Aloha, Friend!
This is to report back to you on a historic infrastructure week for our country, to invite you to my live Talk Story on our foreign relations this coming Monday, and to wish you and yours the best of this Thanksgiving holiday.
Infrastructure Week. This past Monday, the 15th, I red-eyed back to D.C., shook off the jet lag, and joined many colleagues and others on the South Lawn of the White House as President Biden signed our $1 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Package, or BIP) into law.
BIP is our largest single re-investment ever in our country’s physical infrastructure. It tackles not just our crumbling roads, ports, airports and other traditional infrastructure, but broadband, schools, climate change resilience and much more. It was truly bipartisan from development through enactment, and was widely supported throughout our country. For our Hawai’i, it will mean upwards of $3 billion in federal funding to tackle our own infrastructure challenges. As the President signed BIP in front of me, I felt that so much more is possible when we work together.
Then on Friday, the 19th, just hours before I flew home, my U.S. House voted to advance a version of the President’s second major infrastructure proposal, the Build Back Better Act (BBB), to the U.S. Senate for its consideration. This measure, at $2.1 trillion over ten years under our House version, would be the largest single reinvestment ever in our nation’s social infrastructure. Among many critical provisions, it would make historic investments in combatting climate change, provide our keiki a better start in life, help struggling families and expand health care while lowering costs especially prescription drugs.
This vote to advance BBB was one of the most consequential I will ever take, and I joined other colleagues over the past months in taking the time and effort to get it right. We focused on fully understanding a complicated and often-changing 2,100-page bill, on assuring that it will actually deliver for those most in need, and on confirming that it will be a fiscally responsible and sustainable investment of our nation’s financial resources. I also surveyed my constituents and reviewed thousands of communications from back home both pro and con and everywhere in between; I’m truly grateful for your input.
After considering all this as well as a full financial review by our Congressional Budget Office, which confirmed that the measure is largely paid for rather than borrowed, and further discussing the measure with my colleagues, the White House, and others, I voted to advance the measure to the Senate. I must note again that in all likelihood whole parts of our House-passed version will be removed or altered and other provisions added in the Senate, so there is a long road still ahead for BBB. Nonetheless, House passage is a major milestone in our efforts to address our nation’s most chronic and pressing challenges.
Monday, November 22nd, 6:30PM Hawai’i Time Indo-Pacific Talk Story (Special Guest: Hawai’i State Representative and former U.S. Foreign Service Diplomat Patrick Branco)
BIP and BBB are focused as we must on bettering our country. But in doing so we cannot forget the opportunities and challenges we face and the obligations of leadership we carry throughout our world. For our Hawai’i, this is especially true in our part of the world, the vast Indo-Pacific from the West Coast to India and everywhere in between, where the today and tomorrow of our country and world lie.
This Monday, the 22nd, at 6:30PM Hawai’i Time, I’m hosting a Facebook Live Indo-Pacific Talk Story to focus on these equally critical issues. I’m honored to include as my special guest Hawai’i State Representative Patrick Branco (Kailua-Kane’ohe Bay). Rep. Branco, a graduate of Kamehameha Schools, served our country as a diplomat with the U.S. Foreign Service overseas before returning to serve Hawai’i. We’ll talk story about our country’s role in our world and our Hawaii’s place. Here are the details:
Indo-Pacific Talk Story with Congressman Ed Case
Special Guest: State Rep. Patrick Branco
Monday, November 22, 6:30PM-7:45PM Hawai’i Time
Https://www.facebook.com/RepEdCase
(Please post questions on page during event)
Happy Thanksgiving! As we enter Thanksgiving week amidst ongoing division, challenge and tragedy throughout our country and world, there is so much also to pause to appreciate that provides hope and recommitment for our next chapters. I am thankful for so much, but especially for the gift of our country and Hawai’i, for our new granddaughter, Sloane Fujie, born Nov. 3rd, and for the responsibility of representing our Hawai’i and you in our United States Congress. My family and staff wish you and yours only the best in this time of Thanksgiving.
As always, I welcome your questions and comments on these or any other matters. Please go to my website at case.house.gov, email me at ed.case@mail.house.gov, or call me at (808) 650-6688.
Be safe and be well.
