The Hawaii Supreme Court's First of Its Kind Decision

The case involved an effort by the Hawaii Electric Light Company to get the Public Utilities Commission to approve a power purchase agreement. It would have involved converting a plant and having that plant produce energy by burning eucalyptus trees. The Public Utilities Commission rejected the proposed agreement finding that it would have emitted substantially more carbon than it sequestered. And significantly, the Hawaii Supreme Court grounded its ruling in part in Article 11, Section 9 of the Hawaii State Constitution.