State Representative
Chris Lee is a Hawaii State Representative.
PUF: Tell us about yourself.
Representative Chris Lee: I've been in the state legislature for about twelve years. I chaired the Energy and Environmental Protection Committee for half the time and got involved in the energy space for two reasons.
One, because here it seems that of all the industries, energy is the space where we're seeing rapid transformation unlike anything else. That makes it the ripest for all kinds of potential and opportunity, so that got me intrigued. I guess you'd call me a techie. I love cool new things and seeing what that twenty-first century future is going to look like.
But also, here in Hawaii, it's an obvious no-brainer to change the way we're doing things, because we have all the renewable resources you could possibly imagine right here in our backyard, and all the justification from a financial, consumer protection, and climate change set of issues to do something about that.
It's this perfect place where we are big enough as a state of a million and a half people with half a dozen different electric grids of varying sizes to be able to demonstrate some cool stuff and prove that model for the rest of the country or the world. At the same time, we're small enough that we can implement and execute it and get it done.