Definitions
HRS §269-1
in effect269-1. Definitions
As used in this chapter:
"Agricultural activities" means a
commercial agricultural, silvicultural, or aquacultural facility or pursuit conducted,
in whole or in part, including the care and production of livestock and
livestock products, poultry and poultry products, apiary products, and plant
and animal production for nonfood uses; the planting, cultivating, harvesting,
and processing of crops; and the farming or ranching of any plant or animal
species in a controlled salt, brackish, or freshwater environment.
"Basic exchange service" means those services consisting of single-line dial tone,
touch-tone dialing, access to operator service, access to 911 services,
telecommunications relay service, telephone directory, and access to
directory-assistance service via 411 dialing.
"Carrier of last resort" means a
telecommunications carrier designated by the commission to provide universal
service in a given local exchange service area determined to be lacking in
effective competition.
"Designated local exchange service
area" means an area as determined by the commission to be best served by
designating a carrier of last resort pursuant to section 269-43.
"Dial tone" means the ability to make
or receive telephone calls with or without operator intervention.
"Document" includes any application,
complaint, pleading, brief, answer, motion,
memorandum, declaration, exhibit, certificate of service, and other papers
filed by or with the commission.
"Enforcement officer" means any
person employed and authorized by the commission to investigate any matter on
behalf of the commission.
"Lifecycle
greenhouse gas emissions assessment" means the evaluation of potential
greenhouse gas emissions over the course of a product, program, or project's
lifetime or stages of production, construction, operations, and
decommissioning, which includes but is not limited to, as applicable, upstream
stages such as extraction and processing of raw materials, manufacturing and
processing of materials, and transportation; operations stages such as the use
of any fuels or feedstocks and the production of any materials; and downstream
stages such as transportation, decommissioning, recycling, and the final
disposal.
"Public highways" has the meaning
defined by section 264-1, including both state and county highways, but
operation upon rails shall not be deemed transportation on public highways.
"Public utility":
(1) Includes every person who may own, control,
operate, or manage as owner, lessee, trustee, receiver, or otherwise, whether
under a franchise, charter, license, articles of association, or otherwise, any
plant or equipment, or any part thereof, directly or indirectly for public use
for the transportation of passengers or freight; for the conveyance or
transmission of telecommunications messages; for the furnishing of facilities
for the transmission of intelligence by electricity within the State or between
points within the State by land, water, or air; for the production, conveyance,
transmission, delivery, or furnishing of light, power, heat, cold, water, gas,
or oil; for the storage or warehousing of goods; or for the disposal of sewage;
provided that the term shall include:
(A) An owner or operator of a private sewer
company or sewer facility; and
(B) A telecommunications carrier or
telecommunications common carrier; and
(2) Shall not include:
(A) An owner or operator of an aerial transportation
enterprise;
(B) An owner or operator of a taxicab as
defined in this section;
(C) Common carriers that transport only
freight on the public highways, unless operating within localities, along
routes, or between points that the public utilities commission finds to be
inadequately serviced without regulation under this chapter;
(D) Persons engaged in the business of
warehousing or storage unless the commission finds that regulation is necessary
in the public interest;
(E) A carrier by water to the extent that the
carrier enters into private contracts for towage, salvage, hauling, or carriage
between points within the State; provided that the towing, salvage, hauling, or
carriage is not pursuant to either an established schedule or an undertaking to
perform carriage services on behalf of the public generally;
(F) A carrier by water, substantially engaged
in interstate or foreign commerce, that transports passengers on luxury cruises
between points within the State or on luxury round-trip cruises returning to
the point of departure;
(G) Any user, owner, or operator of the
Hawaii electric system as defined under section 269-141;
(H) A telecommunications provider only to the
extent determined by the public utilities commission pursuant to section
269-16.9;
(I) Any person who controls, operates, or
manages plants or facilities developed pursuant to chapter 167 for conveying,
distributing, and transmitting water for irrigation and other purposes for
public use and purpose;
(J) Any person who owns, controls, operates,
or manages plants or facilities for the reclamation of wastewater; provided
that:
(i) The services of the facility are provided
pursuant to a service contract between the person and a state or county agency
and at least ten per cent of the wastewater processed is used directly by the
state or county agency that entered into the service contract;
(ii) The primary function of the facility is the
processing of secondary treated wastewater that has been produced by a
municipal wastewater treatment facility owned by a state or county agency;
(iii) The facility does not make sales of water
to residential customers;
(iv) The facility may distribute and sell
recycled or reclaimed water to entities not covered by a state or county
service contract; provided that, in the absence of regulatory oversight and
direct competition, the distribution and sale of recycled or reclaimed water
shall be voluntary and its pricing fair and reasonable. For purposes of this
subparagraph, "recycled water" and "reclaimed water" means
treated wastewater that by design is intended or used for a beneficial purpose;
and
(v) The facility is not engaged, either
directly or indirectly, in the processing of food wastes;
(K) Any person who owns, controls, operates,
or manages any seawater air conditioning district cooling project; provided
that at least fifty per cent of the energy required for the seawater air
conditioning district cooling system is provided by a renewable energy
resource, such as cold, deep seawater;
(L) Any person who owns, controls, operates,
or manages plants or facilities primarily used to charge or discharge a vehicle
battery that provides power for vehicle propulsion;
(M) Any person who:
(i) Owns, controls, operates, or manages a
renewable energy system that is located on a customer's property; and
(ii) Provides, sells, or transmits the power
generated from that renewable energy system to an electric utility or to the
customer on whose property the renewable energy system is located; provided
that, for purposes of this subparagraph, a customer's property shall include
all contiguous property owned or leased by the customer without regard to
interruptions in contiguity caused by easements, public thoroughfares,
transportation rights-of-way, and utility rights-of-way; and
(N) Any person who owns, controls, operates,
or manages a renewable energy system that is located on such person's property
and provides, sells, or transmits the power generated from that renewable
energy system to an electric utility or to lessees or tenants on the person's
property where the renewable energy system is located; provided that:
(i) An interconnection, as defined in section
269-141, is maintained with an electric public utility to preserve the lessees'
or tenants' ability to be served by an electric utility;
(ii) Such person does not use an electric public
utility's transmission or distribution lines to provide, sell, or transmit
electricity to lessees or tenants;
(iii) At the time that the lease agreement is
signed, the rate charged to the lessee or tenant for the power generated by the
renewable energy system shall be no greater than the effective rate charged per
kilowatt hour from the applicable electric utility schedule filed with the
public utilities commission;
(iv) The rate schedule or formula shall be
established for the duration of the lease, and the lease agreement entered into
by the lessee or tenant shall reflect such rate schedule or formula;
(v) The lease agreement shall not abrogate any
terms or conditions of applicable tariffs for termination of services for nonpayment
of electric utility services or rules regarding health, safety, and welfare;
(vi) The lease agreement shall disclose: (1)
the rate schedule or formula for the duration of the lease agreement; (2) that,
at the time that the lease agreement is signed, the rate charged to the lessee
or tenant for the power generated by the renewable energy system shall be no
greater than the effective rate charged per kilowatt hour from the applicable
electric utility schedule filed with the public utilities commission; (3) that
the lease agreement shall not abrogate any terms or conditions of applicable tariffs
for termination of services for nonpayment of electric utility services or
rules regarding health, safety, and welfare; and (4) whether the lease is
contingent upon the purchase of electricity from the renewable energy system;
provided further that any disputes concerning the requirements of this
provision shall be resolved pursuant to the provisions of the lease agreement
or chapter 521, if applicable; and
(vii) Nothing in this section shall be construed
to permit wheeling.
If the application of this chapter is ordered
by the commission in any case provided in paragraph (2)(C), (D), (H), and (I),
the business of any public utility that presents evidence of bona fide
operation on the date of the commencement of the proceedings resulting in the
order shall be presumed to be necessary to the public convenience and
necessity, but any certificate issued under this proviso shall nevertheless be
subject to terms and conditions as the public utilities commission may
prescribe, as provided in sections 269-16.9 and 269-20.
"Renewable energy system" means any
identifiable facility, equipment, apparatus, or the like that converts
renewable energy, as defined in section 269-91, to useful thermal or electrical
energy for heating, cooling, or reducing the use of other types of energy that
are dependent on fossil fuel for their generation.
"Single-line" means a single-party
line or a one-party line.
"Taxicab" means and includes:
(1) Any motor vehicle used in the movement of
passengers on the public highways under the following circumstances, namely,
the passenger hires the vehicle on call or at a fixed stand, with or without
baggage for transportation, and controls the vehicle to the passenger's
destination; and
(2) Any motor vehicle having seating accommodations
for eight or less passengers used in the movement of passengers on the public
highways between a terminal, i.e., a fixed stand, in the city of Honolulu, and
a terminal in a geographical district outside the limits of the city of
Honolulu, and vice versa, without picking up passengers other than at the
terminals or fixed stands; provided that passengers may be unloaded at any
point between terminals; and provided further that this definition relating to
motor vehicles operating between terminals shall pertain only to those motor
vehicles whose operators or owners were duly licensed (under section 445-222
and any other applicable provision of law or ordinance) and doing business
between such terminals on January 1, 1957.
"Telecommunications carrier" or
"telecommunications common carrier" means any person that owns,
operates, manages, or controls any facility used to furnish telecommunications
services for profit to the public, or to classes of users as to be effectively
available to the public, engaged in the provision of services, such as voice,
data, image, graphics, and video services, that make use of all or part of
their transmission facilities, switches, broadcast equipment, signalling, or
control devices.
"Telecommunications service" or
"telecommunications" means the offering of transmission between or
among points specified by a user, of information of the user's choosing,
including voice, data, image, graphics, and video without change in the form or
content of the information, as sent and received, by means of electromagnetic
transmission, or other similarly capable means of transmission, with or without
benefit of any closed transmission medium, and does not include cable service as
defined in section 440G-3.
"Touch-tone dialing" means dual-tone
multi-frequency, as opposed to dial-pulse signaling.
[L 1913, c 89, §18; RL
1925, §2208; am L 1927, c 100, §1; am L 1933, c 169, §6 and c 202, §1; am L Sp
1933, c 32, §2; RL 1935, §7940; RL 1945, §4701; am L 1949, c 366, §1; am L Sp
1949, c 65, §1; RL 1955, §104-1; am L 1957, c 151, §1; HRS §269-1; am L 1969, c
30, §1; am L 1974, c 59, §2; am L 1977, c 102, §2; am L 1980, c 77, §2; am L
1981, c 167, §1; am L 1984, c 95, §4; am L 1990, c 49, §3; am L 1991, c 57, §1;
am L 1994, c 264, §2; am L 1995, c 105, §§2, 7 and c 225, §3; am L 1996, c 102,
§1 and c 205, §3; am L 1997, c 120, §6; am L 1998, c 11, §16; am L 1999, c 255,
§1; am L 2001, c 272, §7; am L 2005, c 22, §9 and c 164, §2; am L 2008, c 169,
§3; am L 2009, c 156, §5; am L 2011, c 9, §2; am L 2012, c 74, §1 and c 166, §3;
am L 2013, c 261, §2; am L 2023, c 205, §2; am L 2024, c 54, §2, c 66, §9, and
c 117, §1]
Source: Hawaii State Legislature (capitol.hawaii.gov), via Internet Archive capturesURL: http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/hrscurrent/Vol05_Ch0261-0319/HRS0269/HRS_0269-0001.htmFetched: 11/10/2026