Honolulu High-Capacity Transit Corridor Project
The Grassroot Institute was featured extensively in the media due to its opposition to Mayor Mufi Hannemann's proposed steel-on-steel rail system.
In June 2008, President Jamie Story authored a commentary that refuted many of Hannemann's claims as to what the rail would accomplish in terms of traffic congestion and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, pointing out that the rail system itself would consume more energy and produce more emissions than the marginal number of cars it would replace. Shortly thereafter, Hannemann released a series of ads in Hawaii's major dailies, The Honolulu Advertiser and The Star-Bulletin, called "Getting Real on Rail" using $20,000 of his own campaign funds. "Getting Real on Rail" branded the Grassroot Institute as a coalition of mainlanders bankrolled by oil corporations to prevent the rail from being built in Honolulu. Hawaii's Grassroot Institute is closely associated with other conservative think tanks such as the Reason Foundation, Heritage Foundation and Cato Institute; and regularly collaborates with their nationally active anti-rail advocates such as Wendell Cox and Randal O'Toole. Conservative (or Libertarian) think tanks are heavily supported by major petroleum interests like Exxon, Shell and the Koch Charitable Trusts.
Jamie Story is no longer connected with the Grassroot Institute and has returned to Austin, Texas.
Read more about this topic: Grassroot Institute
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