Green energy has its pluses and minuses. The Los Angeles wildfires bring to mind our recent experience with the Maui fires.
For the Environmental Protection Agency, Maui presented a new challenge of dealing with many electric vehicles and residential charging stations as hazardous waste. The Maui fire claimed some 2,000 structures. In California, the number has passed 10,000.
EPA Region 9 Administrator Martha Guzman covers the southwestern states and the Pacific. She was just on Maui this week and on Oʻahu as part of a program to help the state build greener ports under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
"Ports are a hot spot. They're a hot spot for pollution, the local air, but they emit a lot of carbon. So it's both a local issue and a global issue, and that's why it was a priority."
She shared that the agency was given $3 billion to clean up shipping ports across the nation.
"In Hawaiʻi, the grant most, I think, excitingly is doing things that are immediate and things that are ambitious," she said. "Also the goal that the port has is to have green hydrogen, and that's a very ambitious goal, I think that that's both the attractiveness of this grant, but also recognizing making that a reality is really, really challenging."
She said that the state Department of Transportation also received a previous grant of $2 million for planning and inventory of all the state ports.
"Everything comes into Honolulu, and then it goes out from here. The centralized planning that is happening — the grant, and also DOT was already doing this, but elements of community engagement throughout that planning, and of course, the priority for workforce development during this transition," she said.
Guzman also celebrated the Hawaiʻi congressional delegation for securing appropriations for Maui following the wildfires.
"So just incredibly grateful for that leadership and really the strategic and political astuteness of the delegation to be that successful," she said.
With a Republican administration coming in, she said the federal agency may be more restricted.
"The uniqueness of Hawaiʻi, and certainly the territories in terms of the military dynamic, is one that is a partnership that can benefit. So it worries me, but it doesn't, because the reality is the climate is changing," she said.
"There's no denying that. You want to call it something else, call it something else, but we have to prepare for that. We have to prepare for a drier climate, a warmer climate, with more high-intensity water events. We just got to do it. It doesn't matter what party you are, and I think the reality of our situation is going to dominate regardless of party."
This interview aired on The Conversation on Jan. 10, 2025. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. on HPR-1.
