Sierra Club Launches Marketing Campaign in Support of Solar: Drawing Attention to the Impact on Hawai’i Jobs and Clean Energy Goals

The new campaign features Sonny the Solar Panel standing in an unemployment line. An audio clip can be found here, and the text of the advertisement is below.

Statement of Sierra Club Hawai’i Chapter Director Robert D. Harris: 

The Abercrombie Administration is wrongly slamming the brakes on one of the few success stories in achieving Hawai’i’s clean energy goals. The Department’s new interpretation would slash the average tax credit to homeowners and businesses that install solar energy systems by about half. It also threatens the future of thousands of solar energy workers in one of Hawai’i’s strongest growth sectors.

The Sierra Club is open to legislative changes to our tax policy — everyone wants a smart, well-crafted law that watches the bottom line while still providing enough of an incentive to encourage residents to transition to clean energy — but believes the Governor’s blatant crossing of the line between the executive and legislative branches is misguided. In a democracy, laws are supposed to be made by the legislature in an open and transparent way. The Governor attempted and failed to pass a law reducing the solar tax credit last year. The Governor does not have the authority to executively change the state’s tax policy in a behind-closed doors manner simply because the legislature did not give him what he wanted.

The impacts of the Governor’s action are still to be felt. We hope to draw public attention to the potential economic impacts by unveiling the Sonny the Solar Panel advertisements and encouraging the Governor to show leadership and vision on how to move Hawaii towards a clean energy future.