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HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES             H.R. NO.              H.D. 1
TWENTIETH LEGISLATURE, 2000                                
STATE OF HAWAII                                            
                                                             
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                     HOUSE  RESOLUTION

URGING THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT TO TAKE APPROPRIATE ACTION TO
   ADDRESS THE SERIOUS ENVIRONMENTAL AND PUBLIC HEALTH PROBLEMS
   POSED BY THE TOXIC WASTES LEFT BEHIND AT FORMER UNITED
   STATES MILITARY INSTALLATIONS IN THE PHILIPPINES.
 


 1        WHEREAS, the United States and the people of Hawaii have
 2   had long historical, cultural, and economic ties with the
 3   people of the Philippines as part of the Pacific-Asia
 4   community; and
 5   
 6        WHEREAS, Filipinos all over the world, including the
 7   Filipino-American community in Hawaii and the United States and
 8   their friends, recently commemorated the centennial of the
 9   birth of the Republic of the Philippines (June 12, 1898), a
10   culmination of the Filipino peoples' struggle for freedom and
11   independence against Spanish colonial rule; and
12   
13        WHEREAS, in December 1992, United States military forces
14   withdrew from Clark Air Base and Subic Naval Base, thus ending
15   almost a century of United States military presence in the
16   Philippines; and
17   
18        WHEREAS, reports from the United States General Accounting
19   Office, United States Department of Defense, the World Health
20   Organization, United States experts, and environmental baseline
21   surveys conducted by American firms and recent media reports,
22   including those conducted by the Boston Globe and CNN,
23   identified serious contamination at forty-six sites at both
24   Clark and Subic bases; and
25   
26        WHEREAS, many of the chemicals identified, such as
27   polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), Aldrin, Dieldrin, Benzene,
28   and Heptachlor, are part of the family chemicals known as
29   persistent organic pollutants (POPs) because of their
30   persistence in the environment and association with health
31   problems like cancer, reproductive failure, and behavior
32   disorders; and

 
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                                  H.R. NO.              H.D. 1
                                                        
                                                        

 
 1        WHEREAS, a "Health for All" survey conducted by
 2   internationally-recognized health expert Doctor Rosalie Bertell
 3   on behalf of the Canadian Institute for the Concern for Public
 4   Health and released in November 1998, found conspicuously high
 5   and disparate levels of kidney, urinary, nervous, and female
 6   system health problems among 716 families surveyed in the Clark
 7   Air Base area alone; and
 8   
 9        WHEREAS, on January 27, 1999, the Philippines House of
10   Representatives Committee on Ecology released a report holding
11   the United States responsible for toxic wastes left behind in
12   the former United States military bases at Clark and Subic,
13   which threaten to make these areas economically devastated,
14   largely uninhabitable, and unusable; and
15   
16        WHEREAS, the Filipino-American community, including the
17   National Federation of Filipino American Associations (NFFAA)
18   and various church groups, such as the Church Coalition for
19   Human Rights in the Philippines and the 20th General Synod of
20   the United Church of Christ (United States), have expressed
21   grave concern for the United States government's lack of
22   response and responsibility over its legacy of toxic wastes in
23   the Philippines; and
24   
25        WHEREAS, The Filipino Coalition for Solidarity, Inc., a
26   civil rights group based in Hawaii, is spearheading the
27   information campaign in Hawaii regarding this issue; now,
28   therefore,
29   
30        BE IT RESOLVED by the House of Representatives of the
31   Twentieth Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session
32   of 2000, that the Legislature expresses its strong concern for
33   the serious environmental problems caused by toxic wastes left
34   behind by the United States and the grave threat these wastes
35   pose to public health in the communities adjoining its former
36   bases in Clark and Subic; and
37   
38        BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Legislature calls on the
39   United States government to assist the Philippines, which has
40   neither the funds nor the technical capacity to conduct an
41   environmental clean up, as it has already done in cleaning up
42   toxic contamination in overseas United States military bases in
43   Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and in other countries; and

 
 
 
 
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                                  H.R. NO.              H.D. 1
                                                        
                                                        

 
 1        BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that certified copies of this
 2   Resolution be transmitted to the President of the United
 3   States, the President pro tempore of the United States Senate,
 4   the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, the
 5   Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the Administrator
 6   of the Environmental Protection Agency, the members of Hawaii's
 7   congressional delegation, and the Governor of Hawaii.