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OPINION
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 2015 | WEST HAWAII TODAY
S
AN FRANCISCO —
Many conservatives
and most libertarians
argue that every new law
or regulation means that
government is adding
to the sum total of
oppression and reducing
the freedom of individuals.
This way of looking at
things greatly simplifies
the political debate.
Domestic issues are boiled
down to the question
of whether someone is
“pro-government” or
“anti-government.”
Alas for the over-
simplifiers, it’s an approach
that misreads the nature of
the choices that regulators,
politicians and citizens
regularly face. It ignores
that the market system
itself could not exist
without the rules that
government establishes,
beginning with statutes
protecting private property
and also the various
measures against the use of
force and fraud in business
and individual transactions.
More importantly, it
overlooks the ways in which
the steps government
takes often empower
citizens and expand
their rights. Nowhere is
this more obvious than
in the realm of work.
The run-up to Labor
Day this year brought a
spate of news stories and
commentaries on the
actions of the National
Labor Relations Board and
other government agencies
to strengthen the rights
of workers and enhance
their bargaining power
relative to employers.
Last week, Noam
Scheiber offered an
important account in The
New York Times of how
the Obama administration
has been “pursuing an
aggressive campaign
to restore protections
for workers that have
been eroded by business
activism, conservative
governance and the
evolution of the economy
in recent decades.”
Among the milestones
Scheiber cited was a
recent Court of Appeals
decision upholding an
Obama-era rule providing
minimum-wage and
overtime protections to
nearly 2 million home
health care workers. They
certainly felt empowered by
government, not oppressed.
So did the employees of
contractors and franchises
who were granted
collective bargaining
rights by the National
Labor Relations Board.
Fast-food chains provide
the obvious example of how
loopholes related to new
work arrangements and
franchise agreements can
let employers out of their
traditional obligations. In
the case of purveyors of
hamburgers and chicken
tenders, the parent
companies set all sorts
of detailed requirements
for how these businesses
should operate — and then
turn around and claim that
when it comes to workers’
rights, their franchises
are utterly independent.
One of the most
fascinating struggles,
still ongoing, is over new
regulations that the Labor
Department is trying to
establish to ensure that
those who give investment
advice to people with
401(k)s and individual
retirement accounts base
their judgments on the
best interests of their
clients. Along with defined-
contribution retirement
plans, they involve some
$13 trillion in investments.
The Labor Department
proposal would require
investment advisers to
abide by a “fiduciary”
standard — meaning that
the best-interest-of-the-
client yardstick should
be their sole criterion in
offering counsel to clients.
If this seems obvious, that’s
not what the current law
requires. As Secretary
of Labor Thomas Perez
said in an interview, the
standard now is only that
an investment be suitable.
“What the hell is ‘suitable’?”
Perez asked, noting
that he would hope for
more than just “suitable”
advice from his doctor.
The issue is whether
some investment advisers
might offer conflicted
guidance influenced by
“backdoor payments and
hidden fees often buried
in the fine print,” as the
Labor Department put it
in a document explaining
why change is needed.
“I don’t believe that folks
who provide advice wake
up with malice in their
hearts,” Perez said. But he
added that it is only natural
that advisers might lean
toward investments from
which they can also benefit.
“Surprise, surprise, if you
have four or five products
that are suitable and one
gives you a commission,
guess where you will
go?” The new rules,
which are being heavily
contested by parts of the
financial industry, are an
attempt to realign the
incentives, Perez argued.
The investment-rule
battle is a near-perfect
example of how the
government is plainly
promoting free markets
— what’s more market-
oriented than building
an investment portfolio?
— but is also trying to
make sure that the rules
regulating the investments
tilt toward the interests
of the individual putting
his or her money at risk.
As long as there are
markets, government will
have to establish rules
determining how they
operate. These necessarily
affect the interests of
market participants.
Many of the choices
are not between more
or less government.
They are about whether
what government does
provides greater benefit
to workers or employers,
management or unions,
individual investors or
investment firms.
“Which side are you
on?” This question from
the old union song is
the right question to ask
about government.
E.J. Dionne’s email address is
. Twitter:
EJDionne.
T
he viewpoint recently offered
by one of my colleagues does
not give a true picture of the
direction being taken by the Office of
Hawaiian Affairs Board of Trustees.
Instead, her viewpoint is a distortion
of a renewed effort by our nine-member
policymaking board to enhance our ability
to meet the higher standards of ethics,
transparency and accountability that are
expected from our oversight responsibilities.
To suggest that the decision to merge
two standing committees into one is
part of some larger effort to control
power shows a lack of understanding
of the amount of trust that has been
placed in us as elected officials to act
for the good of the organization, rather
than for the benefit of ourselves.
For the record, the OHA Board
of Trustees voted on Aug. 27, 2015,
to merge its Committee on Asset
Resource Management with our
Committee on Land and Property.
Our newly-created Committee on
Resource Management represents a
necessary step to improve our board’s
oversight responsibilities, which includes
avoiding wasted time and effort.
Since all of our nine trustees are members
of the board’s standing committees anyway,
it simply made sense to eliminate an extra
committee by streamlining our operations.
In February 2014, the board had
created our Committee on Land and
Property to improve OHA’s effectiveness
as the 13th largest landowner in
Hawaii, where we control more than
28,000 acres statewide, including
Wao Kele o Puna on Hawaii Island.
About eight months later, our chief
executive officer added to his executive
team a Land and Property director
to oversee a newly created division
focused on addressing our growing
challenges as a major property owner.
While the board’s now-defunct land
committee and the administration’s
existing land division have worked together
in the past to help OHA’s efforts to be
a responsible steward of the properties
that we own, they also have not always
enjoyed a peaceful co-existence amid
a series of sometimes overlapping
efforts to improve our effectiveness
as a land and property owner.
With the newly-created Committee
on Resource Management, our board
expects to work more effectively with
administration to better coordinate roles
and responsibilities to avoid gaps or
overlapping efforts that interfere with our
ability to ensure that OHA’s land assets are
well managed, and that the organization’s
financial situation remains sound.
Make no mistake about it: Our
board’s decision to combine two of
our standing committees is about
avoiding an unnecessary drain on
everyone’s time and OHA’s resources.
From my perspective, splitting
our oversight responsibilities for
OHA’s land and finances across two
committees became an inefficient and
ineffective way for us to operate.
By combining the two committees,
we expect to reap considerably greater
rewards and foster more nimble decision-
making for the beneficiaries who have
entrusted us to maintain the financial
accountability of our organization.
More importantly, those beneficiaries
can count on the leadership at the
helm of OHA’s board to always do one
thing: Exercise reasonable care in all
decision making, without placing the
organization under unnecessary risk.
Robert K. Lindsey Jr. has represented
Hawaii Island as an Office of Hawaiian
Affairs trustee since 2007.
Viewpoint articles are the opinion
of the writer and not necessarily the
opinion of West Hawaii Today.
Merging
committees will
improve OHA
board’s oversight
responsibilities
The right question about government
E.J. DIONNE |
THE WASHINGTON POST
ROBERT K. LINDSEY JR.
VIEWPOINT
Speak up at
PUC hearings
The upcoming Public
Utilities Commission
hearings on the Hawaii
Electric Industries-NextEra
acquisition provide all of
Hawaii Island ratepayers
the opportunity to let
the PUC know how we
feel about the problems
we have on Hawaii with
burgeoning electricity
costs, poor service, grid
incapacity and the failure
of HECO to provide an
Integrated Resource Plan
to incorporate our island’s
vast renewable energy
resources. It’s our chance
to let the PUC know we
support the effort of the
Hawaii Island Energy
Cooperative to implement
a new model for electricity
sustainability on Hawaii
Island — a model that is
based on public ownership
of energy production
and transmission. After
all, most of our state’s
renewable energy
resources are owned
by the “public trust.”
PUC public hearings are
set for 6 p.m. Sept. 29 at
Hilo High School and at 6
p.m. Sept. 30 at Kealakehe
High School. Testimony
can be sent in by email to
hawaii.puc @hawaii.gov.
It’s not a difficult choice.
Do we want to continue
under a monopoly business
model that benefits a few
or do we want an equitable
system that develops and
transmits energy owned by
the people for the people?
Mililani B. Trask
Honolulu
LETTERS
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