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The governor wants all options on the table for lowering the state's electricity costs while ridding itself of fossil fuels.

Hawaii’s two regulated electrical utilities told a pair of state Senate committees Thursday that they are trying to do as much as possible as fast as possible with wildfire risk mitigation.

The project was meant to boost renewable energy production, but local groups worried its proposed stream diversions would do severe harm to the environment.

LIHUE, Hawaii — It’s hard to find anywhere in the United States that has greened its electricity supply as quickly as verdant Kauai. And the people of Kauai achieved that on their own, through collective ownership of the electricity grid, not by hoping profit-maximizing utilities find a way to balance the urgency of human-caused climate change with quarterly dividends for shareholders.

Making the island’s utility a cooperative resulted in cheaper and cleaner power. It could hold lessons for communities around the country debating local…