A 2014 defense bill passed Thursday by the House includes more than $400 million in military construction projects for the state, focuses on ballistic missile defense and calls for reviews of the Joint POW/MIA Accounting command, including whether operations should be moved from Hawaii to the mainland.
The National Defense Authorization Act is a compromise between previously passed House and Senate versions, and now heads to the Senate for approval.
"This final bipartisan defense bill demonstrates a commitment to Hawaii’s strategic importance in the Pacific and provides for good jobs across our islands," U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, an Iraq War veteran, said in a news release. "This year’s bill also continues support for missile defense and provides resources for the protection of Hawaii."
U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz’s office said the bill increases overall defense spending in Hawaii while other states have seen reductions.
The two members of Hawaii’s congressional delegation, along with U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa, said the defense bill:
» Prohibits the Navy from spending money to decommission cruisers, including two at Pearl Harbor that have been on the chopping block: the USS Port Royal and USS Chosin.
» Provides the Pentagon with the authority to lease property for military heritage sites for a term of more than five years and at an amount less than fair market value, helping sites such as the USS Bowfin Submarine Museum and Park in Pearl Harbor.
» Requires the Defense Department to consider the "strategic value" of a venue when determining where to hold training and conferences, an attempt to reduce the stigma that trips to Hawaii may be viewed as junkets.
» Prohibits the Defense Department from conducting another base realignment and closure, known as BRAC.
» Authorizes more than $26 million for Maui research and development by the Maui Space Surveillance System.
» Provides more than $13 million for energy conservation efforts at Camp H.M. Smith and Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam that will help the military save money on electrical bills.
Among the planned spending is also $70 million for a U.S. Army Pacific command and control facility at Fort Shafter; more than $132 million for a hangar, parking apron and infrastructure for MV-22 tilt-rotor Ospreys coming to the Kaneohe Bay Marine Corps base; and $35.3 million for a submarine production support facility at Pearl Harbor.
The Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, based at Hickam, comes under scrutiny in the defense bill.
The unit investigates, recovers and identifies American service members missing from World War II, Korea and Vietnam.
A July U.S. Government Accountability Office report said the Pentagon’s recovery and identification efforts — conducted by a handful of offices — are fragmented, overlap and are hampered by interagency disputes.
The Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office in Washington, D.C., and the Hawaii-based accounting command, known as JPAC, are among agencies identified as being at odds.
Within six months the defense secretary has to submit a total of service members missing in war, the number deemed unrecoverable and the number of remains in the custody of the Defense Department awaiting identification.
Also within six months the defense secretary has to provide an assessment of the feasibility of reorganizing the accounting community into a single, central command, including the possibility of merging JPAC and the Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office.
A study is called for examining costs and savings with the potential relocation of accounting activities to the mainland and closure or consolidation of JPAC facilities in Hawaii.
The military in 2011 awarded a $62.7 million contract to a Honolulu company for the construction of a new three-story laboratory and offices for JPAC at Hickam. JPAC previously said the new headquarters would cost $100 million. The command said in August the facility was 60 percent complete.
The defense bill increases spending on missile defense by $358 million to $9.5 billion, according to the news agency Reuters.
The defense secretary is required to report on options for enhancing ballistic missile defense of the United States, and the bill calls on the Missile Defense Agency to deploy radar against long-range ballistic missile threats from North Korea at a location "optimized to support the defense of the homeland."
