HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

H.R. NO.

131

THIRTY-FIRST LEGISLATURE, 2021

 

STATE OF HAWAII

 

 

 

 

 

HOUSE RESOLUTION

 

 

urging the UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF defense MISSILE DEFENSE AGENCY to resist siting the proposed homeland defense radar-hawaii within the state.

 

 


     WHEREAS, the United States Department of Defense Missile Defense Agency (DOD-MDA) has proposed a radar facility, Homeland Defense Radar-Hawaii (HDR-H), to be sited either in the City and County of Honolulu or the County of Kauai, at a cost of $1,900,000,000, for the purpose of detecting high altitude intercontinental ballistic missiles launched from North Korea toward Hawaii and the continental United States; and

 

     WHEREAS, the Missile Defense Advocacy Agency, a non-governmental organization comprised of top business and legal and military executives, voiced a concern that HDR-H would transform Hawaii's ballistic missile interception complex (with the SM-3 Block IIA and THAAD interceptor batteries) into a prime target for America's enemies as in the preemptive attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941; and

 

     WHEREAS, newer generation ballistic, hypersonic, and low-flying cruise missiles, capable of Mach 4 speed, greater maneuverability, and greater accuracy are being developed in China, Russia, and the United States, which are capable of evading ground-based radar detection by overflying air defense sensors and flying below ballistic missile sensors, rendering the HDR-H obsolete, such that the DOD-MDA defunded the HRD-H in the 2020 Defense Authorization Act; and

 

     WHEREAS, the HDR-H was kept alive by partial refunding in the appropriations bill passed in December 2020 for $133,000,000 over the objection of the DOD-MDA, triggering negative public reaction; and

 

     WHEREAS, the DOD-MDA has instead funded a next generation space-based global sensor system and upgraded the sea-based x-band radar "golf ball" for $47,000,000 in place of the new obsolete HDR-H; and

 

     WHEREAS, there are serious environmental, social, and cultural concerns associated with HDR-H, including electromagnetic emissions, toxic waste disposal, a diesel power plant requiring one hundred fifty thousand gallons of fuel storage; clearing of up to one hundred sixty acres impacting cultural sites and the environment; and the plan for a contamination shelter in case of chemical fallout, all of which compound the frustration of Hawaii residents over the military's unsatisfactory stewardship of Pohakuloa, Oahu's endangered aquifer below the Red Hill fuel tanks and Pearl Harbor superfund sites as examples of military-caused environmental degradation; and

 

     WHEREAS, the County Councils of Kauai, Maui, and Hawaii have all passed resolutions calling for diplomacy with North Korea rather than provocative militarization such as expressed by the deployment of the HDR-H; and

 

     WHEREAS, spending $1,900,000,000 on an outmoded HDR-H is a prime example of wasteful Pentagon spending that is the subject of House Resolution 1003 (2020), introduced by Representative Barbara Lee (D-CA-13), with twenty-four co-sponsors calling for an audit, "expressing the sense of the House of Representatives regarding wasteful Pentagon spending and supporting cuts to the bloated defense budget," which at $704,000,000,000 per year is well over half the federal discretionary budget and exceeds the sum of the next ten largest international military budgets; now, therefore,

 

     BE IT RESOLVED by the House of Representatives of the Thirty-first Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 2021, that the United States Department of Defense Missile Defense Agency is urged to resist siting the proposed Homeland Defense Radar-Hawaii within the State of Hawaii in order to save tax dollars from an unnecessary and unwanted wasteful spending project during a time of unprecedented need for public services in health, education, and welfare for Hawaii's people and to avoid heightening Hawaii's perception as a strategic strike target; and

 

     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that certified copies of this Resolution be transmitted to the United States Secretary of Defense, Director of the Missile Defense Agency, members of Hawaii's congressional delegation, Governor, Lieutenant Governor, and Mayors and Councilmembers of the City and County Councils.

 

 

 

 

OFFERED BY:

_____________________________

 

 

Report Title: 

Military Defense Agency; Hawaii Defense Radar; Site