It’s payback time at the State Capitol, it seems, as the Senate prepares to vote on Governor Josh Green’s nomination of Scott Glenn to head the Hawaii Office of Planning and Sustainable Development. The vote is expected to take place when the Senate is in session at 11 a.m. this morning.

This is not about Glenn’s obvious qualifications for the position. It’s about flexing of political muscle by a handful of key senators.

Here’s the story.

In September 2020, Scott Glenn, then director of the Hawaii State Energy Office, was being pressured by two powerful state senators, Ways and Means Committee chairman Donovan Dela Cruz and Glenn Wakai, then chair of the Committee on Energy, Economic Development and Tourism, who were demanding he get behind the controversial and environmentally questionable wood-burning power plant being built in Pepeekeo on the Big Island’s Hamakua coast by Hu Honua Bioenergy LLC, later known as Honua Ola Bioenergy.

In a September 8, 2020 letter to Glenn, written on official State Senate letterhead, Dela Cruz and Wakai praised the Hu Honua project without even a nod to the environmental considerations that led to its rejection by the Public Utilities Commission, and noted that Glenn’s office had failed to submit favorable comments on the Hu Honua proposal to the PUC.

“We would appreciate you helping us understand what efforts you have undertaken to date on this matter and what you will do immediately to advocate for this project,” the letter said.

The letter was came as attorneys representing Hu Honua were preparing an emergency motion asking the Hawaii Supreme Court to overturn the PUC ruling requiring the company’s proposal to go through a competitive bidding process and meet environmental and consumer cost criteria that applied to other renewable energy projects.

A blog post here at the time reported the two senators had been “putting the squeeze on departments and key employees on behalf of Hu Honua.”

Privately, some of those who have been buttonholed by Dela Cruz, or have spoken to those who have been leaned on, describe the senate’s budget chair as aggressive and demanding. He has earned a reputation for threatening to cut budget line items for programs and agencies, or even the specific positions of key agency staff, if his “requests” and “recommendations” are not complied with. Dela Cruz is also rumored to be raising campaign funds for a gubernatorial bid in 2022.

Wakai has been accused of similar political bullying. It was bad enough that the Hawaii Tourism Authority hired an outside law firm to conduct an investigation of one instance several years ago, which found evidence Wakai had bullied and harassed agency employees.

Glenn, as director of the state’s energy office, refused to comply with their demands.

Now the same senators are leading a behind-the-scenes charge to punish Glenn by working behind the scenes to deny Glenn’s nomination the votes it needs to pass. Dela Cruz still chairs the Senate Committee on Ways and Means, which controls the state’s budget, which creates a powerful tool to leverage compliance from other legislator, while Wakai is now part of Senate leadership as majority floor leader.

This is thinly veiled retaliation for Glenn’s failure to kowtow to their political demands in 2020, and a deliberate move hold up the nomination’s defeat up as a very public example of what can happen to those who, like Glenn, resist their often heavy-handled legislative meddling.

The story of the current arm-twisting is told in an important story by Chad Blair and Blaze Lovell published yesterday at Civil Beat (“Senate ‘Bullies’ Are Creating Chaos At The Capitol This Year/Donovan Dela Cruz and Michelle Kidani have taken political strong-arming to an alarming level as they work to control business and financial issues, their colleagues say“).

Two powerful state senators are pressuring colleagues to derail confirmation of Scott Glenn to lead the Hawaii Office of Planning and Sustainable Development.

Glenn received a 4-to-1 vote in favor of his appointment on March 8, usually an indication that a gubernatorial nominee will receive a favorable floor vote in the full 25-member Senate.

But Sen. Lorraine Inouye, who chairs the Senate Water and Land Committee that approved Glenn, says Sen. Donovan Dela Cruz and Sen. Michelle Kidani are coercing colleagues to oppose the nomination in a vote that could happen as early as Wednesday.

According to Civil Beat, Inouye ties the current pressure to the fate of Hu Honua.

Inouye said she was not sure why Glenn was being targeted, but she said “it seems to be pointed toward Hu Honua.”

Hu Honua BioEnergy is a biomass project on the Big Island which last week saw its appeal of a Public Utilities Commission decision restricting its operation denied by the Hawaii Supreme Court. The high court agreed with the PUC’s determination that burning trees to produce energy was not in the state’s interest.

Dela Cruz, Kidani and Wakai headlined a fundraiser last year that was hosted by Noni Toledo, a Hu Honua lobbyist. During the 2022 session the senators sponsored bills designed to help Hu Honua. Both measures were vetoed by then-Gov. David Ige.

The latest ruling by the Hawaii Supreme Court earlier this month was a strong rebuke not only of the Hu Honua project, but indirectly of the uncritical full-court press against project opponents by these key senators, who had earlier tried unsuccessfully to muscle the Public Utilities Commission into compliance.

The court found:

The PUC understood its public interest-minded mission. It faithfully followed our remand instructions to consider the reasonableness of the proposed project’s costs in
light of its greenhouse gas emissions and the project’s impact on intervenor Life of the Land’s members’ right to a clean and healthful environment. It stayed true to the language of its governing statute HRS § 269-6(b) (Supp. 2021) by measuring the project’s cost and system impact. And it acted properly within its role as fact-finder when it evaluated Hu Honua by its own statements and promises and, ultimately, found themunconvincing.

And now, it seems, Dela Cruz, Wakai, and company are seeking revenge by turning down Glenn’s nomination.

See also:

“Legislator’s tie to NextEra consultant shows gaps in required financial disclosures,” iLind.net, 9-15-2015

“Check out this recent ThinkTech Hawaii program on Hu Honua,” iLind.net, 10-8-2020

“We’re learning lots of new details about the Hu Honua proposal,” iLind.net, 9-21-2020

“Stadium redevelopment plan’s legacy of deceit,” iLind.net, 2-25-2021

“UH budget tripped up by Dela Cruz pork,” iLind.net, 5-9-2021

“Hu Honua is back to their old tricks,” iLind.net, 5-24-2022

Hawaii Supreme Court decision in Case No. SCOT-22-0000418, March 13, 2023.