BEFORE THE PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION

BEFORE THE PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION

OF THE STATE OF HAW API

In the Matter of the Application of ))

HAWAII ELECTRIC LIGHT COMPANY, INC. ) Docket No. 2017-0122

For Approval of a Power Purchase Agreement for Renewable Dispatchable Firm Energy and Capacity.

LIFE OF THE LAND'S

TESTIMONY LOL-T-1

CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE

HENRY CURTISVICE PRESIDENT FOR CONSUMER ISSUES LIFE OF THE LAND P.O. Box 37158 Honolulu, HI 96837-0158 (808) 927-0709

KAT BRADYVICE PRESIDENT FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE LIFE OF THE LAND P.O. Box 37158 Honolulu, HI 96837-0158 (808) 927-0709

LIFE OF THE LAND'S

TESTIMONY LOL-T-1

1

2 My name is Henry Q Curtis. I am the Vice President for Consumer Issues of Life of the

3 Land, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation and a participant in the above captioned case.

4 I have come full circle—from an intense interest in biological systems to heavy

5 involvement in bioenergy systems and their impacts.

6 I grew up around nature. My ninth grade biology teacher ignited my interest in biology.

7 While in High School, I took a National Science Foundation summer course in Molecular and

8 Cellular Biology of Plants. I studied economics in college. In grad school I again became

9 interested in agrculture - how weather and soils impact agricultural futures. While my graduate

10 work was in economics, I took a painful course in historiography - determining the reliability of

11 historical documents by examining and questioning their footnotes and bibliographies. While

12 toying with the idea of finishing my masters thesis, I moved to California, and became involved

13 in door-to-door work around pesticides, both in urban areas and in the Central Valley. I

14 continued my research on agriculture and relied heavily of the libraries at Stanford, and the

15 University of California system (Davis, Berkeley, Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara, UCLA).

16 The Central Valley was a desert that became the major fruit and vegetable region of the

17 U.S. through massive pipes bringing in water from the mountains and the Colorado River. But

18 there was a problem. Matching the water demand to the supply meant that water would sink

19 when sprayed and come back up with salts. The water would go into the plants and/or be

20 evaporated while the salts would kill the plants. Therefore, excessive water had to be sprayed.

21 But there is an impervious clay layer under much of the Central Valley. Simply adding water

Life of the Land's Testimony LOL-T-1, Docket No. 2017-0122 * page 2

22 meant the water table would gradually rise, and eventually, drown the plants. So, a saparate

23 underground piping system was needed to take away the salt-filled water. Unfortunately, the

24 extnsive piping system was never finished, resulting in a massive bird and fish kill at the

25 Kesterson Reservoir due to the build-up of selenium salts.

26 I came to Hawai i in 1991 and became involved with Life of the Land in 1994, one of

27 three organizations that had won a multi-million lawsuit over the heptachlor scandal.

28 Furthermore, Life of the Land was an organization involved with the pesticide issue. There were

29 many in the 1960s and early 1970s who felt that Hawai'i had unique volcanic soils, so pesticides

30 would never reach the groundwater. That was a mistaken idea.

31 I seved nine years as Community Co-Chair of the Hickam Air Force Restoration

32 Advisory Board, and served on similar boards for Pearl Harbor and Schofield Barracks. I took

33 risk workshops sponsored by the Navy, Air Force, and the Hawai'i Department of Health. The

34 military advisory boards monitored the identification of contamination, the analysis of alternative

35 remediation methods, and whether the sites were, in fact, cleaned up. During muy time on the

36 Hickam RAB, the two non-Red Hill Fuel Storage Annexes (Waipio and Wahiawa) and the

37 pipeline to Hickam Air Force Base were cleaned out.

38 I became involved in energy related contested case proceedings in 1996, primarily before

39 the Hawai'i Public Utilities Commission. Ten or more of the 50 proceedings that I have been

40 involved in, on behalf of Life of the Land, dealt primarily with bioenergy.

41 In the first bioenergy proceeding, Hawaiian Electric Company proposed using ethanol as

42 a fuel. They then switched to palm oil biodiesel imported from Indonesia and Borneo. A Wall

43 Street Journal lead story reported on the in-depth analysis to the enormous negative

44 environmental, cultural, and health impacts caused by burning down tropical rainforests and


45 replacing the forests with monocropped palm oil plantations.^ Life of the Land intervened and

46 the Commission rejected the proposal.

47 Another boondoggle bioenergy proposal was to microwave crops into biodesel on

48 Hawai'i Island, and to have O'ahu ratepayers pay over $500 million in subsidies. The Public

49 Utilities Commission ultimately rejected the proposed contract.^

50 In 2008-09 I was a videographer, editor, director, and producer for 'Olelo. I then started

51 ililani media, a digital media site not affiliated with Life of the Land. I tried being advocacy

52 neutral, although I occasionally wrote columns with slants or biases, although I didn't always

53 agree with those positions. I reiterate, some of my stories promote ideas I disagree with. My

54 focus is on education not persuasion and not advocacy for rigid positions.

55 Over the past eight years I have written more than two thousand digital media articles of

56 science (agriculture, pesticides, genertic enginnering, toxics, energy, cybersecurity, climate

57 change, and telecommunications) and politics in Hawai'i. I have covered a number of

58 agricultural conferennces.

59 One of the first conference I attended as ililani media was the 2010 State Agricultural

60 Conference at the Ihilani Resort. The keynote speaker was Timothy LaSalle. LaSalle’s doctoral

^ Wall Street Journal: As Alternative Energy Heats Up, Environmental Concerns Grow. Crop of Renewable 'Biofuels' Could Have Drawbacks; Eires Across Indonesia, Dec. 5, 2006, Page A1 http://online.wsj.eom/article/SB116501541088338547.html^ “At least two members of the public have attempted to estimate the total amount of the proposed biofuel subsidy based on electricity sales for the calendar year 2 010. See electronic mail comment from Mr. Henry Curtis, Executive Director, Life of the Land, dated August 1,2011, at 7-8 (based on the electric sales of HECO and HELCO for the calendar year 2010, the total amount of the subsidy would be $26,553 million per year); and electronic mail comment from Mr. Roger Dunn, dated July 31, 2011, at 1 (based on HECO's electricity sales for 2010, the proposed biofuels tax would raise $26 million per year to subsidize sixteen million gallons of biodiesel).” Decision and Order dated Sept. 29, 2011, fn 64 at 53, docket no. 2011-0005, re HECO, MECO, HELCO- Aina Koa Pono-Ka'u LLC 20-yem' Biodiesel Supply Contract.


61 thesis focused on resistant to change. “As humans we get caught in our own paradigms. We get

62 caught in a political view, we get caught in a religious view, we get caught but more importantly,

63 in a world view. And our culture and education bring us up in this world view. [] I had to

64 challenge my own self.” “Tropicana Orange Juice, when it said we got to figure out what our

65 carbon footprint is, they assumed it would be refrigeration or packaging or transport -- and when

66 they did the analysis it was farm nitrogen fertilizer -- it was number one by far.” LaSalle noted

67 noted environmentalists didn't like his analysis since it implied that we could continue to bum

68 fossil fuel as long as we aggrssively store carbon in the soil. “The soils capacity to hold carbon is

69 so large ... we should be paid to do it.” Ranchers have the opportunity to actually fix the global

70 problem. Soil. Dirt. “If you accept a limiting belief, then it will become a truth for you.”

71 —Louise Hay.

72 Tmth is an odd thing. Basic economic theory asserts that there is an inverse relationship

73 between price and demand. Lower the price and demand goes up. Reducing the price of anything

74 through lower profits, changing technology, or gains in efficiency will increase demand. The

75 great 19th century economist Jevons found that a more efficient coal-powered steam engine

76 decreased the amount of coal per unit produced which increased the demand for coal. The Jevons

77 Effect has been known for 150 years. Install solar on your roof, buy an electric car, saving

78 thousands of dollars, buy more things, take a family vacation to China, the footprint for the car

79 and house may decrease, but in all likelihood, the total emissions will rise. Are energy efficieny

80 goals an economic development tool or a way to reduce emissions? Energy efficieny proponents

81 often avoid thinking about the issue. The lesson to be learned is that it is dangerous not to think

82 through a concept. “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends

83 upon his not understanding it” -- Upton Sinclair.


84 Inefficieny is not necessarily bad. The efficiency of a traditional light bulb is well below

85 1%.^ The efficiency of life, that is, of solar energy being converted into the energy in living

86 things on the planet is less than 0.1%.'^

87 I constantly seek to challenge my own conceptions, values, and beliefs. We can't solve

88 anything -- especially the climate crisis -- by misunderstanding the facts, the models, the

89 analysis, and the solutions. Many people work for entities that can't tolerate critique. Often a

90 project sounds good, but the danger is overlooking the chance that something is terribly wrong. I

91 start by challenging my own views. “My number one rule is hope for the best, plan for the

92 worst.” CIA Director Ezra Kramer, Hunt for Red October.^

93 I get to bounce ideas off my partner Kat Brady, a passionate researcher who has spent the

94 past 19 years on the University of Hawai'i Institutional Review Boards (IRBs). “The primary

95 goal of the UH IRBs is to protect the rights and welfare of individuals recruited to participate in

96 research activities conducted under the auspices of the University of HawaiT.”^ Kat Brady and

97 Lynette Cruz played a crucial role in getting Cultural Impact Statements to be part of the

98 Environmental Impact Statement ("EIS") process. Brady reviews EIS Social Impact Assessments

99 for Life of the Land.

100 What do we know? How do we know it? How reliable is it? What could go wrong? What

101 are the assumptions? Are the facts really facts? Is my biases hiding some of the benefits and/or

^ A back of the envelope calculation: half the petroleum can't be removed from an oil well, 20% of extracted petroleum is lost in the refinery process, two-thirds of the fuel oil in an electric generator is lost as heat, 5% of the electricity is lost in transmission and distribution, the old-kind lightbulb converts 93% of the electricity to heat and 7% to light

Ratio of Net Primary Production to Global Potential of Solar Energy ^ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0440963/quotes ^ https://researchcompliance.hawaii.edu/programs/human-studies/


102 risks from my perceptions? "Challenge your preconceptions or they'll challenge you." -- Vulcan

103 scientist Velik^.

104 I filmed a State Legislative hearing held in Hilo in 2008 regarding the DLNR proposal to

105 force agricultural leesees of state lands to share their lease with biofuel companies. It was out of

106 this process that Hu Honua was bom.

107 "Our house is still on fire. Your inaction is fueling the flames by the hour. We are

108 still telling you to panic, and to act as if you loved your children above all else. ” — Greta at

109 Davos

110 Hu Honua proposed their tree-burning generation facility in 2008. They sought an

111 exemption from competitive bidding as that would slow down the process. The Hawai'i Electric

112 Light Company (“HELCO”) filed their power purchase agreement with Hu Honua to the Public

113 Utilities Commission in 2012. Life of the Land intervened in the proceedings. After the plan fell

114 apart, Hu Honua and HELCO went to court. A new proposal was submitted to the Public

115 Utilities Commission in 2017. Once again, Life of the Land was a participant in the proceedings.

116 We appealed the final decision and the Hawai'i Supreme Court upheld our appeal and remanded

117 the proceeding back to the Public Utilities Commission.

118 The Hawai'i Supreme Court mled in 2017 that the state constitutional right to a clean and

119 healthful environment gives citizens the right to be heard and protect their environmental

120 interests in cases before the state Public Utilities Commission.^ The Hawai'i Supreme Court

121 mled in 2019 -- in our appeal -- that the Commission must address climate change in all

^ Enterprise (2001) https://www.quotes.net/mquote/^ In re Application of Maui Electric Co., Limited (2017) https://law.justia.eom/cases/hawaii/supreme-court/2017/scwc-15-0000640.html


122 applications.^ The “clean and healthful environment” constitutional clause was recommended by

123 the 1978 Hawai'i Constitutional Convention and adopted by the voters in the November 1978

124 election. The Committee reports mention the environment but did not mention greenhouse gas,

125 climate change, or global warming. Then it was applicable to environmental issues. Today it is

126 applicable to both climate and non-climate related environmental impacts.

127 Agriculture involves a very complex set of dynamic interactions between air, land,

128 vegetation, and soil. The majority of the carbon in the air-vegetation-soil system is found in the

129 soil. There were anecdotal accounts that when sugar operations ceased on O'ahu's north shore,

130 when irrigation and evaporation changed, then rainfall patterns changed. Military representatives

131 informed the Pearl Harbor Restoration Advisory Board members that non-point source pollution

132 coming off the base and flowing into the ocean was actually coming onto the base from mauka

133 regions. Agriculture and open space are open systems with articifical boundaries that nature

134 doesn't always honor.

135 We all know that Hawai'i is unique. It can be pouring in one valley and sunny in the

136 neighboring valley. Hawai'i is the endangered and threatened specieis capitol of the world.

137 Hawai'i Greenhouse Gas Sequestration Task Force members Susan Crow and Jonathan Deenik

138 wrote that “Hawaii has 10 of the 12 soil orders and 70% of global climatic life zones.

139 Compaction makes measurement difficult in many of our soils. Predictive models do not match

140 our measured values.” Life of the Land's Initial Brief filed on September 16, 2019. (“Initial

141 Brief’) at 59.

^ In re Application of Hawai'i Electric Light Co.https://law.justia.eom/cases/hawaii/supreme-court/2019/scot-17-0000630.html


142 Agricultural bioenergy operations are extremely complex. Models are necessary to

143 simplify and easily comprehend complexity. At the one extreme is that so much complexity

144 remains that understanding it is impossible. At the other end of the spectrum, oversimplification

145 provides no value. The sweet spot is in the middle.

146 Some energy systems are simple. Natural gas seeped out of the ground and burned

147 continuously in ancient Greece. The Oracle at Delphi was built at that spot. Agriculture is at the

148 other end of the spectrum -- complex systems of systems in which each part of the system is

149 itself a dynamic, complex system.

150 “Reproducibility and Replicability in Science” (2019) is “a Consensus Study Report of

151 the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (“NASEM”) published by the

152 National Academies Press.

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“We define reproducibility to mean computational reproducibility—

obtaining consistent computational results using the same input data,

computational steps, methods, code, and conditions of analysis; and

replicability to mean obtaining consistent results across studies aimed at

answering the same scientific question, each of which has obtained its own

data. In short, reproducibility involves the original data and code;

replicability involves new data collection and similar methods used by

previous studies. A third concept, generalizability, refers to the extent that

results of a study apply in other contexts or populations that differ from

Contributors included the (1) Committee on Reproducibility and Replicability in Science; (2) Board on Behavioral, Cognitive, and Sensory Sciences; Committee on National Statistics; Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education; (3) Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board; Division on Earth and Life Studies; (4) Board on Mathematical Sciences and Analytics; Committee on Applied and Theoretical Statistics; Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences; and (5) Board on Research Data and Information; Committee on Science, Engineering, Medicine, and Public Policy; Policy and Global Affairs, https://doi.org/10.17226/25303. https://www.nap.edU/download/25303#


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the original one. A single scientific study may entail one or more of these

concepts.” NASEM at 1-2

“Important throughout this process is the sharing of data and methods and

the estimation, characterization, and reporting of uncertainty. Reporting

of uncertainty in scientific results is a central tenet of the scientific process,

and it is incumbent on scientists to convey the appropriate degree of

uncertainty to accompany original claims.” NASEM at 6

“REPRODUCIBILITY [] RECOMMENDATION 4-1: To help ensure the

reproducibility of computational results, researchers should convey clear,

specific, and complete information about any computational methods and

data products that support their published results in order to enable other

researchers to repeat the analysis, unless such information is restricted by

nonpublic data policies. That information should include the data, study

methods, and computational environment:

• the input data used in the study either in extension (e.g., a text file or a

binary) or in intension (e.g., a script to generate the data), as well as

intermediate results and output data for steps that are nondeterministic and

cannot be reproduced in principle;

• a detailed description of the study methods (ideally in executable form)

together with its computational steps and associated parameters; and

• information about the computational environment where the study was

originally executed, such as operating system, hardware architecture, and

library dependencies. (Library dependency,2 in the context of research

software as used here, is the relationship of pieces of software that are

needed for another software to run. Problems often occur when installed

software has dependencies on specific versions of other software.)”

NASEM at 7-8


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“Expected Results from Attempts to Reproduce Research. If sufficient

data, code, and methods description are available and a second researcher

follows the methods described by the first researcher, one expects in many

cases full bitwise reproduction of the original results—that is, obtaining

the same exact numeric values.” NASEM at 8

“RECOMMENDATION 6-1: All researchers should include a clear,

specific, and complete description of how the reported result was reached.

Different areas of study or types of inquiry may require different kinds of

information. Reports should include details appropriate for the type of

research, including:

• a clear description of all methods, instruments, materials, procedures,

measurements, and other variables involved in the study;

• a clear description of the analysis of data and decisions for exclusion of

some data and inclusion of other;

• for results that depend on statistical inference, a description of the

analytic decisions and when these decisions were made and whether the

study is exploratory or confirmatory;

• a discussion of the expected constraints on generality, such as which

methodological features the authors think could be varied without

affecting the result and which must remain constant;

• reporting of precision or statistical power; and

• a discussion of the uncertainty of the measurements, results, and

inferences.” NASEM at 13

“Replicability and reproducibility are crucial pathways to attaining

confidence in scientific knowledge, although not the only ones.” NASEM

at 17


222 Governments must protect public trust resources under the public trust doctrine. The

223 precautionary principle states that when an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the

224 environment, the government must place greater weight on protecting resources and less weight

225 on increasing profits by the private sector.

226

227 Life of the Land's mission is to preserve and protect the life of the land through sound

228 energy and land use policies and to promote open government through research, education,

229 advocacy and, when necessary, litigation. Life of the Land has been a party or participant in

230 more than 50 Commission regulatory proceedings since 1971 dealing with all aspects of electric

231 and gas regulation.

232 Life of the Land asserts that every energy project has positive and negative economic,

233 environmental, social, cultural, geographic, greenhouse gas, taxpayer and ratepayer impacts. Life

234 of the Land is concerned with the impacts, externalities and unintended side-effects of energy

235 projects and programs. Life of the Land asserts that the climate crisis is an existential threat to all

236 life on our planet, that equity, equality, and justice are of paramount importance. Over the

237 decades. Life of the Land has provided expert testimony in Commission proceedings on climate

238 change, environmental justice, cultural perspectives, externalities, bioenergy and other big

239 picture issues.

240 The Climate Crisis is an existential threat to all life forms in the planet.

241 The climate crisis is killing people, destroying ecosystems, and wrecking havoc on the

242 planet. At the rate things are going, children bom today will be alive in the year 2100, a

243 benchmark year for the climate nightmare. Testimony by Assistent Executive Director Kat Brady


244 in docket no. 2005-0145 explored the dangerous impacts associated with climate change. (LOL-

245 T-l-EXH-11)

246 David Wallace-Wells is the deputy editor of New York and the author of The

247 Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming. He gave the keynote address at the second annual Ha

248 O Ke Kai Hawai'i Climate Conference held in January 2020. Half of all carbon emissions have

249 occurred in the past 30 years, 85% since World War II. One generation caused most of the

250 problems. The next generation must solve the problems left behind. The temperature will rise

251 anywhere from 2 to 8 degrees by the end of the century. “Between 1.5 degrees and 2 degrees of

252 warming, just that extra half-degree of warming, is going to kill 150 million people from air

253 pollution alone.” Beginning in 2011, about a million Syrian refugees streamed across Europe

254 causing massive political change. Climate change refugees will number between 100 and 500

255 million by the end of the century. That is at least 100 times as much as the Syrian exodus.

256 Houston saw five 500-year storms in five years. A 500-year storm means a storm that’s

257 supposed to hit once every 500 years. We’re talking about one storm that was supposed to hit

258 during the entire period from the Spanish discovery, settlement, the colonial period, through the

259 American Revolution, the empire of slavery, the Civil War, World War I, World War II,

260 everything that we’ve known since World War II, our imperial moment, our post-Cold War, etc.,

261 all the way to the present day, we’re supposed to see one storm of that kind in all of that time.

262 Again, Houston saw five (5) 500-year storms in five (5) years. A 4°C increase by 2100 would

263 bring $600 trillion in global climate damages.

264 Hurricane Maria: European, Californian, and Australian wildfires; coral bleaching; one

265 heat record after another in Honolulu in 2019; stationary rain bombs; Hurricane Lane narrowly

266 missing Hawai'i. We are facing a non-linear explosion of events that will destroy the world that


267 we know. Extreme weather events will devastate people, flora, and fauna in the short run. Entire

268 regions will become uninhabitable in the lifetime of children bom today. Those communities tied

269 to geographical places - the Eirst Nations - will see the destmction of their way of life. Those

270 who did not cause the problem will suffer. The Syrian exodus - which transformed Europe - will

271 be miniscule compared to the billion people who will migrate to seek places of refuge.

272 Low lying Pacific Islands are and will continue to be impacted. East Island was an island,

273 formerly about 1 l-acres in area, half a mile long and 400 feet wide. It was the second-largest in

274 the Erench Erigate Shoals, and one of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, approximately 550

275 miles northwest of Honolulu It was largely washed away in 2018 by the storm surge from

276 Hurricane Walaka.

277 Climate change is the existential threat to planetary ecosystems. There are models of

278 likely future events, how likely a 2°C is, what the impacts will be, etc. The problem is that the

279 statistical variation is not a bell curve. There are increasing threat of low-probability, high-

280 impact events. The planet has the highest levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere in the

281 history of mankind. The models are dealing with unprecedented levels that are getting worse.

282 Some believe that we should focus on padding the train cars as we race at ever higher speeds off

283 the climate cliff. When will we acknowledge that the planet is fat approaching the point of no

284 return, where the inevitable cannot be stopped.

285 Hawai'i Act 32 SLH 2017 (SB559 SDl HD2 CDl): “The legislature finds that not only is

286 climate change real, but it is the overriding challenge of the 21st century [] Climate change poses

287 immediate and long-term threats to the State's economy, sustainability, security, and way of life.”


288 HRS §225P-1: The purpose of this chapter is [] for the State to [] Mitigate its greenhouse

289 gas emissions by sequestering more atmospheric carbon and greenhouse gases than the State

290 produces as quickly as practicable, [emphasis added]

291 A three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a two-to-

292 one decision on Juliana v. United States on January 17, 2020. The majority opinion asserted that

293 the danger is real, but the court should give deference to the executive branch under the political

294 question doctrine.

295 The majority opinion stated.

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"In the mid-1960s, a popular song warned that we were 'on the eve of

destruction.' The plaintiffs in this case have presented compelling

evidence that climate change has brought that eve nearer. A substantial

evidentiary record documents that the federal government has long

promoted fossil fuel use despite knowing that it can cause catastrophic

climate change, and that failure to change existing policy may hasten an

environmental apocalypse."

"The record leaves little basis for denying that climate change is occurring

at an increasingly rapid pace. It documents that since the dawn of the

Industrial Age, atmospheric carbon dioxide has skyrocketed to levels not

seen for almost three million years. For hundreds of thousands of years,

average carbon concentration fluctuated between 180 and 280 parts per

million. Today, it is over 410 parts per million and climbing. Although

carbon levels rose gradually after the last Ice Age, the most recent surge

has occurred more than 100 times faster; half of that increase has come in

the last forty years.


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"Copious expert evidence establishes that this unprecedented rise stems

from fossil fuel combustion and will wreak havoc on the Earth’s climate

if unchecked. Temperatures have already risen 0.9 degrees Celsius above

pre-industrial levels and may rise more than 6 degrees Celsius by the end

of the century. The hottest years on record all fall within this decade, and

each year since 1997 has been hotter than the previous average. This

extreme heat is melting polar ice caps and may cause sea levels to rise 15

to 30 feet by 2100. The problem is approaching “the point of no return.”

Absent some action, the destabilizing climate will bury cities, spawn life-

threatening natural disasters, and jeopardize critical food and water

supplies.

"The record also conclusively establishes that the federal government has

long understood the risks of fossil fuel use and increasing carbon dioxide

emissions. As early as 1965, the Johnson Administration cautioned that

fossil fuel emissions threatened significant changes to climate, global

temperatures, sea levels, and other stratospheric properties. In 1983, an

Environmental Protection Agency ('EPA') report projected an increase of

2 degrees Celsius by 2040, warning that a “wait and see” carbon emissions

policy was extremely risky. And, in the 1990s, the EPA implored the

government to act before it was too late. Nonetheless, by 2014, U.S. fossil

fuel emissions had climbed to 5.4 billion metric tons, up substantially from

1965. This growth shows no signs of abating. Erom 2008 to 2017,

domestic petroleum and natural gas production increased by nearly 60%,

and the country is now expanding oil and gas extraction four times faster

than any other nation.

"The record also establishes that the government’s contribution to climate

change is not simply a result of inaction. The government affirmatively

promotes fossil fuel use in a host of ways, including beneficial tax


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provisions, permits for imports and exports, subsidies for domestic and

overseas projects, and leases for fuel extraction on federal land."

"The government by and large has not disputed the factual premises of the

plaintiffs’ claims."

351 “A Climate-Lawsuit Dissent That Changed My Mind” by Robinson Meyer, The Atlantic,

352 January 22, 2020.^^

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"The case was always a long shot, and the response of even the friendliest

legal experts has been dismay but not surprise. I’ll admit that, as a climate

reporter, I had tuned the case out. The kids were asking a federal court—

and, inevitably, the Supreme Court—to take one of its most extraordinary

interventions into American life since Brown v. Board of Education,

which ended lawful racial segregation in public schools.

"Yet addressing the climate crisis through the judiciary would be much

harder than abolishing segregation—and everyone in the case seemed to

know it. As the kids’ legal team argued, fixing climate change requires the

full-scale transformation of the country’s energy system. It would require

investing money in some practices and banning others. It would, at the

very least, require the government to stop leasing public lands for oil and

gas extraction. This kind of detail-oriented policy making always makes

judges nervous. Federal judges are a peaceable cohort who, faced even

with a grave crisis, prefer to stick to conflict resolution.

https://www.theatlantic.eom/science/archive/2020/01/read-fiery-dissent-childrens-climate-case/605296/


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"The kids, in response to this issue, asked the courts merely to order that

Congress and the president write their own plan to fight climate change.

Even this proved too ambitious. Hurwitz ruled that even if the courts

issued such an order, there would be no way to measure the sufficiency of

the plan without again engaging injudicial policy making.

"And honestly, that may be a blessing for climate-concerned progressives.

Since the kids first sued, in 2015, the judiciary has been flooded with

conservatives: One in every four circuit judges is now a Donald Trump

appointee. Justice Anthony Kennedy, the Supreme Court’s environmental

swing vote, has retired. It was never clear to me why the kids ’ presumably

left-leaning lawyers wanted this newly conservative judiciary and this

Supreme Court to formulate new constitutional climate law.

"And yet. As I read the sole dissenting opinion in the case, written by

Judge Josephine Staton, I found myself moved. I urge you to read it, even

if you are not familiar with legal jargon or if you are broadly skeptical of

the case’s aims. I’ve reproduced it below."

"The dissent begins with a thunderclap. Tn these proceedings, the

government accepts as fact that the United States has reached a tipping

point crying out for a concerted response—yet presses ahead toward

calamity,' Staton writes. 'It is as if an asteroid were barreling toward Earth

and the government decided to shut down our only defenses. Seeking to

quash this suit, the government bluntly insists that it has the absolute and

unreviewable power to destroy the Nation.'

"This is the central thrust of Staton’s argument: that according to studies

conducted by the federal government—studies that were not challenged

by either the Trump administration or the courts—climate change has the

potential to destroy the federal government. 'Plaintiffs bring suit to


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enforce the most basic structural principle embedded in our system of

ordered liberty: that the Constitution does not condone the Nation’s willful

destruction,' she writes. In the face of such danger, even partial action by

the judiciary is justified. 'Considering plaintiffs seek no less than to

forestall the Nation’s demise,' she says, 'even a partial and temporary

reprieve would constitute meaningful redress.'

"The physics of the threat of climate change specifically justify action,

since every additional molecule of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere

makes global warming worse. 'The majority portrays any relief we can

offer as just a drop in the bucket,' she writes. 'In a previous generation,

perhaps that characterization would carry the day and we would hold

ourselves impotent to address plaintiffs’ injuries. But we are perilously

close to an ovefriowing bucket. These final drops matter. A lot. Properly

framed, a court order 'even one that merely postpones the day when

remedial measures become insufficiently effective—would likely have a

real impact on preventing the impending cataclysm.'

"Furthermore, she argues that the courts do have an extraordinary

responsibility to take action when the nation—or the Constitution—is

threatened.”

424 Indigenous People and Climate Impacts

425 “An Indigenous People’s Right to Environmental Self-Determination: Native Hawaiians and the

426 Struggle Against Climate Change Devastation”, D. Kapua‘ala Sproat (LOL-T-l-EXH-10)

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“Recent reports estimate that millions of people across the world will be

forced to relocate as a result of rising seas, flooding, drought, and

increased storms. In this context, climate change's impacts, 'while


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problematic for all peoples, fall[] disproportionately on Native peoples in

the regions such as the Arctic and Pacific, where the environment is

closely tied to indigenous lifeways. In many cases, simply accepting the

inevitability of global, warming and adapting 'will prove genocidal for

many groups of indigenous people.' From Papua New Guinea, to the

Arctic, to Bangladesh, 'loss of homeland is already occurring and may

accelerate as slow-onset and sudden disasters due to climate change

compromise human habitats.' Because indigenous peoples share a spiritual

and cultural connection to ancestral resources, any such loss will result in

the loss of culture. For many, climate change threatens the very survival

of entire territories and peoples. Communities ill threatened areas are

seriously considering relocation as a last resort, and many are already

moving. But forcing adaptation or migration amplifies longstanding

injustice because 'from an indigenous perspective, justice can only be

achieved by an affirmative commitment to protect indigenous peoples

within their traditional lands.' The decision to stay or move raises

significant political, legal, and cultural issues and, for some, neither

adaptation nor migration is an option because indigenous identity and

entire cultures and ways of life are inextricably bound to specific lands

and resources.

“Professor Tsosie is a leading scholar examining the harmful impact of

climate change on indigenous peoples. Based on her review of empirical

studies, along with her insight as a Native American academic, she

concluded that the deleterious impacts of climate change on native peoples

are extensive and are likely to become increasingly ubiquitous. Those

effects reverberate through indigenous land, culture, economics, and self-

governance. In important respects, they will imperil indigenous peoples'

very survival. Her inquiry also revealed that current responses to climate

change are sorely inadequate, in part because indigenous peoples often

lack the political and financial resources to rectify the issue on their own. ”


462

463 Temporal Differences: 2030 v 2050

464 Dr. Charles “Chip” Fletcher is the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor,

465 Department of Earth Sciences, at the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology

466 (SOEST), University of HawaiT at M^oa. He is also the Vice-Chair of the Honolulu Climate

467 Change Commission.

468 Dr. Eletcher asserts that the world must be caron neutral by 2050. Since undevloped

469 countries need time to achieve economic growth, developed countries should reach carbon

470 neutrality by 2030.

471 “The biofuel production process may best be conceptualized and characterized as a

472 system of systems (SoS). [] frameworks which consider all biogenic carbon within plants to be

473 carbon neutral simplify implementation and are reasonably accurate for bioenergy systems where

474 carbon sequestration and release are temporally close e.g. annual crops, but fail to capture the

475 more complex carbon dynamics of forests. Additionally, accounting methods deliver varying

476 results depending on the scope and boundaries of the investigated system. Such discussions

477 about and criticism of forest-based bioenergy systems and accounting frameworks show the

478 importance of timing related to biogenic carbon emissions that are not necessarily compensated

479 for by contemporaneous sequestration and the accumulation of carbon and emissions in forests,

480 forest products or atmosphere. The temporal framing of forest carbon stocks and flux differs

481 between forest type and forest management as work by others has shown. This creates additional


482 variation and uncertainties when assessing carbon dynamics and the possible climate change

483 mitigation potential of forest-based bioenergy.

484 Carbon Debt Parity v Carbon Sequestration Parity

485 Carbon Debt Parity is used in many nioenergy life cycle analyses. It misses a key

486 component in acurate accounting.

487 “The carbon dioxide (and other greenhouse gases) released by the burning of woody

488 biomass for energy, along with their associated life-cycle emissions, create what is termed a

489 ‘carbon debt’ - i.e. the additional emissions caused by burning biomass instead of the fossil fuels

490 it replaces, plus the emissions absorption foregone from the harvesting of the forests.

491 [emphasis added]

492 “The capacity for forests to aid in climate change mitigation efforts is

493 substantial but will ultimately depend on their management. If forests

494 remain unharvested, they can further mitigate the increases in atmospheric

495 CO2 that result from fossil fuel combustion and deforestation.

496 Alternatively, they can be harvested for bioenergy production and serve

497 as a substitute for fossil fuels, though such a practice could reduce

498 terrestrial C storage and thereby increase atmospheric CO2 concentrations

499 in the near-term. Here, we used an ecosystem simulation model to

500 ascertain the effectiveness of using forest bioenergy as a substitute for

501 fossil fuels, drawing from a broad range of land-use histories, harvesting

502 regimes, ecosystem characteristics, and bioenergy conversion efficiencies.

Eight Principles of Uncertainty for Life Cycle Assessment of Biofuel Systems (2015) by Adam J. Liska, University of Nebraska-Lincoln. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0961953418303532

Woody Biomass for Power and Heat: Impacts on the Global Climate. Duncan Brack, Chatham House: The Royal Institute of International Affairs — Environment, Energy and Resources Department | Eebruary 2017https://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/publications/research/2017-02-23-woody-biomass-global-climate-brack-fmal2.pdf


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Results demonstrate that the times required for bioenergy substitutions to

repay the C Debt incurred from biomass harvest are usually much shorter

(< 100 years) than the time required for bioenergy production to substitute

the amount of C that would be stored if the forest were left unharvested

entirely, a point we refer to as C Sequestration Parity. The effectiveness

of substituting woody bioenergy for fossil fuels is highly dependent on the

factors that determine bioenergy conversion efficiency, such as the C

emissions released during the harvest, transport, and firing of woody

biomass. Consideration of the frequency and intensity of biomass harvests

should also be given; performing total harvests (clear-cutting) at high-

frequency may produce more bioenergy than less intensive harvesting

regimes but may decrease C storage and thereby prolong the time required

to achieve C Sequestration Parity.

517 It is critical to count the carbon sequestration that is annihilated by chopping down a tree.

518 “Trees put on weight faster and faster as they grow older according to a new study in the journal

519 Nature. The finding that most trees’ growth accelerates as they age suggests that large, old trees

520 may play an unexpectedly dynamic role in removing carbon from the atmosphere.

521 “Here we present a global analysis of 403 tropical and temperate tree species, showing

522 that for most species mass growth rate increases continuously with tree size. Thus, large, old

523 trees do not act simply as senescent carbon reservoirs but actively fix large amounts of carbon

Carbon debt and carbon sequestration parity in forest bioenergy production. Mitchell, S.R.; Harmon, M.E.; O'Connell, K.B. 2012. Carbon debt and carbon sequestration parity in forest bioenergy production. GCB Bioenergy. 4: 818-827. https://www.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/pubs/47697

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute https://www.si.edu/newsdesk/releases/trees-grow- faster-and-store-more-carbon-they-age


524 compared to smaller trees; at the extreme, a single big tree can add the same amount of carbon to

525 the forest within a year as is contained in an entire mid-sized tree.”^^

526 Global Forests

527 Yale University ecologist Thomas Crowther led the study on global forests published in

528 the journal Nature. “The global extent and distribution of forest trees is central to our

529 understanding of the terrestrial biosphere. We provide the first spatially continuous map of forest

530 tree density at a global scale. This map reveals that the global number of trees is approximately

531 3.04trillion.”^^

532 “[E]ach year there is a gross loss of 15 billion trees and a net loss of 10 billion [] There

533 are currently fewer trees than at any point since the start of human civilization and this number is

534 still falling at an alarming rate [] If anything, the scale of these numbers just highlights the need

535 to step up our efforts if we are going to begin to repair some of these effects on a global scale.

536 Securities and Exchange Commission Petition.

537 “The petitioners are Partnership for Policy Integrity and 27 institutions, investors and

538 advisors that utilize Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) and Socially Responsible

539 Investment (SRI) strategies, that seek to invest in companies offering climate change mitigating

540 innovations and operational strategies.

Stephenson, N.L., et al. 2014. Rate of tree carbon accumulation increases continuously with tree size. Nature. DOT 10.1038/naturel2914 https://www.nature.com/articles/naturel2914

Crowther, T., Glick, H., Covey, K. et al. Mapping tree density at a global scale. Nature 525, 201-205 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/naturel4967

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-science-trees/earth-has-3-trillion-trees-but-thevre-falling- at-alarming-rate-idUSKCN0R21Z620150902

https://'WWW.pfpi.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/SECPetitionAccurateBiogenicCarbonReporting2.27.2019.pdf

Id


541 “We respectfully petition the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to issue

542 guidance under regulation S-K regarding how companies should disclose information about

543 emissions of greenhouse gases from manufacturing and use of biomass-based fuels and

544 products.

545 “Companies manufacturing and selling biomass-based fuels and products often make

546 dubious or unsubstantiated claims that the products reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

547 The growth of these products and a surge of interest in investments that promise to reduce GHG

548 emissions mean that such claims are likely to be material to an increasing number of investors. A

549 survey of public-facing materials and SEC disclosures of 10 US companies selling biomass-

550 based fuels and products revealed that that in each case, disclosures about GHG emissions were

551 largely unsubstantiated and sometimes misleading.

552 “A growing number of scientists and policymakers understand that biomass is not an

553 instantaneously carbon-neutral source of renewable energy, and in many cases may never

554 achieve true carbon neutrality. [] Replacing coal with wood pellets not only increases C02 stack

555 emissions but also the net emissions impact over time, taking into consideration “foregone

556 carbon sequestration” due to forest harvesting - that is, the C02 that trees would have continued

557 removing from the atmosphere, if they had not been harvested and burned for fuel.”^^

Id22 Id23 SEC Petition, Exhibit A. https://www.sec.gov/rules/petitions/2Q19/ptn4-741-exa.pdf


558 The European Academies' Science Advisory CounciP"^ published “Forest bioenergy,

559 carbon capture and storage, and carbon dioxide removal: an update” in February 2019.^^

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“Biomass should not be regarded as a source of renewable energy under

the EU’s Renewable Energy Directive (RED) unless the replacement of

fossil fuels by biomass leads to real reductions in atmospheric

concentrations of C02 within a decade or so.”

“While the simple concept of carbon neutrality had merely presumed that

carbon released into the atmosphere when biomass was burnt would be

reabsorbed through regrowth at some stage, the limited amount of time

remaining before Paris Agreement targets are exceeded on current trends

means that the payback period is highly significant.”

“Recent reviews of the many possible bioenergy scenarios that consider

all climate effects show how forest bioenergy systems can have higher

cumulative C02 emissions than a fossil reference system (from a few

decades to several centuries), while other factors which must be

considered are any effects on N20 emissions and biogeophysical impacts,

such as albedo change. The biomass sources which can reliably provide a

short-term climate mitigation effect are biomass that would otherwise be

burned without energy recovery, rapidly decomposing residues and

organic wastes, and biomass outtakes from forests affected by high

mortality rates.”

European Academies' Science Advisory Council (EASAC) is an independent body of membership of 16 national science academies from the 15 EU member states together with Academia Europea and ALLEA (All European Academies). The aim of the Council is to provide authoritative scientific judgement to the policy makers of the European Union on a wide variety of topics.25

https://easac.eu/fileadmin/PDF_s/reports_statements/Negative_Carbon/EASAC_Commentary_F orest_Bioenergy_Feb_2019_FINAL.pdf


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“EASAC also pointed to the perverse incentives that result from the

accounting rules of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate

Change, which record forestry harvesting emissions together with those

from land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF) and (to avoid

double-counting) as 'zero' when burnt. As pointed out, ‘current rules allow

countries to record imported biomass as zero emission on combustion,

giving a false impression of the importing country’s progress towards

reducing emissions, and shifting responsibility for LULUCF reporting to

the exporting country’. Currently there is no requirement in the EU’s

Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) to consider the length of the payback

period when reporting biomass emissions as zero.”

“EASAC thus encourages the European Commission to explore options to

introduce more robust accounting rules under the ETS to emissions from

converted power stations, in order to differentiate between different

sources of forest biomass. Emissions reporting would then reflect the real

contribution of biomass energy to climate change mitigation in

comparison with other forms of renewable energy.”

“EASAC had emphasised the need to reverse current trends towards

deforestation and soil degradation which continue to add substantial

quantities of C02 and other greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, at the

same time as seeking to increase land carbon stocks.”

Docket Issues

610 The Public Utilities Commission issued an order establishing that all parties and

611 participants can address all issues. Life of the Land asserts that there are four issues: (1) does the


612 proposal make sense from a technical perspective (reliability, resilience, ancillary services)?, (2)

613 is the proposed project economical compared with alternatives?, (3) what greenhouse gas

614 (“GHG”) impacts does the project have?, and (4) what non-GHG environmental impacts does the

615 proposed project have?

616 Hu Honua likes secrecy, like where trucks carrying logs on the Big Island are coming

617 from and where they go to after dropping off logs at Hu Honua. A person could follow the trucks

618 or have to have privy to confidential documents. Hu Honua will raise rates, increase greenhouse

619 gas emisssions, while they refuse to explain their environmental impact. This project is part of

620 the past rather than being part of the Hawai'i‘s energy transformation. Their argument about

621 being better than fossil fuel is outdated and irrelevant.

622 Hu Honua asserts that environmental impacts are not the kuleana of the Commission

623 even though the Commission authorized a study of externalities almost 30 years ago and

624 continued therefrom. Hu Honua asserts that all agricultural impacts belong to affiliated

625 companies that all not parties in the docket. Hu Honua asserts that they will be carbon neutral

626 within 30 years. The proposed Paeahu Solar would be carbon negative in its first year. Hu Honua

627 asserts that this is equivalent to their project. Hu Honua has variously stated that they will plant

628 trees, that they won't plant trees, that tree planting operations are part of affiated companies

629 operations and thus not relevant to this proceeding, that they could plant enough trees so that the

630 project would be carbon negative, and that agriculturally-related issues need to be filed in

631 confidential filings. Their climate model lacks analysis, and the project lacks accountability and

632 transparency; instead it is a study in obfuscation.

Prior Commission Orders Re Environmental Externalities, Initial Brief at 40-43


633 Hu Honua stated that their proposed plant would be at least 21.6% efficient, that is, at

634 most 78.4% of the energy in the trees would be lost as heat to the air or injected in injection

635 wells where the heat would find its way into the ocean. Response to LOL-HHB-IR-172

636 Hu Honua asserted how the heat affects the ocean is irrelevant to this proceeding.

637 Response to LOL-HHB-IR-47

638 We asked several questions about whether the forest razing activities would harm bats

639 and/or endangered and threated bird species. Hu Honua asserted that the answer wasn't relevant

640 to the proceedings. Responses to LOL-HHB-IR-46, LOL-HHB-IR-93, LOL-HHB-IR-94,

641 LOL/HHB-SIR-29 LOL-HHB-SIR-43, LOL/HHB-SIR-52, LOL/HHB-SIR-53.

642 The Department of Health sets annual allowable pollution units. These are upper gross

643 limits. What is useful is the emissions for each toxic per MWh. Hu Honua would not provide an

644 answer. Responses to LOL-HHB-IR-90, LOL-HHB-SIR-45

645 Hu Honua made several claims about carbon neutrality. Hu Honua refused to disclose

646 emails with regulators about carbon neutrality claims. Responses to LOL-HHB-SIR-54 Ref:

647 LOL/HHB-IR-99

648 Hu Honua asserted that they “INTEND to utilize several methods to offset the project’s

649 greenhouse gas emissions” including contracts with Hu Honua affiliates, maybe plant trees

650 elsewhere, and maybe purchase carbon credits. Response to LOL-HHB-SIR-18 [emphasis added]

651 We simply want to know what the greenhouse gas intensity of the proposed project. After

652 12 years, we still don't know.

653 Hu Honua assrted that they were using the Clean Development Mechanism

654 Methodological Tool, Version 4.0 to determine greenhouse gas emissions. We asked “For each

655 CDM Tool spreadsheet file (or other relevant format) please provide live cell logic, references.


656 calculations and formulas unhidden and unprotected.” We didn't get an answer. Response to

657 LOL-HHB-SIR-3.

658 We asked numerous questions about the CDM Model. All of Hu Honua's responses

659 refered us to one response to the Consumer Advocate. Responses to LOL/HHB-SIR-11 through

660 LOL/HHB-SIR-17, LOL/HHB-SIR-21, LOL/HHB-SIR-22, etc.

661 Hu Honua referred us to their answer to CA/Hu Honua-IR-37 and its attached Exhibit 5

662 which contains 9 tables. Hu Honua asserted that they evaluated greenhouse gas emissions using

663 the Clean Development Mechanism Methodological Tool, Version 4.0 which can be found at a

664 url which is linked to the actual url which contains a 30-page overview document. The document

665 does not explain the specific formula used by Hu Honua.

666 To show carbon neutality one can examine one megawatt-hour of electricity produced.

667 What is the total greenhouse gases produced? What is the formula used to generate that number?

668 What is the total amount of greenhouse gases sequestered? What is the formula used to generate

669 that number? Based on the answers provided by Hu Honua, we haven't absolutely no idea.

670 Most of the carbon in the atmosphere-vegetation-soil cycle is found in the soil. In

671 agricultural operations, changes to soil is critical to understand environmental and climate

672 impacts. We asked, “For each property where biomass will be harvested, (a) please state whether

673 HHB will be determining, analyzing, recoding, and/or documenting changes to (1) soil organic

674 carbon, (2) soil nitrogen levels, (3) pesticide and herbicide use, [] (7) agricultural land

675 management (8) nonpoint source pollution.” “Hu Honua objects to this information request to the

676 extent that it is irrelevant to the issues in this proceeding, immaterial, unduly burdensome, vague

677 and ambiguous, onerous, repetitious, unintelligible, argumentative, utilizes terms that have

678 multiple interpretations but are not properly defined or explained, privileged, and/or subject to


679 protection. [] Without waiver of these objections, Hu Honua responds as follows [] Hu Honua

680 does not provide a response.” Response to LOL/HHB-IR-110.

681 Hu Honua was quick to point out solar and wind are not carbon neutral. “Hu Honua is

682 unaware of any solar or wind projects on Hawaii island that are, have plans to be, or have PPAs

683 that contemplate such projects becoming carbon neutral.” Response to LOL/HHB-SIR-75(a)

684 There are many interlocked entities that are or were linked to Hu Honua, or its parent

685 companies. Many of these entities have contracts with or are part of the proposed project. They

686 include Hu Honua BioEnergy LLC, Island Bioenergy, LLC, Hu Honua Ethanol, EEC, Island

687 Bioenergy, LLC, Grandis Ventures I, and CN Renewable Resources, LLC. We asked, “Eor each

688 entity in the HHB Eamily, please provide the following information: (a) what is their mission and

689 goal? (b) who is on their board of directors? (c) who serves on any advisory board? (c) what was

690 and is their connection to Hu Honua? (d) are they an agricultural company and if so, why? (e)

691 what contracts do they have for fuel, wood, trees?” LOL/HHB-IR-1. Hu Honua refused to

692 answer the question.

693 Hu Honua executives sent emails which are part of the official record located on the

694 Comiission's Document Management System. We identified the emails and asked whether they

695 violated ex parte rules since hard copies were not sent to all parties. In each case Hu Honua

696 reponded, “Hu Honua does not know what email is being referenced, or the context of such

697 email.” LOL/HHB-SIR-27, LOL/HHB-SIR-28

698 One thing is certain. The price that Hu Honua will sell electricity to HELCO is more than

699 twice the price of recently signed solar plus storage contracts.

700 In short, Hu Honua is a moving target where none of it makes sense.


701 My curriculum vitae is documented in Exhibit 1 of Life of the Land's Motion to

702 Intervene in docket no. 2017-0105, filed on January 2, 2018. My agricultural expertise is

703 documented in Life of the Land's Exhibit 3 in docket no. 2017-0122, filed on May 24, 2017. My

704 experience in appearing before the Public Utilities Commission in 50 proceedings is documented

705 at Life of the Land's Responses to Commission Order No. 35433, in docket no. 2017-0105, filed

706 on May 10, 2018. This includes ten bioenergy proceedings.

707 I am sponsoring several exhibits:

708 LOL-T-1 -EXH-1. “Life of the Land, Complainant vs. Hawaiian Electric Company, Inc., Hawaii

709 Electric Light Company, Inc., Maui Electric Company, Limited, and The Gas Company, Lie Dba

710 Hawaii Gas, Respondents”, docket no. 2018-0406, filed December 3, 2018.

711 LOL-T-1-EXH- 2. “Emissions Gap Report 2017, A UN Environment Synthesis Report” by the

712 United Nations Environment Programme.

713 LOL-T-l-EXH-3. “Greenhouse gases triggering more changes than we can handle” (November

714 19, 2018). American Association for the Advancement of Science. Discussion of a scientific

715 study led by University of Hawai'i Professor Camilo Mora.^^

716 LOL-T-1 -EXH-4. “Sea Level Rise Vulnerability & Adaptation Report” (December 2017) by the

717 Hawai'i Department of Land and Natural Resources (“DLNR”) HawaiT Climate Change

718 Mitigation & Adaptation Commission.

719 LOL-T-1 -EXH-5. “Climate Chmige Brief’ (2018) by the City & County of Honolulu Climate


https://wedocs.unep.Org/bitstream/handle/20.500.11822/22070/EGR_2017.pdf https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-l 1/uoha-ggtl 11518.php https://www.resilientoahu.org/guidance-and-publications


721 LOL-T-l-EXH-6. “Sea Level Rise Guidmice” (2018) by the City & County of Honolulu Climate


723 LOL-T-1 -EXH-7. “Attribution of Extreme Weather Events in the Context of Climate Chmige”

724 (“AEWE”) published by the “National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine;

725 Division on Earth and Life Studies; Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate; Committee on

726 Extreme Weather Events and Climate Change Attribution”^^

727 LOL-T-l-EXH-8. “Eourth National Climate Assessment.” Volume I: Climate Science Special

728 Report (2017), Volume IE Impacts, Risks, and Adaptation in the United States (2018) included

729 Chapter 27: Hawai‘1 and U.S.-Affiliated Pacific Islands by Victoria Keener (East West Center) et

730 al.^^

731 LOL-T-1 -EXH-9 Life of the Land's Initial Brief filed on September 16, 2019. (“Initial Brief’)

732 LOL-T-1 -EXH-10 “An Indigenous People’s Right to Environmental Self-Determination: Native

733 Hawaiians and the Struggle Against Climate Change Devastation”, D. Kapua‘ala Sproat, 35

734 Stan. Envtl L.J. 157 (2016). https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/handle/10125/46075

735 LOL-T-1 -EXH-11 Testimony on climate chmige by Kat Brady (LOL-T-1), Life of the Land's

736 Assistent Executive Director, in docket no. 2005-0145.

737 LOL-T-1-EXH-12 Juliana v. United States, No. 18-36082 D.C. No. 6:15-cv-01517-AA. United

738 States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Eiled January 17, 2020. Before: Mary H. Murguia

739 and Andrew D. Hurwitz, Circuit Judges, and Josephine L. Staton, District Judge. Opinion by

740 Judge Hurwitz; Dissent by Judge Staton.

https://www.resilientoahu.org/guidance-and-publicationshttp://nap.edu/21852

32 https://www.eastwestcenter.org/publications/hawaii-and-us-affiliated-pacific-islands-fourth- national-climate-assessment-chapter-27


741 https://staticl.squm'espace.com/static/571dl09b04426270152febe0/t/5e22101b7a850a06acdfflbc

742 /1579290663460/2020.01.17+JULIANA+OPINION.pdf

743 LOL-T-l-EXH-13 “A Climate-Lawsuit Dissent That Changed My Mind” by Robinson Meyer,

744 The Atlantic, January 22, 2020.^^

745 LOL-T-l-EXH-14 EU Biomass Plaintiffs v. European Union (2019)

746 http://climatecasechart.com/non-us-case/eu-biomass-plaintiffs-v-european-union/

747 LOL-T-l-EXH-15 Petition 4-471 (2019) filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange

748 Commission, https://www.pfpi.net/wp-

749 content/uploads/2019/02/SECPetitionAccurateBiogenicCarbonReporting2.27.2019.pdf As You

750 Sow Cover Letter https://www.sec.gov/rules/petitions/2019/ptn4-741-letter.pdf Clear Cut: Wood

751 Pellet Production, the Destruction of Eorests, and the Case for Environmental Justice

752 https://www.sec.gov/rules/petitions/2019/ptn4-741-exb.pdf

https://www.theatlantic.eom/science/archive/2020/01/read-fiery-dissent-childrens-climate-case/605296/


CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE

The foregoing LIFE OF THE LAND'S TESTIMONY LOL-T-I was filed eleelronieally with the Publie Utilities Commission, along with fom hard eopies (Commission Order No. 34597, modified by Order No. 34612). Two eopies were hand delivered to Hn Honna, HELCO and the Consnmer Advoeate. One eopy was hand delivered to Tawhiri and HEP. Eleetronie eopies were sent to all parties and partieipants listed below.

JAY GRIFFIN, CHAIRPERSON SANDRA-ANN Y.H. WONG, ESQ.PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION A LAW CORPORATION465 S. King St, Room 103 1050 Bishop Street, #514Honolnin, HI 96813 Honolnin, HI 96813DEAN NISHINA, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR KEVIN M. KATSURAATTORNEY DCCA DIVISION OF DIRECTOR REGULATORY NON-RATECONSUMER ADVOCACY PROCEEDINGSP.O. Box 541 P.O. Box 2750Honolnin, HI 96809 Honolnin, HI 96840-0001TEDN. PETIT DEAN T. YAMAMOTOMARK G. VALENCIA WIL K. YAMAMOTOCASE LOMBARDI PETIT, LAW YAMAMOTO CALIBOSO LLLCCORPORATION 1100 Alakea Street, Snite 3100737 Bishop Street, Snite 2600Honolnin, HI 96813

Honolnin, HI 96813

Connsel for HU HONUA BIOENERGY,Connsel for HAMAKUA ENERGY, LLC'S LLC PARTNERS, L.P.DAVID M. LOUIE SHANNON S. BROOMEJOSEPH A. STEWART HUNTON ANDREWS KURTH LLPAARON R.MUN 50 California Street, Snite 1700KOBAYASHI SUGITA & GODA, LLPFirst Hawaiian Center

San Franeiseo, CA 94111

999 Bishop Street, Snite 2600Honolnin, Hawaii 96813 Connsel for HAMAKUA ENERGY, LLC'S

Connsel for HELCOMYLES F. REYNOLDSHUNTON ANDREWS KURTH LLP1445 Ross Avenne, Snite 3700Dallas, TX 75202-2755

Connsel for HAMAKUA ENERGY, LLC'S

DATED; JANUARY 28, 2020, Honolnin, Hawaii.

HENRY Q CURTISVICE PRESIDENT FOR CONSUMER ISSUES

FILED

2020 Jan 20 AM 07:^

PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION

The foregoing document was electronically filed with the State of Hawaii Public Utilities

Commission's Document Management System (DMS).

Documents

BEFORE THE PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION