Musings: Moving On

What a sweet morning! Bird song — warbling, trilling, tweeting, soaring —woke me this mornin, and when Koko and I went outside we were greeted with pink haze as the sun peeked its head up over the horizon.

My honohono orchid is blooming, the papaya tree has flowers, the grass is growing. Spring is definitely on its way.

And so, it seems, is the Superferry, if a report on KHON is accurate:

The Hawaii Superferry has released more than 230 employees and contractors, and sources say the Alakai will likely be leaving the islands.

Several sources confirm the ship owners are looking for a new home for the first vessel, eyeing places including Guam.

Perhaps the military will be interested, since that's what the boat was all about in the first place. As a report on the Joint High Speed Vessel project in Defence Professionals notes:

The aluminum catamaran design of the JHSV will be similar to that of the Austal-built fast ferries for Hawaii Superferry, also powered by MTU Series 8000 engines.

Meanwhile, Attorney General Mark Bennett is sticking to the maxim of never give up the ship, even when it’s sunk, or sailing without him. According to The Advertiser:

It's a long decision. We want to carefully study it," Bennett said. "We want to make sure our motion is on appropriate grounds. We have one shot to do this. ... If we don't succeed, then we have to accept it and move on."

The Lege, to its credit, already has:

State Senate President Colleen Hanabusa, D-21st (Nanakuli, Makaha) said yesterday that, given the latest court decision that Act 2 is unconstitutional because it was designed to benefit a specific company, "I'm not sure there is anything the Legislature can do or is willing to do (to help the Superferry)."

Hanabusa said the Senate also is not interested in revamping the state's environmental review law, known as Chapter 343, to ease the rules. Although the Legislature last year allocated money for a Legislative Reference Bureau study of the law, "we are not going to do anything to it piecemeal to help Hawaii Superferry. That's not going to happen."

Well, perhaps they haven’t all moved on, if this comment from Sen. Sam Slom is any indication:

"When the governor took office six years ago, she said the open-for-business sign is on again," he said. "Unfortunately, a number of people have not recognized that.”

Yeah, I guess somebody should tell the Hawaii Supreme Court to get with the program.

Meanwhile, Sen. Mike Gabbard, chair of the Energy and Environment Committee, is not planning to get with the program on the House bill that prohibits the state and county from regulating GMOs. In response to an email I sent, he wrote back:

Thanks for writing me. I agree that HB 1226 is a very bad bill and don’t plan on scheduling it for a hearing.

The bill should die now. But bad legislation, like vampires, sometimes comes back to life through a technique called “gut and replace,” in which the contents of a live bill are stripped and replaced with a dead one.

As Rep. Mina Morita warned on this one, it’s not safe to pronounce it dead until 11:59 p.m. on the night the Lege closes.

Finally, if you’ve been following the Niihau fish kill story, I have posted another update on The Hawaii Independent that delves into the classified military operations under way at the time.