Posted by Free Hawai`i on December 23, 2008 at 7:20am
If a single situation could be held up as a model to discourage enterprise and investment in the state, it is that of theHawai`i Superferry.The Lingle administration and an equally culpable state Legislature did no one -- not taxpayers, the visitor industry, businesses or public or environmental interests -- any favors in their bungling of the ferry issue.Had officials simply adhered to legal requirements from the get-go, the harm imposed and that could yet be brought to the ferry company and others, and the community divisiveness their mistakes have generated would not have occurred.A report by the state auditor criticizing special legislation tailored to benefit the ferry company served as a prelude this week to arguments before the Supreme Court on constitutional challenges of the law.The audit concluded that the legislation -- known as Act 2, passed after the court ruled that the state should not have exempted the ferry from environmental reviews -- "compromised" the law and "set a precedent for future government intervention that puts the interests of a single business before the state's environmental, fiduciary and public safety responsibilities."
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