STAND. COM. REP. NO. 2930

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE: S.B. No. 2497

S.D. 2

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Thirty-Third State Legislature

Regular Session of 2026

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Ways and Means, to which was referred S.B. No. 2497, S.D. 1, entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO ELECTRIC ENERGY,"

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose and intent of this measure is to promote transparency in electric utility bills.

More specifically, this measure:

(1) Requires all electric utilities to provide transparent customer bill impact analyses that are accessible to the public in an electronic format reasonably usable by ratepayers;

(2) Establishes requirements for bill impact analyses; and

(3) Requires electric utilities to submit annual reports to the Public Utilities Commission.

Your Committee received written comments in support of this measure from the Hawaii Clean Power Alliance and one individual.

Your Committee received written comments in opposition to this measure from the Kauai Island Utility Cooperative and Life of the Land.

Your Committee received written comments on this measure from the Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs Division of Consumer Advocacy, Office of Information Practices, Public Utilities Commission, and Hawaiian Electric.

Your Committee finds that the Public Utilities Commission relies on bill impact analyses prepared and modeled by electric utilities for proposed energy projects that estimate residential customer bill impacts to evaluate affordability. Your Committee also finds that these analyses rely heavily on assumptions developed by the electric utilities that are not fully disclosed to ratepayers. As a result, ratepayers have only a limited ability to evaluate and determine whether a proposed project is in the public interest and whether their electric utility's projected bill impacts are reasonable, current, and accurate. Your Committee believes that the public disclosures required by this measure will help improve affordability and promote transparency.

Your Committee has amended this measure by:

(1) Requiring electric utilities to maintain an online bill impact analysis tool that is accessible to ratepayers;

(2) Specifying that the bill impact analysis tool shall:

(A) Cover operational, rather than proposed, electric projects; and

(B) Disclose top level assumptions used to calculate the per project impact on customer bills;

(3) Providing that electric utilities shall represent power systems below an applicable threshold, as determined by the Public Utilities Commission, in a summarized form; and

(4) Exempting electric cooperatives from the requirements established under this measure.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Ways and Means that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2497, S.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Third Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2497, S.D. 2.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Ways and Means,

________________________________

DONOVAN M. DELA CRUZ, Chair