PART I. PUBLIC UTILITIES, GENERALLY
§269-1 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":
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:
"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.
"Wheeling" means the transmission of renewable electric power from a storage or energy generation system through the utility meter for consumption by a separate utility account holder. [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; am L 2025, c 266, §3]