Entries for May 2012

We are also pleased to report that the most onerous measures of 2011 and 2012 – House Bill 441, House Bill 834, House Bill 2028 and Senate Bill 2975 – all died upon adjournment of this legislative session....

Why start the first year with 500 releases? I also question whether we will have the necessary programs and personnel in place for Year 1. Will drug and alcohol treatment, counseling, vocational training, or halfway houses be ready?

Rep Thielen notes the proximity of five schools, a hospital, and numerous residences, all within one mile of the proposed landfill site....

Hawaii is a harbinger for what's to come in both caregiving and LTC ....

This 2012 edition of Death on the Job: The Toll of Neglect marks the 21st year the AFL-CIO has produced a report on the state of safety and health protections for America’s workers....

The Bill passed 22-3. Out of 25 Senators, there were 10 who voted "yes, with reservations." Honorable Senators, what does that even mean?

OPEIU represents nurses throughout the United States under the umbrella of the OPEIU Nurses Council and recently affiliated the 4,000-member Hawai'i Nurses Association (HNA)....

...production companies only remain in-state until tax conditions are made more favorable elsewhere....

...a faceless young American woman grows from birth to old age with the government at her side every step of the way....

Among the problematic policies are ... policies that force student clubs to accept voting members and officers that don’t agree with the clubs’ beliefs....

A political watershed is formed when the benefits of incumbency flow down hill to a new generation....

A highly compensated Bishop Street executive recently complained that his effective state tax rate was something on the order of 16% even though the nominal maximum state income tax rate is 11% for those folks making big incomes....

Complicating matters, the Merrill executive who most-closely dealt with the fund reportedly fell overboard while fishing in waters off Hawaii last September, and has yet to be found.…

The aforementioned circumstances raise substantial doubt about the Company’s ability to continue as a going concern….

The Hawaii State Senate adjourned on this final day of the 2012 Legislative Session, passing many bills in support of its priorities set forth at the beginning of the session....

The U.S. Department of Education said Friday it would keep Hawaii on "high risk" status for failing to carry out education reforms it promised in return for a $75 million grant from the federal government....

No surprise here.  This has always been the plan ....

Just a day after her last legislative day at the State Capitol, Representative Kymberly Pine will pull her papers today at 11:30 a.m. to run for the City Council District 1 seat....

"I am encouraged that yesterday the Hawaii State Legislature passed SB 2785, which establishes a regulatory framework for the private investment in, and development of, an inter-island electricity transmission cable."

State's April 2012 Monthly Energy Trends Report has just been released by the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism....

...today's jobs report shows, the U.S. economy only added 115,000 jobs in April -- well below expectations and far, far below what is necessary to drive the economy back to full employment....

With the end of the 2012 Legislative session today, hundreds of measures now come to Governor Neil Abercrombie for his approval....

The Hawaii House of Representatives took action Thursday on its final bills of the session....

Republicans in the State House of Representatives successfully led the way in opposing a series of bills that would have resulted in lasting damage to our environment....

"As candidates for HSTA President, we had our disagreements. However, we both agree that asking teachers to reconsider the January settlement proposal is in the best interest of Hawaii's teachers and children." -Paul Daugherty & Wil Okabe

Pre-Trial is a threat to public safety. Releasing thousands of prisoners cannot be taken lightly, and the current process for early release is inadequate....

... supported by Delegate Gregorio “Kilili” Camacho Sablan (D-Northern Mariana Islands), the top Democrat on the Committee on Natural Resources’ Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife, Oceans and Insular Affairs ....

Blaine Harden, Escape from Camp 14: One Man’s Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West, Viking, $26.95....

their aggregate impact on the environmental is completely accounted for, they may be more harmful than their gasoline-only predecessors....

However, new research finds that wind farms actually warm up the surface of the land underneath them during the night....

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$25 billion in losses over the last five years, $20 billion in annual losses projected in the coming years, and 80 percent of its locations losing money....

Religious freedom, suicide, gambling, LBGT curriculum, and trangender birth certificates ....

...the House Conferees battled down to the last six minutes to protect churches who did not want to be involved with civil unions....

the Senate has voted to make the public shoulder the burden of a $1billion cable system....

HB2175, HB2099, HB1875....

In a statement to a local reporter, Hirono's spokesperson said that her campaign travel itinerary took precedence over her duty as a Congresswoman to vote ....

Government interference in the sugar market hurts consumers and food manufacturers by driving up the price of sugar, threatening competitive farmers and ranchers by jeopardizing export growth, and weakening the U.S. economy by diverting resources from more competitive uses...

In 2009, the shift to biotech crops reduced carbon dioxide emissions by 17.6 billion kilograms, equal to the removal of 7.8 million cars from the road for a year....

Unfortunately, under this Administration, the military is facing significant cuts that severely undermine America's ability to defend itself and stand ready to combat the threats that lie around the corner.

The State Legislature has passed three groundbreaking bills to curb the growing cyber crime trend in Hawaii. The bills were the result of the cyber crime informational briefing co-chaired by Representatives Kymberly Marcos Pine and George Fontaine.

Representative Thielen's amendment required that, by 2020, food grown in Hawaii for local consumption would double from the amount which was grown in the state in 2014....

As the nation’s hospitals rush to adopt new health information technologies such as computerized medication prescribing systems, the potential for such advances to inadvertently result in harm to patients remains a major challenge ....

Governor Abercrombie, HECO and some House and Senate members are now finalizing legislation that would allow the project to fast-track without sufficient environmental analysis or public review....

The certification process has become a restrictive bottleneck, damaging the industry it was intended to protect....

If it ever was a secret, it's not a secret any longer: The Obama Administration is on a vindictive campaign to injure America's oil and gas industry....