The legislature hereby finds and declares that:

(1) The development of Hawaii’s geothermal resources, which are located principally on the island of Hawaii and possibly on the island of Maui, represents a substantial and long-term source of indigenous renewable alternate energy that could be used to generate electric energy to meet the State’s electric energy needs and concurrently help to reduce the State’s need for imported fossil fuels;
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Terms Used In Hawaii Revised Statutes 196D-2

  • county: includes the city and county of Honolulu. See Hawaii Revised Statutes 1-22
  • Permit: means any license, permit, certificate, certification, approval, compliance schedule, or other similar document or decision pertaining to any regulatory or management program which is related to the protection, conservation, use of, or interference with the natural resources of land, air, or water in the State and which is required prior to or in connection with the undertaking of the project. See Hawaii Revised Statutes 196D-3
(2) The State has deemed it appropriate that the private sector should develop these geothermal resources, and, to that end, has sought to encourage private sector exploration and development of geothermal resources;
(3) The private sector companies seeking to develop geothermal resources are, however, unable or unwilling to expend the substantial amounts of funds needed to develop these resources to their full extent without an assured and sufficiently large market for the electric energy to be generated therefrom, and the present and projected electric energy demand on the island of Hawaii does not provide an assured and sufficiently large market;
(4) The greatest present and projected demand for geothermally generated electric energy is located on the island of Oahu;
(5) The State, with the support and assistance of the federal and county of Hawaii governments, has been exploring for several years the technical, engineering, economic, and financial feasibility of an interisland deep water electrical transmission cable system that would be capable of transmitting geothermally generated electric energy from the island of Hawaii to the islands of Maui and Oahu, and believes that a cable system may be feasible and desirable;
(6) The development of such a cable system will not be undertaken without the firm assurance that a sufficient amount of geothermally generated electric energy will be continuously available to be transmitted through a cable system once it becomes operational;
(7) The fundamental interrelationship between the development of geothermal resources and a cable system and the magnitude of the cost to undertake each of these developments clearly indicate that neither will be undertaken without the firm assurance that the other also will be undertaken in a synchronized and coordinated manner to enable both developments in substance to be completed concurrently, thereby ensuring that revenues will be available to begin amortizing the costs of each of these developments;
(8) A major and fundamental difficulty in the development of both geothermal resources and a cable system is the diverse array of federal, state, and county land use, planning, environmental, and other related laws and regulations that currently control the undertaking of all commercial projects in the State;
(9) These controls attempt to ensure that commercial development projects in general are undertaken in a manner consistent with land use, planning, environmental, and other public policies, except that some of these specific laws, regulations, and controls may be repetitive, duplicative, and uncoordinated;
(10) To a limited extent, the State and counties have sought to ameliorate this difficulty through the enactment or adoption of measures to improve the coordination and efficiency of land use and planning controls and specifically to facilitate the development of geothermal resources;
(11) Notwithstanding these efforts, the complexities, the magnitude in scope and cost, the fundamental interrelationship between the development of geothermal resources and a cable system, the inherent requirement for the coordinated development of the geothermal resources and a cable system, the substantial length of time required to undertake and complete both developments, and the desirability of private funding for both developments require that affected state and county agencies be directed to pursue and develop to the maximum extent under existing law the coordination and consolidation of regulations and controls pertinent to the development of geothermal resources and a cable system;
(12) The development of geothermal resources and a cable system, both individually and collectively, would represent the largest and most complex development ever undertaken in the State;
(13) Because of the complexities of both projects, there is a need to develop a consolidated permit application and review process to provide for and facilitate the firm assurances that companies will require before committing the substantial amounts of funds, time, and effort necessary to undertake these developments, while at the same time ensuring the fulfillment of fundamental state and county land use and planning policies;
(14) The development of geothermal resources and a cable system are in furtherance of the State’s policies, as expressed in the state plan and elsewhere, to develop the State’s indigenous renewable alternate energy resources and to decrease the State’s dependency on imported fossil fuels; and
(15) A consolidated permit application and review process for the development of the State’s geothermal resources and the cable system should be established by an act of the legislature.

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