that have never been appropriated that fund that the things that the law says in Hawaii you have to keep funding continually was funded the first year and never funded again ever. Are you upset? I'm upset. I'm a hydrogen guy. It was sitting on a color stand. You don't mean you don't make any difference here. So I go back and say we have government that's working for us. Do we have the laws that work for us? Do we have the kind of things that we need to be doing in our state, in our city, in our federal government that well-intentioned forward thinking legislators went through the, I'll say it, as pain of writing a decent law which not all laws are written very well by the way if you ever looked at a bunch of them to really set our state and our nation and our counties on the right track and then they're ignored. It just boggles me. And yet we waste time writing laws or proposing laws that are unenforceable that are unconstitutional that are just useless. So I guess what I'm trying to get across in this talk today is hydrogen has been around for a hundred years. The technology is not nuclear science. It's basic chemistry. It's the kind of stuff you learn in high school. It could be Hawaii could be completely independent, totally self-sustaining economy by today. If we listened to Spark Matsumaga back in 1990 and started doing in Hawaii what he wanted the whole country to do. And apparently it got picked up for a little while. California's Governor Schwarzenegger put it in place and in California, they're still pressing forward with hydrogen. That's the only state in the union that's really pressing forward. A couple other states are like Hawaii kind of halfway pressing forward. But that's what we should be doing. So just vented my frustration on how we're not doing stuff in hydrogen. And I wanna show a short video on why we should be doing hydrogen. This video was funded by HCAP, Hawaii Center for Advanced Transportation Technology as a public education piece of work. It won an award locally for the folks who put it together. And it won one of the local advertising agency awards because of its quality. So without further ado, let's roll the video. Hydrogen, the simplest element and also the most abundant. Hydrogen makes up roughly 75% of all mass in the universe. Hydrogen also powers most of the stars in our universe. So it's only fitting that it has come to be recognized as a viable alternative energy source. And we need alternatives because fossil fuels are problematic. They're messy, dirty, expensive to obtain and not secure and they're limited. Hydrogen on the other hand is everywhere. Hydrogen can be produced from a wide variety of sources including water itself using other renewable energies. That means it's clean, really clean. As a zero emission fuel source, the only byproducts are water, heat and electricity. Easily transported, hydrogen can be stored and distributed on a large scale as either gas or liquid. As a fuel, hydrogen itself is very light. In fact, hydrogen is 472 times more efficient by weight than lead acid batteries. And it isn't just for transportation. Hydrogen can also effectively produce and store energy for power grids. Hydrogen gas is transformed into energy within a fuel cell. As hydrogen passes through a fuel cell, electrons are released and an electrical current is produced and captured for use. Electric vehicle motors powered by hydrogen fuel cells are twice as efficient as gas or diesel engines. They can travel farther distances than lithium batteries especially in heavy vehicles and can last for decades. Hydrogen powered fuel cells are scalable to buses and commercial fleets such as trucks, trains, ships and aircraft. Fuel cells allow for fast, easy refueling. And hydrogen can be easily adapted to current refueling stations making it a convenient fuel source for everyone. It is a proven, safe, clean and efficient energy source currently in use worldwide. Hydrogen is everywhere including our clean energy future. That's a great snippet on hydrogen, the qualities of hydrogen. There's so many aspects about hydrogen that I deal with every day and people keep asking me, well, what's so special about it? If I could put it all together in one sentence, which I can't, it basically means if you had hydrogen cars, hydrogen fuel cells for dispatchable power in communities, you restructured your grid and use the assets that we have in the state to make hydrogen, clean hydrogen, green hydrogen, no carbon hydrogen including geothermal, wind, solar, hydroelectric. I mean, we had all these sugar and pineapple agricultural production for so many decades and we don't use the power of that water running downhill. It's not eating up the water, it's just barring the water from the downhill stream to run a turbine, putting it back in the stream and running it down to agricultural land. Why aren't we doing things like that? To make electricity, base load electricity and make enough electricity to store in hydrogen for long-term energy storage, weeks, months of energy storage. We should be able to do this. It's affordable, it's reliable, it's safe, it's proven. And keep watching Stand the Energy Man and we'll talk more about the details of all that. In the meantime, get back to where we started. When you abandon freedom to achieve your security, you lose both and deserve neither. Start thinking about the law. Start thinking about the people we elect to put in office and start thinking about your personal freedom and what it's worth to you because you don't appreciate it until you don't have it and by then it's too late. So think about it seriously because that's where our country is headed right now into a dark hole that we don't want to go into where nobody has freedom. So that'll do it for this week's Stand the Energy Man. Until next Tuesday, aloha.