Working for Hawaii
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Working for Hawaii Aloha, Over the last six years, I’ve been humbled to work on a number of initiatives that have helped move our country forward. From passing health care reform—that protected Hawaii’s pre-paid health care law—to working with colleagues across the aisle to save the Watershed Protection and Flood Prevention Program that helps deliver water to farmers, to finishing work that I started as Lt. Governor by cosponsoring legislation that helped pave the way for South Korea to enter the visa waiver program which has helped increase the number of South Korean visitors to Hawaii. Working together to make a difference for our families has been my mission—whether it’s working on legislation to get our economy moving or cutting red tape to help constituents one on one. Like helping a retiree who became ill and fell behind on mortgage payments keep his home… or helping an orchid grower cut through the red tape and receive a certification from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to ship his plants and flowers. In the first six months of 2012, my office has helped Hawaii residents receive $1.1 million owed to them for veterans, education, or employment benefits, Social Security or Medicare payments, or mortgage modifications. I’ve tried to bring the Hawaii spirit of laulima—cooperation—to my work in Congress. It’s how I’ve been able to forge relationships with folks like Republican Rep. Don Young of Alaska—my “date” to the President’s State of the Union this year. Don and I don’t see eye to eye on a lot of issues. But when Native Hawaiian education was under attack, Don and I teamed up and offered an amendment to make sure these programs received necessary resources. We won overwhelmingly, which means Hawaii won. This same spirit of cooperation helped me get several pieces of legislation I wrote passed into law: provisions of my Early Educator Loan Forgiveness Act were included in the College Cost Reduction and Access Act of 2007, and my Kalaupapa Memorial Act, which will help establish a memorial at Kalaupapa National Historical Park in honor of the 8,000 people forcibly relocated to Kalaupapa because of Hansen’s Disease, was included in the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009. When Hawaii State Department of Transportation officials told me how Hawaii was losing millions of dollars each year in airport fees, I said we’re going to work together to make this right. I talked with the leadership of my Transportation and Infrastructure Committee as well as other House leaders and offered an amendment to fix this. It passed and was included as part of the legislation renewing the Federal Aviation Administration. Now we can expect an estimated $6 million to come to Hawaii this year to help fix and modernize our busiest airports. Plus, we’ll have millions more coming in the future to help move us ahead. I was also proud to help our community colleges when they asked for my support for their workforce training grant application. The grant they were applying for was the result of legislation I co-sponsored. And guess what? Our community colleges won $24.6 million—the largest in the country—and are now planning exciting new courses to help prepare our workers for jobs in clean energy, health care and agriculture. I hope you’ll continue to reach out with your ideas as well as your concerns – let me know how I can help and how we can move Hawaii forward, together. For a printable version of these pages, please click here. Mahalo, |
