Across every issue, the same pattern repeats: official promises on one side, the reality residents and reporters describe on the other. This is how government has responded to our crises.
To address Maui's housing deficit for the resident population at every income level, before allowing additional luxury housing for off-island absentee owners.
Maui County 2030 General Plan, Countywide Policy Plan (adopted 2010, amended 2021)homes rebuilt and habitable two and a half years after the Lahaina fires.
UHERO Factbook 2026A statewide renewable portfolio standard, written into state law to rein in the highest electricity prices in the country: "30% by December 31, 2020; 40% by December 31, 2030; 70% by December 31, 2040; and 100% by December 31, 2045."
Hawaiʻi Revised Statutes §269-92 (Act 97, SLH 2015)per kilowatt-hour, 2.2× the U.S. average and the highest electricity price in the country.
EIA, March 2026average Hawaiʻi monthly residential electric bill, the highest in the country.
EIA Today in EnergyAccess to health services is one of nine state priorities in Hawaiʻi's 2030 health improvement plan, with stated objectives to grow the physician workforce and reduce gaps in care across the neighbor islands.
Healthy Hawaiʻi 2030 State Health Improvement Plan, Hawaiʻi Department of Healthmore physicians needed on Maui, a 41% gap and the worst shortage in the state.
Civil Beat / JABSOM, Jan 2026Maui County residents delayed medical care in the past year, a 21% jump from 2022.
Civil Beat, August 2024To identify and prioritize areas for hazardous fuel reduction, structure protection, and community wildfire risk reduction. Finalized December 2024, in partnership with the State and the Hawaiʻi Wildfire Management Organization.
South Maui Community Wildfire Protection Plan, DLNR Division of Forestry & Wildlifeincrease in Hawaiʻi wildfire frequency over the last century, the risk the CWPP is meant to lower.
Hawaiʻi Wildfire Mgmt. Org.in estimated damage from the March 2026 Kona-low storms across the islands.
UHERO Factbook 2026"Everybody is upset about the government response.
Everybody."
New developments we are following, with the source for each. Newest first.
Maui Now reports that the county’s Safe Parking pilot, funded with $200,000 back in 2022, still is not operating after site flooding and years of delay. The county also has no overall plan for homelessness, even as a January count found 651 people without housing across Maui County. A program promised years ago has yet to deliver the service it was created to provide.
An independent fraud risk assessment of Maui County found inadequate anti-fraud policies across departments, Maui Now reports, including no nepotism rule and little monitoring of vendor billing. It flagged 6,223 direct-pay transactions at the Department of Water Supply, roughly $21 million in goods and services bought without the usual safeguards. The county also lacks one consistent process for handling fraud complaints.
Hawaii’s law commits the state to 100% renewable electricity by 2045. Yet in May the state signed Act 24, capping the rooftop solar tax credit and phasing it out by 2030, even though the credit is shown to pay for itself. After the change rattled solar projects already underway, the state issued an executive order to protect the credit for 2026. It is a gap between the clean-energy promise and the tools to get there.
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