Aha…it seems the Star-Advertiser left out some crucial information in the story on variances from the state’s new solar water heating mandate.

Thanks to Civil Beat reporter Mike Levine for his earlier reporting, which included the key piece of the puzzle, a clarification of legislative intent included in a larger energy bill passed by the legislature in 2009, a year after the original solar mandate legislation.

In this latter bill, the legislature says its intent was to make the gas option available only to homeowners and not to developers, Levine reports.

Levine also calls attention to Civil Beat’s relatively new policy of making the site free to “occasional” readers, something I was not previously aware of.

Here’s Mike’s email:

Just read your post about the Star-Advertiser’s solar story. I agree that it’s confusing and muddled and not supported by the data. I think we did a far better job covering the issue when we wrote a two-story package a couple of months ago. Here are the links:

Mandatory Solar Hot Water for New Homes: Don’t Believe It

State Allows Developers to Flout Solar Mandate

I send them to you and hope you’ll share them with your readers because I think they’ll bring some much-needed clarity as to what’s actually going on with the solar mandate.

As you may have heard, Civil Beat is now free for occasional readers, so you’ll be able to read the full stories, free of charge, and anyone who clicks through will be able to read them in their entirety as well. We’re hoping the change helps get our fresh approach to journalism in front of more people.

Let me know if you have any question about the stories, about the solar mandate or about Civil Beat’s new model.

It appears the current dispute over variances stems from the legislature’s failure to include its statement of intent, which was made part of the preface to the 2009 measure, in the language of the statute itself.

I’m not an attorney, but generally the courts will look to legislative intent only when the language of the statute itself is ambiguous or unclear.

Levine quotes former state energy administrator Ted Peck:

Later Tuesday, Peck called Civil Beat and explained his office’s limitations in following legislative intent.

“I talked to our AG (Attorney General), and what I understand is that doesn’t have the force of statute. That part doesn’t get written in the statute. So we’ve been operating according to statute, not according to the bill itself,” Peck said.

“Legislative intent is a squirrelly thing. We of course always want to work with legislative intent, and we would be pleased to enforce that, but it doesn’t have the force of statute.”

This understanding appears consistent with standard rules of statutory interpretation.

As the Hawai‘i Supreme Court recently observed:

First, the fundamental starting point for statutory interpretation is the language of the statute itself. Second, where the statutory language is plain and unambiguous, our sole duty is to give effect to its plain and obvious meaning. Third, implicit in the task of statutory construction is our foremost obligation to ascertain and give effect to the intention of the legislature, which is to be obtained primarily from the language contained in the statute itself. Fourth, when there is doubt, doubleness of meaning, or indistinctiveness or uncertainty of an expression used in a statute, an ambiguity exists.

Citizens Against Reckless Dev. v. Zoning Bd. of Appeals of the City and County of Honolulu, 114 Hawai‘i 184, 193-94, 159 P.3d 143, 152-53 (2007) (quoting Peterson v. Hawaii Elec. Light Co., Inc., 85 Hawai‘i 322, 327-28, 944 P.2d 1265, 1270-71 (1997), superseded on other grounds by HRS § 269-15.5 (Supp. 1999)). [Source: Hawaii Intermediate Court of Appeals, Kauai v OIP, No. 29059, Jan 2009]

But do take advantage of Civil Beat’s new accessibility to read through Levine’s stories.