Aloha, Friend.Congress is in our annual August district work period before reconvening on Capitol Hill in September. My activities have focused on continuing efforts in DC, personal outreach throughout my district, and representing our country overseas. Here are some highlights (plus another constituent survey here and below):Fiscal Year 2025 Appropriations. June and July were intense periods in my U.S. House Committee on Appropriations as we considered all twelve of our measures to fund a $1.6 trillion federal budget for upcoming Fiscal Year 2025 (beginning October 1, 2024). Many of my requests for funding of key efforts for Hawai‘i and the Pacific were included; you can find more details in my news releases here. However, these measures have a long way to go still in the legislative process, and August is a productive period to continue the hard behind-the-scenes efforts that make the difference.Further Funding for Maui Recovery. As we have all remembered the first anniversary of the tragic Maui wildfires, the reality is that our federal government’s billion-dollar-plus effort has made a real difference thus far but there is a long ways to go and much more federal assistance needed. Given the many disasters across our country over the last years, our federal disaster assistance funds are running low and Congress is currently developing a supplemental (extra) funding measure to replenish that funding. Together with Senators Schatz and Hirono and Representative Tokuda, I am pursuing sufficient funding for a range of Maui needs in that measure. Our joint letter of request to our colleagues is here. Congressional Delegation to the Indo-Pacific. I joined my colleagues on our House Appropriations Committee’s Subcommittee on Defense, responsible for our country’s defense and intelligence budgets, on an official delegation to New Zealand and Australia. We met with senior leaders of these critical allies and partners to strengthen ties and assure that we remain aligned on the challenge of the People’s Republic of China and other mutual issues in the Indo-Pacific. This delegation also gave me the opportunity to highlight Hawaii’s own critical role and needs as well as the issues of our joint ‘ohana throughout the Pacific.