Hawaii’s Intermediate Court of Appeals heard oral arguments yesterday in the continuing challenge by the group, Stop Rail Now, to get it’s initiative question on the general election ballot, with a ruling expected to be issued later today. Don’t forget that you can listen to yesterday’s arguments via an MP3 file available on the court’s web site.

If you checked in her early yesterday, you’ll see that entry was edited later in the day to reflect a conversation I had with the condo association president at Pat’s at Punaluu. Still later in the day I received a copy of an “acceptance notice” issued by the city’s Department of Planning and Permitting. DPP indicated that the application for a variance met “the basic filing requirements” but went on to require significant additional information, including many of the same kinds of information cited as concerns by the Punaluu Community Association, including a site plan including existing buildings and parking, plans of the complete proposed restaurant building, including all three floors, proposed new parking spaces, existing and proposed floor areas of the restaurant and condominium building, and other information.

This long laundry list from the city appears to contradict the assertion by the condominium president, quoted here yesterday, that specific information about the new building isn’t relevant to the question of whether a variance should be granted. According to the city’s notice, the application will not move forward and no public hearing will be scheduled unless all the information is provided.

If you haven’t seen enough sobering financial information in the news over the past few days, try out this story from Fortune, the business magazine, regarding on unusual spokesman for the “peak oil” viewpoint.

Matt Simmons, a Republican energy consultant and industry insider, believes that oil producers have manipulated their data and actually have fewer oil reserves than claimed. As a result, he believes we are already behind the rising global demand for oil and cannot catch up.

What’s interesting is that he blows past the arguments about expanded drilling to argue that sustainability is the key to energy policy.

Simmons believes that a radical change in the way we live is inevitable. “We should basically be going back to creating a village economy, so that we really reduce the energy intensity of how we live,” he says. “We need bigtime conservation, not feel-good conservation. Make things where they’re used. You’ll end long-distance commuting, and we have the tools to do that now with webcams. Grow food locally. Grow food in your backyard. If they’re not commuting, people will have time to do that.”

As to the presidential campaign, Simmons is clear.

“John McCain is energy illiterate,” Simmons is saying. “He’s just witless about this stuff. As a lifelong Republican, I’m supporting Obama.” A dozen oil and gas men sitting around a conference table in Lafayette, La., chuckle nervously as he continues. “McCain says, ‘Oh, we’re going to wean ourselves off foreign oil in four years and build 45 nuclear plants by 2030.’ He doesn’t have a clue.”

Finally, don’t miss Brad Parsons’ account of the most recent Superferry task force meeting on his Hawaii Superferry Unofficial Blog, which includes searchable files of testimony and documents presented. Brad credits Larry Geller (www.disappearednews.com) with creating the searchable files.