The EPA just walked back Hawai‘i’s plan to retire its dinosaur power plants
Why this matters: environmental and climate reporting with long-term consequences.
Hawaiʻi has some of the freshest air in the nation, but in some parts of the state hazy skies can impact tourism and public health. Now, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has pumped the brakes on a multi-decade effort to improve visibility and reduce fine particulates and other man-made pollutants. On May 15, the agency announced it had partially denied Hawaiʻi’s 2024 Regional Haze State Implementation Plan, a detailed proposal that lays out the state’s intention to comply with the federal Clean Air Act. The plan was designed specifically to reduce haze in two iconic places: Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park on the Big Island and Haleakalā National Park on Maui. Because the two parks are designated as Class I under the Clean Air Act, their air quality is legally entitled to the highest level of protection. Although the EPA is leaving some aspects of the haze plan intact, it is jettisoning its main thrust: the state’s long-term strategy, which included shutting down at least two of Hawaiian Electric Co.’s oil-fired electricity generating units in the Kanoelehua-Hill and Kahului power plants by 2028. The units are the dinosaurs of the industry; the Kahului unit was commissioned in 1948. The agency referred to the closures as “unconsented” and said in a press release that they could make Hawaiʻi’s grid less reliable and “violate the Takings Clause of the U.S. Constitution for the taking of private property without just compensation.” Determining to what degree natural and man-made emissions contribute to the overall air quality in the region requires a series of complex, evolving math equations. Erin Nolan / Civil Beat The decision isn’t the first of its kind for the agency; in Colorado, it rejected a similar plan that involved closing a coal plant. But it is one of the first from the current EPA to impact Hawaiʻi, and part of a larger plan by EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin to execute on President Donald Trump’s executive orders to promote what he calls “energy domi