In a busy week for local energy policy, Gov. Josh Green moved up the deadline for neighbor islands to eliminate fossil fuel use, and the Hawaiʻi State Energy Office put out a long-awaited report recommending Oʻahu open the door to liquefied natural gas imports.
Kauaʻi, Hawaiʻi Island, and Maui County are now expected to run on 100% renewable power by 2035 — a decade ahead of schedule.
Green issued the executive order changing the mandate on the state’s renewable portfolio standards on Tuesday, right on the heels of the energy office’s release of a fuels analysis that proposes Oʻahu replace oil with natural gas.
Local energy and environmental stakeholders are celebrating Green’s push for more momentum toward the state’s renewable energy goals. But many are also calling into question the wisdom of incorporating LNG, which is also a fossil fuel, into Oʻahu’s energy mix.
Evan Weber, co-founder of the environmental action group Sunrise Movement and an affordability and energy consultant, said the energy office’s report put a “fossil fuel-stained mark” on Green’s “otherwise laudable action” in updating the state’s renewable portfolio standards.
“There is cognitive dissonance in this vision of 2035 that's laid out by the governor's executive order and this report from the State Energy Office around retooling Oʻahu for more fossil fuel use,” he said.
Weber concurred with the report in one regard: Oʻahu’s dense population and development make its energy transition uniquely challenging.
“But if the goal is 100% renewable energy, what we should be doing on Oʻahu is working twice as hard at investing in renewable energy solutions,” he said.
Meet your new neighbor, liquefied natural gas
Weber also noted that investing in liquefied natural gas would mean some West Oʻahu communities have to continue to contend with fossil fuel power plants in their neighborhoods.
In addition to revamping several of Oʻahu’s operational power plants, the report proposes building a new combined cycle power plant that can burn natural gas on the footprint of Oʻahu’s demolished coal plant near Barbers Point.
A recent report on U.S. LNG exports released by the Biden Administration before Trump took office found that communities of color, as well as low-income and rural communities, have been disproportionately exposed to the harms of natural gas and other fossil fuel production and transportation.
Weber said West Oʻahu communities have borne the brunt of the state’s continued dependence on fossil fuels and called the closure of the coal plant in 2022 “a big win.” He believes building a new facility at the site of the old coal plant would be a “disservice” to those communities.
“Kapolei, West Oʻahu, the Waiʻanae Coast…deserve better than what we've given them on energy solutions so far,” he said.
Former Oʻahu official questions LNG analysis
Josh Stanbro, who served as Honolulu’s first chief resilience officer, said the executive order aligns with efforts to get more solar on rooftops in Oʻahu.
But he said that betting on natural gas as an energy solution for Oʻahu “doesn't make any sense.”
“I'm hopeful that the executive order is the governor's state policy, and that the study is sort of a thought exercise by some staff in the State Energy Office, and it isn't a statement of the governor's policy or where you know the state is going,” he said.
Stanbro said he believes the energy office’s analysis looks at the potential of LNG through “rose-colored glasses.”
“It relies on really optimistic assumptions, but it overlooks really key risks,” he said.

Among his concerns is the price volatility of LNG, which he feels the energy office’s report underestimates.
Global natural gas prices hit record highs after Russia invaded Ukraine. Prices for U.S. LNG exports were 100% higher in September 2022 compared to September 2021, though they’ve since come down.
Stanbro also argued that the aggressive timeline put forward by the energy office to retrofit Oʻahu’s power plants to be compatible with natural gas is unrealistic.
The report states that in order for the investment in LNG infrastructure to be cost-effective, that conversion needs to take less than two years. Any new power plants must be constructed in three years.
Stanbro said that’s unlikely, given the scale of the work that would need to be completed.
“We've seen a history of large infrastructure projects, not just in Hawaiʻi, but anywhere, taking much longer than expected, and coming at a much higher bill than expected,” he said.
LNG invites lawsuits, experts say
Earthjustice senior attorney Kylie Wager Cruz anticipates serious legal challenges to any state efforts to import LNG.
“I think someone's going to challenge this in court,” she said. “We'll see if a court decides whether this complies with our constitutional right to a life-sustaining climate system or not.”
The Hawaiʻi Supreme Court recognized that citizens have a right to a life-sustaining climate system in March 2023. That right was acknowledged in the landmark Navahine settlement agreement between the state and a group of young plaintiffs pushing for climate action last summer.
Richard Wallsgrove, the co-director of the environmental law program at Richardson School of Law, said lawsuits over the development of LNG would be “inevitable.”
Wallsgrove expects that energy developers who see natural gas production as competition, environmental advocates concerned about the climate impacts of investing in fossil fuel infrastructure, or communities living in proximity to proposed gas plants could all take the state to court over LNG.
“Litigation would take the timeline that's been proposed and throw it out the window, and would effectively close the narrow window that the State Energy Office has identified for investing in LNG,” he said.