Honorable David Y. Ige, governor of Hawaii and Honorable Dennis McGinn, assistant secretary of the Navy for energy, installations and environment, signed a Memorandum of Understanding between the State of Hawaii and the Department of the Navy during a ceremony at the Hilton Hawaiian Village in Honolulu, June 21.
This agreement provided an opportunity to strengthen the partnership between the two parties and leverage financial and human recourses toward a shared vision on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, petroleum and imported fossil fuel usage, water consumption, clean transportation and maximizing energy efficiency.
“The Memorandum of Understanding we are signing today allows us to capitalize to the greatest extent possible our combined wisdom, resources and experience to achieve greater energy efficiency, security, economic vitality and carbon reduction,” said Ige.
According to Ige, the Department of the Navy and Department of Defense are the biggest customers of Hawaii’s electric utility and has an enormous impact on Hawaii’s economy.
“Through energy efficiency and renewable energy projects our collaboration is intended to accelerate our pace to 100 percent renewable energy,” said Ige. “In this regard Department of the Navy is poised to be as important to Hawaii’s future as it has in the past.”
“We are citizens of Hawaii so it’s the right thing to do to protect Hawaii and its environment. It makes perfect sense to have this agreement and work on it together,” Rear Adm. John Fuller, commander, Navy Region Hawaii and commander, Naval Surface Group, Middle Pacific, who attended the ceremony.