Senate OKs $416B for defense
By Frank Oliveri
Advertiser Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON — The Senate yesterday approved a $416.2 billion defense spending bill that would include $540 million for initiatives in Hawai'i.
The bill, approved 98-0, would pay for most of President Bush's requests and largely match a $418 billion House bill passed Tuesday. But the amount the Senate appropriated is less than the $422.2 billion senators voted to authorize a day earlier.
The House and Senate bills include $25 billion to help pay for operations in Iraq. They also provide for an increase of 20,000 Army troops and a 3.5 percent across-the-board pay increase for those in the military.
Republican leaders had pushed to complete the bills before both chambers take a weeklong Fourth of July recess starting tomorrow. Negotiators will start working out their differences the week of July 5.
With Hawai'i Sen. Dan Inouye, the top Democrat on the defense appropriations subcommittee, carrying the load, the state could receive a significant boost in financing.
"These funds will help alleviate the housing problems faced by military personnel and their families in the Islands," said Sen. Daniel Akaka, ranking member of the Armed Services readiness subcommittee. "Hawai'i's strategic importance mandates a strong military presence for the foreseeable future and we need to ensure proper housing and facilities for the men and women in all services who are defending our nation."
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Here's a sampling of some of the bigger-ticket defense spending items for Hawai'i in a $416.2 billion bill approved by the Senate yesterday: • $34 million for the Maui Space Surveillance System, which houses the Defense Department's largest telescope. • $33.8 million for the U.S. Army, Pacific Command for command, control, communications, computer and intelligence systems. • $30 million to upgrade the Pacific Missile Range Facility. • $25 million for a Tripler Army Medical Center initiative to develop telemedicine technology to improve access and quality of care. • $15.5 million to upgrade the Maui High Performance Computing Center, which is one of the world's largest IBM supercomputers. • $10 million for the Military Aviation Museum of the Pacific and Ford Island. • $10 million for the Clinical Cancer Care Partnership, which would create an alliance between Tripler Army Medical Center and the Cancer Research Center of Hawai'i. • $9 million for the Pacific-based Joint Information Technology Center, where databases would be created to manage such items as the location of military and federal medical supplies worldwide. • $7 million for the Pacific Disaster Center, which supports emergency management activities in the Pacific and Indian oceans. • $7 million for the Center of Excellence for Research in Ocean Studies. • $5.5 million for Defense Department schools in Hawai'i. • $5 million for Hawai'i Energy and Environmental Technology, a University of Hawai'i program that supports research and testing of fuel cells in Honolulu. • $5 million for a Hawai'i Technology Development Venture that would create a regional center for commercialization of defense and homeland security technologies that would benefit small companies in Hawai'i. • $3 million for Army Conservation and Ecosystem Management, which supports environmental mitigation and remediation, with a focus on Pohakuloa and Makua Valley. Of this amount, $1 million goes to the City & County of Honolulu to support environmental and maintenance requirements. Learn more: http://appropriations.senate.gov Gannett News Service
Hawai'i initiatives
