Energy Office PR Contract: <\/b>Although the state\u2019s Energy Office, within the Department of Business, Economic Development, and Tourism, has a dedicated public information office, it apparently needs to have a public relations firm on call as well. The department has recently decided to award a $100,000 contract for \u201cpublic relations and marketing support services\u201d to the firm of Milici Valenti Pack Ng, Inc.<\/p>\n
Duties include: \u201ckey communications messaging\u201d and \u201csocial marketing tactics (i.e., Facebook, Twitter, blogs, etc.),\u201d writing news releases, op-ed pieces, letters to the editor, and \u201ccommentaries, articles, etc.\u201d Also, the firm is to \u201cprepare speeches, talking points, messages, presentations, and fact sheets,\u201d \u201ccoordinate and purchase media buys\u201d (advertising, in other words), and \u201cassist with issues management and crisis communications.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alan Yonan, the Energy Office\u2019s public information officer, told Environment Hawai`i <\/i>that the PR contract is nothing new, with the Energy Office having first sought professional assistance in this area in 2009.<\/p>\n
Although the language in the scope of work is broad, Yonan continued, as a practical matter, the Energy Office \u201chas only used the contractor to provide services for which it either lacks internal expertise or does not have sufficient manpower.\u201d For example, he said, the office has used contractors to \u201cdo the graphic design and layout for many of its external publications, including the annual Energy Resources Coordinator\u2019s report.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tuna Treaty Resurrected: <\/b>The U.S.-flagged purse seine fleet is once more plying the waters of the South Pacific. The three dozen or so boats in the flotilla were in port for the first two months of the year, after their owners balked at paying the high fees that had been negotiated last year \u2013 fees of $12,600 for each day spent fishing in waters controlled by 15 small island nations in the region.<\/p>\n
In early March, the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency and the U.S. State Department came up with a new scheme. Instead of total payments from the U.S. government and vessel owners coming to around $90 million for the year, the payments will total around $66 million. The vessels will have fewer available fishing days in the region, and the Pacific Island countries are now able to sell the freed-up days to other fleets. (For more on the U.S. tuna fleet in the Pacific, see our January 2016 edition.)<\/p>\n
Dept. of Emendations, Part I: <\/b>In January, we erroneously reported that the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission included in its 2016 research plans a proposal by the United States for a study of spatial management options for tropical tunas. Although there had been no objections to the proposal at the time it was raised, it was not formally adopted.<\/p>\n
Dept. of Emendations, Part II: <\/b>In February, we reported on a lawsuit brought against Hawaiian Legacy Hardwoods (HLH) and several affiliated entities. A sidebar, \u201cThe Hawaiian Legacy Companies,\u201d described several of those companies, including the Hawaiian Legacy Reforestation Initiative and stated that its board included HLH founder Jeff Dunster and \u201cthree employees of Dunster-related companies.\u201d John Henshaw, one of those board members, informed us that he was not an employee but rather a consultant to Hawaiian Legacy Hardwoods.<\/p>\n
Dept. of Emendations, Part III, GEMS: <\/b>In March, we reported on the proposal to use Green Energy Market Securitization (GEMS) program funds to pay for air-conditioning in public-school classrooms. We stated that the legislation which set up the GEMS program \u201climits loans \u2018to private entities, whether corporations, partnerships, limited liability companies, or other persons.\u2019 No mention of \u2018public sector\u2019 entities appears in either the law or the reports from legislative committees that heard the bill three years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tara Young, the executive director of the Hawai`i Green Infrastructure Authority, established to oversee the program, disagrees. \u201cThe legislation states that \u2018This loan program MAY include loans made to private entities \u2026 as well as direct loans to electric utility customers, on terms approved by the authority.\u2019\u00a0Please note that the DOE is one of the largest electric utility commercial customers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Young also disagrees with the statement in our article that the law does not mention \u201cpublic sector\u201d entities. \u201cAct 211 amended Section 269-121(b) of Hawai`i Revised Statutes,<\/i>\u201d Young\u00a0 wrote. This is the law that established the public benefits fee on Hawaiian Electric customers, a part of which now supports the GEMS program. Young quotes a passage from the public-benefits-fee law, which states: \u201cthe state may participate in any clean energy technology, demand response technology, or energy use reduction, and demand-side management infrastructure, programs, and services on the same basis as any other electric consumer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Quote of the Month<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
\u201cI have a little trouble understanding how increasing catch limits is a conservation measure.\u201d\u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
\u2014 John Sibert, fisheries scientist<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Energy Office PR Contract: Although the state’s Energy Office, within the Department of Business, Economic Development, and Tourism, has a dedicated public information office, it apparently needs to have a public relations firm on call as well. The department has … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8583,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[399],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-april-2016"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8835"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8835\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/environment-hawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}