The Governor Green again declares the cause of the fire as global warming and blames the planet's population for the cause.
When you start looking at the facts you can see there are many other more plausible causes.
Under weather look at Maui temperature readings since 1946. There was no huge shift in temperatures.
Interim House legislative working groups formed to address Lahaina wildfire relief
More than 2,200 structures were damaged or destroyed in the Lahaina wildfire.PC: DLNR Hawaiʻi (8.15.23)
House Speaker Scott K. Saiki, Majority Leader Nadine K. Nakamura, and Minority Leader Lauren Matsumoto announced the establishment of six interim House working groups tasked with the crucial responsibility of evaluating specific topics related to the Lahaina wildfire and making recommendations for appropriate legislative action in the 2024 Legislative Session.
Working groups will focus on: environmental remediation; food, water and other supplies; jobs and businesses; schools; shelter; and wildfire prevention.
Hawaii Bribery Scandal Casts A Shadow Over Lahaina’s Ruins
For years, a local businessman paid off officials in exchange for lucrative contracts. The system he exploited has been left largely unchanged.
By Blaze Lovell
An examination of one of the state’s largest bribery cases reveals a county procurement system that may be ill-equipped to handle the millions of dollars it will spend following the devastating wildfires on Maui. (Phillip Jung for The New York Times)
Blaze Lovell, who reported from Honolulu and Maui, examined loopholes in Hawaii’s government contracting system as part of The Times’s Local Investigations Fellowship.
The mayor of Maui County, Michael Victorino, was outraged.
He appeared on television in September 2022 and called for swift action in response to what was then just emerging as one of the largest government bribery cases in Hawaii’s history.
Milton Choy, the businessman who paid off county officials to win no-bid wastewater contracts worth $19.3 million, must be “punished to the fullest extent of the law,” the mayor told his audience. So must those in county government who accepted payoffs.
Victorino also told the public that “yesterday,” he had ordered an immediate audit into all of Choy’s contracts.
But no one told Lance Taguchi, the Maui County auditor, who said he only heard about the audit on the news.
“I wasn’t consulted,” Taguchi said. “Quite frankly, I wasn’t quite sure who was to do it, or who would be doing it.”
Milton Choy walking into court in Honolulu on Aug. 29. He was sentenced to more than three years in prison for bribing a Maui County official in exchange for more than $19 million in government contracts. (Phillip Jung for The New York Times)
Though there were calls around the state for sweeping corrective measures following the bribery scandal, no audit was ever completed, and the flawed contract-monitoring system that Choy exploited has been left largely unchanged.
Learn about Maui's money system still in place as huge funds become available.
Federal Money to Lahaina has Strings Attached
Stop the Emergency Proclamation on Housing. The Govenor's Constitutional Overreach for Big Money
On July 17, Governor Green signed an emergency proclamation on housing, to "address" Hawaiʻi’s housing crisis by exempting developers from major land use, environmental, cultural protection, government transparency, public procurement, and collective bargaining laws—with no affordability requirements to ensure that any new housing will be truly accessible to Hawaiʻi’s families and residents, or meaningful safeguards to prevent new developments from simply being marketed and sold to offshore buyers and investors.
The critical need for affordable and working class housing in Hawaiʻi is recognized and felt urgently, and many bold solutions could help to chip away at this deeply rooted, multi-faceted, and decades-long crisis. However, the application of emergency powers through the governor’s emergency proclamation is an affront to not just our environmental and cultural integrity, but to fiscal accountability, public transparency, the socioeconomic realities of life in our islands, and our very system of democratic and constitutional governance.
I invite you to join us and the growing number of community organizations and leaders who are taking a stand against this misguided proclamation that would only allow corporate developers and the wealthy to exploit our housing crisis to their own benefit, and at the expense of our our ʻāina, our cultural integrity, and our social and moral fabric. Commit to taking action to save the Hawaiʻi we know and love by signing the pledge here, ask your friends and neighbors to do the same, and stand by for more actions as this campaign continues to grow.