I have to admit that I had not paid a lot of serious attention over the several years the Hu Honua Biofuels proposal for a wood-burning power plant on the Hamakua Coast was grinding through the legalistic and heavily regulated process before the Public Utilities Commission.

It was really only when I started investigating rumors of undue political pressure being put on the PUC and other state agencies by two state senators that I started digging into the case more seriously.

There’s obviously a lot going on that has not been seen by the public. If you’re interested, you should be tracking Henry Curtis’ Ililani Media, which is very sharply focused, as well as checking back here from time to time (better yet, sign up to get iLind.net delivered via email every time a new post appears).

It’s clear that insiders knew of the central role of Jennifer M. “Jenny” Johnson in financing Hu Honua Bioenergy, but that hasn’t really been known generally. Johnson is President and CEO of Franklin Resources Inc., the parent company of the Franklin Templeton funds. It’s a huge global publicly-traded firm controlled by the Johnson family. Jennifer Johnson’s brother, Greg, holds the positions of Executive Chairman and Chairman. Their father, billionaire Charles Johnson, is a former CEO of the company that was started as a mutual fund by his father. All in the family, I guess.

So that controversial little former plantation power plant in Pepeekeo ties right into the elites of the global financial world. Another investor was the controversial Irish businessman, Andy Ruhan (for example, see, “The ‘ruined’ Irish millionaire, his wife, a bizarre murder plot, and the battle for his secret fortune,” The Independent, Nov. 12, 2017). Ruhan apparently invested through a company registered on the Isle of Man, adding to the global spread of the Hu Honua story. Another figure who shows up is Peter Kleis, who was a manager of Grandis Ventures I, which placed at least $31 million into Hu Honua Bioenergy in 2012, and controlled the company for a couple of years until its shares were bought out by Johnson. Kleis died in a single-car crash in January 2015.

A lot of this information comes from documents filed in a lawsuit in California in which Johnson is being sued by a former personal friend and business associate in Hu Honua.

By the way, if you’re like me, you might be wondering about the two names being used to refer to the company, Hu Honua Bioenergy (the older name) and Honua Ola Bioenergy (the more recent one). Hu Honua announcted 2-1/2 years ago that it was adopting the new “Honua Ola” name, perhaps to try to jettison its history of financial woes, perhaps to reflect Johnson’s consolidation of control over the company. The name change came at about the same time Johnson ousted Harold Robinson from the company he had managed on her behalf for 5 years.

Although public records show several properties have been transferred from Hu Honua to Honua Ola, even the most recent legal filings, including the recent appeal to the Hawaii Supreme Court, have been made in the name of Hu Honua. So the name change has only been partially implemented, it seems.

Stay tuned. I’m sure there’s a lot more to come.