One of the bills dying in this legislative session would have allowed Hawaiian Electric to issue ratepayer-backed bonds — a process called securitization — to pay for wildfire mitigation efforts.
State Sen. Jarrett Keohokalole introduced Senate Bill 2922 back in January. SB2922 faltered just before a legislative deadline last week when Keohokalole announced that lawmakers would table the measure.
"The status right now is that the bill is deferred. We adjourn the legislative session on Friday, and that's it, as far as I know," he told HPR.
Gov. Josh Green wrote a letter to Keohokalole, urging him and his fellow lawmakers to reconsider passing the measure.
Keohokalole said there was insufficient clarity from HECO about the rate increase amount, the total funds needed, and what the money would pay for specifically.
He also responded to some people's concerns that HECO, if found responsible for the Maui wildfires, could go bankrupt without securitization.
"The status of HECO's solvency is going to be made clear when the ATF completes its causation investigation, and it's probably years from now when the lawsuits around the wildfires are settled. Until then, there is no assurance that this bill will prevent HECO from eventually or potentially filing for bankruptcy. It's just a separate issue," Keohokalole said.
"For this conversation to be coming up after we deferred the measure is, you know, troubling because the bill was just not going to solve that, you know. A bailout would solve that. But that's not what was proposed in the bill," he added. "That was never put forward by HECO to begin with, in fairness to them."
He said the state's involvement in preventing HECO from going bankrupt is a separate discussion that he has not been part of.
Keohokalole said it's not a "no" from him on future securitization measures.
"These things are going to take time. They're incredibly complicated. And so, you know, I just didn't think it was responsible for us to saddle ratepayers with this commitment without sufficient information."
The senator said he has not been part of any discussions about a special session to address the issue after the regular session ends. When asked if the bill could be revived before Friday, he said that "anything can happen in the Legislature."
Keohokalole also said he has not had any additional information from HECO since the bill died.
At the time, Hawaiian Electric told HPR that it was disappointed with the outcome of SB2922.
"Ultimately, moving forward without the right solutions in place will result in higher costs for customers and constrain our ability to move quickly to mitigate wildfire risk and advance important safety work," HECO spokesperson Darren Pai said previously.
HECO did not respond to questions about any additional information it could provide to allay the senator's concerns.
This interview aired on The Conversation on April 30, 2024. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. on HPR-1. Sophia McCullough adapted this story for the web.
How did we get here? Read and listen to past coverage of SB2922:
