July Work. Here is a sample of my further efforts in Congress this July, in addition to my ongoing appropriations and other legislative work:
Fiscal Year 2027 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The NDAA is our annual bill authorizing and directing our armed services. It is a very important measure for our country and Hawai‘i, and every year my staff and I spend a lot of effort in molding it to help our Hawai‘i and the Indo-Pacific. The NDAA for upcoming Fiscal Year 2027 passed the full House last week on a 216-212 vote. I regrettably had to vote against it for various reasons, including the continued unacceptable lack of any Congressional authorization of the Iran war, the insufficiency of any justification for the huge authorized increase in defense spending, the lack of any assurance of adequate Congressional oversight of that spending; and the inclusion of various other proposals not relevant to defense such as the SAVE America Act, which I have separately voted against several other times. However, several of my amendments and other provisions were included in the measure, such as some $1.5 billion more in Hawai‘i military construction and protection of the collective bargaining rights of our civilian Defense Department employees. More: https://case.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=4959.
Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument. I fought for creation of this special monument twenty years ago and have fought ever since for its preservation and protection and that of our other precious Pacific marine environments. Tragically, the administration now seeks to undo these protections by allowing virtually unregulated commercial fishing in this and two other Pacific marine monuments, just as the great benefits to our broader marine ecosystem from these protections have begun to take hold. I led a letter to the President strongly opposing this action (here) and am working closely with our ocean protection ‘ohana everywhere on other actions including litigation.
Jones Act Energy Waiver. Our Hawai‘i still gets most of our gas, electricity and other energy needs from oil and other fossil fuels. While our own country is the world’s largest fossil fuel exporter, Hawaii’s oil needs come from foreign sources because of the ancient federal Jones Act, which says when you ship anything between two U.S. ports you must use U.S. flagged vessels. Funny thing, though: there are virtually no U.S. flagged oceangoing tankers to bring oil and other fossil fuels to Hawai‘i from the continent, so we must ship all our oil here from international sources using (much cheaper) international shipping. But the Iran war has disrupted international oil supplies and shipping, leaving us dangerously exposed. I again asked President Trump to extend his limited waiver of the Jones Act to allow international shippers to transport fossil fuels from the continent to Hawai‘i and other exposed island jurisdictions as needed. More here.
Gerrymandering Reform. “Gerrymandering” refers to drawing U.S. House representative district maps for purely political purposes, such as to strengthen a politician’s support or exclude whole groups. Redistricting usually happens once every decade after the every-ten-year Census, but this year has seen an explosion of mid-decade political redistricting. These hyperpartisan gerrymandering wars are destructive to our democracy because they effectively disenfranchise large segments of our electorate and balkanize our nation into a state of perpetual partisan warfare. I co-led my House Problems Solvers Caucus (https://problemsolverscaucus.house.gov/) in tackling this complex and difficult challenge and developing a framework for reform that facilitates fair inclusion of all viewpoints, democratic debate and representative solutions. More here.
Transit Oriented Affordable Housing Development. We all know that the unacceptably high cost of living is our top challenge, and that one of the top cost crises is the lack of affordable housing. Mass transit like our Skyline on Oʻahu offers major opportunities if guided and incentivized correctly to develop communities along the line (transit oriented development) for critical purposes like affordable housing. I joined my friend and colleague Congressman James Moylan of Guam (a former resident of ‘Ewa) in introducing our Transit Oriented Development Act, which would modify and expand the proven federal low income housing tax credit to tailor it more closely to affordable housing-related development along Skyline and other mass transit projects. More here.
Constituent Services Successes. Individual constituent services is a critical part of my mission. My staff and I help our constituents with any question or need, but especially those that directly involve our federal government like veterans, Social Security and Medicare, immigration and taxes. Over the past seven and a half years we’ve been able to assist over 10,000 constituents with such issues. As just some recent examples: we helped a constituent get an answer from Social Security; we helped a constituent finally get her $19,000 tax refund from the IRS; and we helped a Ukrainian family get paperwork confirming their legal status in our country. Please contact us if you think we might assist at https://case.house.gov/forms/casework/.
