Hawaii military projects in Trump’s crosshairs

The Pentagon on Monday identified $12.9 billion in military construction funding — including $452 million for projects in Hawaii — that could be tapped to help build President Donald Trump’s southern border wall.

The list of Hawaii projects includes $66 million for a communications/cryptologic facility in Wahiawa, $45 million for a dry-dock waterfront facility at the shipyard and $66 million for a hangar at the Marine Corps base at Kaneohe Bay.

“The appearance of any project within the pool does not mean that the project will, in fact, be used” to pay for additional border wall with Mexico, the Defense Department said.

U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii, along with U.S. Sens. Dick Durbin of Illinois and Patrick Leahy from Vermont, complained of Trump administration “madness” after Congress received the list.

“The department claims that it will exempt housing, barracks, and dormitories — and in the process quietly acknowledges that more than $10 billion of other top priorities that the military and their families have requested over the last several years is on the chopping block in order to placate the president,” the Democratic lawmakers said in a joint statement.

“This madness will not stop until more of our Republican colleagues are willing to put the military ahead of party politics,” the trio said.

Trump on Feb. 15 declared a national emergency so he could build hundreds of miles of additional steel border wall with Mexico. Administration officials said they would look at redirecting $3.6 billion in funding from “lower priority” military construction projects for the wall and would make sure “that nothing impacts lethality and readiness.”

The Pentagon wants to replace any money cut from military construction funds in its $718 billion 2020 defense budget request.

Schatz and other lawmakers on March 7 sent a letter to acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan asking for more details about the military construction reallocation.

“We request that you provide to us the list of the projects deemed less important than building a wall along the southern border,” Schatz and the others said.

The Senate voted Thursday to overturn Trump’s emergency declaration, but the president vetoed the resolution the next day.

Shanahan testified on the defense budget posture Thursday and said $3.6 billion is included to restore project funding being diverted this year, while another $3.6 billion is programmed “in case additional emergency funding is needed at the border.”

“Military construction on the border will not come at the expense of our people, our readiness or our modernization,” Shanahan said.

Democrats expressed hope that by knowing which local projects could be targeted, lawmakers would be more inclined to override Trump’s veto.

“Now that members of Congress can see the potential impact this proposal could have on projects in their home states, I hope they will take that into consideration before the vote,” U.S. Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, a Democrat, said in a statement.

With the House scheduled to consider an override this morning, the spokeswoman for the top GOP vote counter predicted the president will prevail anyway.

“House Republicans have stood strongly with President Trump on securing our nation’s border and overwhelmingly supported his emergency declaration by large margins when we voted on this weeks ago; this will not change,” said Lauren Fine, spokeswoman for No. 2 House GOP leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.