The Hawaii Supreme Court will hear arguments on the Hawaii Superferry case on Thursday, December 18th, starting around 8:45 a.m. The Legislature passed Act 2 in 2007. Here's the description:
"Requires the Department of Transportation to perform an environmental impact statement (EIS) for certain improvements made to commercial harbors. Permits operation of large capacity ferry vessel company prior to completion of EIS upon meeting certain minimum conditions. Establishes a temporary Hawaii Inter-island Ferry Oversight Task Force."
While the new law does not name the Hawaii Superferry, the complaint is that Act 2 was specifically written and passed for the Hawaii Superferry, and that passing legislation to benefit a specific company is not valid.
If you want to follow the proceedings, Robert Thomas, a Hawaii attorney specializing in land use law, will be covering the trial live on his blog http://www.inversecondemnation.com/. as an experiment. He notes that appellate arguments go pretty fast and that the justices ask a lot of questions. All that is required is a web browser. Here's the page where it will go live, and where you can also sign up for an email reminder: Click here.
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