Schatz: Billions More In New Federal Funding Heading To Hawai‘i In Second Half Of Appropriations Deal

WASHINGTON – Today, congressional leaders released the second half of a bipartisan appropriations deal that will deliver billions in federal funding for critical programs that benefit Hawai‘i. U.S. Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i), a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, successfully secured funding for Hawai‘i’s priorities in the final deal. The newly released bills follow the passage of the first half of the spending deal, which included billions in federal funding to improve roads and infrastructure, provide food and housing assistance for families, and support veterans, among other key priorities.

“Billions of additional federal dollars are set to flow to Hawai‘i. This new funding will help support the Native Hawaiian community and provide people with health care, education, and other essential services,” said Senator Schatz, a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

The package also includes a Schatz-authored provision that calls on the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to report on the urgent need for temporary housing on Maui following last summer’s devastating fires. It also includes language calling on Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to reaffirm his commitment to not reutilize the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility for fuel operations or fuel storage ever again in the future.

The package it set to be considered by Congress this week and quickly signed into law to avert a partial government shutdown.

HIGHLIGHTS FOR HAWAI‘I INCLUDE:

Native Hawaiian Education – $46 million, which includes $10 million for facility construction, renovation, and modernization. This funding supports programs that strengthen Native Hawaiian culture, improve levels of educational attainment, and enhance family and community involvement in education. Senator Schatz included a provision to allow funds to be used for construction, renovation, and modernization of public schools that predominantly serve Native Hawaiian students.

Native Hawaiian Health – $27 million. Native Hawaiian Health Care Systems, as part of the Native Hawaiian Health Care Program, provide critical access to health education, promotion, disease prevention, and basic primary care services for thousands of Native Hawaiians. This funding will support five health centers on Hawai‘i Island, Kaua‘i, Moloka‘i, Maui, and O‘ahu, and Papa Ola Lokahi.

Maui Housing. Senator Schatz secured a provision directing the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to report on its progress in providing housing to Lahaina survivors and to ensure that FEMA is considering the local economy and rental market in its recovery work. 

Disaster Relief Fund – $20.2 billion (nationwide). As a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Senator Schatz continues to lead efforts to secure federal disaster relief for Hawai‘i.  Together with the $16 billion from last year, this additional appropriation will help ensure that the federal government will have the resources to continue helping Maui recover, while responding to future disasters.

Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander Health Research – $4 million (new funding). As Chair of the Indian Affairs Committee and a senior member of the LHHS subcommittee, Senator Schatz secured funding to launch a new office at the National Institutes of Minority Health and Health Disparities that will focus on addressing health disparities among Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders and support the pathway and research of NHPI investigators.

Red Hill Non-Reuse. This bill includes report language that calls on the Secretary of Defense to continue to stand by the commitment to not reutilize the Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility for fuel operations or fuel storage ever again in the future.

Native Hawaiian Resource Center on Domestic Violence – $2 million. The Domestic Violence Resource Network, funded through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, will fund a state resource center dedicated to reducing disparities and strengthening domestic violence intervention and prevention efforts for Native Hawaiians.

Native Hawaiian and Alaska Native-Serving Institutions – $24.6 million (Hawai‘i and Alaska), a $122,000 increase over last year. This program improves and expands the capacity of institutions serving Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian students and low-income individuals to plan, develop, and implement activities.

Hansen’s Disease Treatment – $1.9 million. This funding is solely awarded to Hawai‘i for the care and treatment of patients with Hansen’s disease. Though Hansen’s disease is rare and treatable, Hawai‘i has among the highest prevalence in the country. This funding supports the Hawai‘i Department of Health to provide treatment for patients living in Kalaupapa and on O‘ahu.

Center for Indigenous Innovation and Health Equity – $4 million (Hawai‘i and Oklahoma). This funding supports the Office of Minority Health, which funds the University of Hawai‘i, in partnership with other academic institutions, to provide education, service and policy development, and research to advance health equity among American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) and Native Hawaiian populations.

Longline Fisheries. The spending package includes language directing U.S. Customs and Border Protection to assess options to assist foreign crew members of Hawai‘i longline fishing vessels through a process to permit entry to immediately board the fishing vessels where they will be employed.

Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program – $4 billion (nationwide), a $25 million increase from last year. This funding provides 7,500 families in Hawai‘i with financial assistance to reduce their energy costs.

Head Start – $12.3 billion (nationwide), a $275 million increase from last year. Head Start provides high-quality, comprehensive early childhood development services to nearly 3,000 young children in Hawai‘i.

Child Care Development Block Grant – $8.7 billion (nationwide), a $725 million increase from last year. This grant provides subsidies for 1,900 children under 6 in Hawai‘i access high quality child care.

Community Health Centers – $1.9 billion (nationwide). This funding supports Hawai‘i’s 14 federally-qualified community health centers who provide high-quality and affordable primary and preventive care, dental, behavioral health, pharmacy, vision, and complementary services to rural and medically underserved communities.

School-Based Health Centers – $55 million (nationwide). This funding supports the 27 school-based health centers in Hawai‘i that provide comprehensive primary care services to students at school.

Impact Aid Program – $54 million (estimated). The estimated Impact Aid funding will provide the Hawai‘i Department of Education with the resources to help finance the education of federally-connected children. Impact Aid funds a range of programs, including efforts to retain highly qualified teachers, adequate technology, facilities renovation, and maintenance of transportation fleets.

Native American Language Resource Center – $3 million (nationwide), a $1.5 million increase from last year. This funding will continue to support the establishment of a Native American Language Resource Center (NALRC) to provide best practices and curricula development on Native American language education, including the Native Hawaiian language. Senator Schatz’s Native American Language Resource Center Act was passed into law in 2022.

Native American Language Preservation – $15 million (nationwide). This funding supports Native American language preservation activities under the Administration for Native Americans, and includes no less than $6 million for Native American language immersion schools as authorized under the Every Student Succeeds Act.

Native American Language Immersion Schools and Program – $12.4 million (nationwide). This funding supports the Native American language immersion grant program and the State-Tribal Education Partnership program. Senator Schatz co-authored the legislation to create new grants for Native American immersion schools and programs.

Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institutions – $18.7 million (nationwide), a $93,000 increase over last year. This program improves and expands the capacity of institutions with an enrollment of undergraduate students that is at least 10 percent Asian American or Native American Pacific Islander.

Native American Caregiver Support Program – $12 million (nationwide). This program provides grants to help Native Hawaiian families caring for older relatives with chronic illness or disability, as well as grandparents caring for grandchildren.

Native Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) – $28 million (nationwide).  This funding will be used to provide financial assistance, technical assistance, and training to Native CDFIs across the country, including seven Native Hawaiian CDFIs in Hawai‘i. As part of the CDFI program’s mission to promote economic growth to underserved communities throughout the country, it is crucial that Native CDFIs are empowered to serve their communities.

Native American Workforce Programs – $60 million (nationwide). This funding supports programs that provide quality employment and training services to Native Hawaiian organizations, Tribes, Tribal organizations, Alaska Native entities, and Indian-controlled organizations serving unemployed and low-income Native Hawaiians, Native Americans, and Alaska Natives. 

DoD Impact Aid Program – $70 million (nationwide). The funding provides support to school districts with high concentrations of military students and school districts that enroll children of military families with severe disabilities.

Shipyard and Ship Repair Workforce Training – $3 million. This funding supports Hawai‘i-based shipyard and ship repair workforce training program. This program will help to produce trade and skilled mechanics to support local ship repair organizations at Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard. This program will use best practices from other shipyard and ship repair workforce training organizations and provide realistic training opportunities and use technology to help train future ship repair workforce.

Firefighter Assistance – $648 million (nationwide). This funding supports firefighters nationwide with competitive grant funding for equipment and staffing needs. Hawai‘i’s fire departments are eligible to compete for this funding to help keep communities at home safe from the growing threat of wildfires.

Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Nursing Workforce. Language recognizing the underrepresentation of Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders in the nursing workforce, and urging increasing efforts to recruit and retain graduate and undergraduate nursing students and faculty through federal nursing workforce programs.

Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander National Health Interview Study. Language directing the National Center for Health Statistics to complete a feasibility study to refield a large-scale federal survey designed to provide detailed health information about the Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander population in the United States who are excluded in annual national surveys. The last study was conducted ten years ago.

Telehealth Technology-Enabled Learning – estimated $8 million (nationwide), a $4 million increase from last year. Senator Schatz authored the ECHO Act of 2019 that authorized this program often called “Project ECHO” that increase health care access in rural communities by connecting specialists with health care providers through the use of technology. 

East-West Center – $22 million. The bill protects funding that will allow the East-West Center to continue its important education, professional development, research, policy dialogue, journalism, and cultural programs throughout the Indo-Pacific. The East-West Center directly supports U.S. engagement through cooperative study, research, and dialogue with countries in the region.

Formerly Used Defense Sites – $232 million (nationwide). This funding will support the removal of unexploded ordnance on formerly used defense sites in Hawai‘i. The funding ensures that the Army Corps of Engineers has sufficient funds to conduct remediation at these sites and continue the federal government’s trust obligation with indigenous populations by ensuring safe environments that are free from munitions and debris.

Job Corps – $1.76 billion (nationwide).  This funding provides a residential career training program to help younger workers complete their high school education, trains them for meaningful careers, and assists them in obtaining employment.

Small Business Administration Native American Outreach – $5 million (nationwide).  The SBA’s Office of Native American Affairs works to ensure that American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians seeking to create, develop, and expand small businesses have full access to SBA’s entrepreneurial development, lending, and procurement programs. This funding will help ensure that Native Hawaiian entrepreneurs are afforded the opportunity to run successful small businesses, thereby contributing to their local economies.

Kalaeloa Electrical System Upgrades – $18 million. After the closure of Naval Air Station Barbers Point, the Navy continued to retain the electrical system which has not been upgraded in at least 2 decades, this has left the electrical system to be unreliable and prone to frequent outages. This funding will allow the Navy to divest from the electrical system and to transfer all customers on the existing Navy grid to a newly privately operated grid. 

Navy Alternative Energy Research – $25 million (nationwide). This funding supports the Navy’s efforts to expand its research of energy risk reduction technologies enabling energy diversification. By allowing the Navy to move away from its reliance on a single source of energy, this funding helps the Navy meet its two main energy objectives – energy security and energy independence. The University of Hawai‘i and the Hawai‘i Natural Energy Institute are national leaders in this research and their joint collaboration with the Navy on alternative energy will continue to forge innovations that meet crucial energy security requirements and enable renewables.

Resilient Innovative Sustainable Economies via University Partnership (RISE-UP Initiative) – $9 million (nationwide). The Resilient Innovative Sustainable Economies via University Partnerships (RISE-UP) Initiative, established in the FY22 defense appropriation, seeks to leverage the technical expertise of public universities located in similarly isolated states, but which play an important role in U.S. national security, to collectively develop and commercialize scalable technologies and build a workforce to meet future national security needs. This funding will continue to support the University of Hawai‘i’s efforts to create incubators aimed at developing and commercializing scalable technologies related to clean energy, marine technology, and other economic areas tied to the maritime space.

ADDITIONAL HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE:

Pacific Islands – $160 million, a $10 million increase from last year. As a member of both the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Agencies, Senator Schatz helped secure significant funding to deepen U.S. relations with Pacific Island countries. This increased funding will support programs at the Department of State and the U.S. Agency for International Development to address needs for improving resilience, strengthening health system capacity particularly through telehealth, conducting port and facility maintenance, addressing illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing, bolstering cybersecurity, strengthening democratic institutions, and enhancing maritime security. The bill specifically higlights the importance of unexploded ordnance removal in the Pacific Islands and funding scholarships for students from the Pacific Islands.

Indo-Pacific Region – $1.8 billion. The bill maintains $1.8 billion to continue implementation of the Indo-Pacific Strategy and strengthen U.S. leadership and presence in the region to help create a free, open, secure, and prosperous Indo-Pacific. In addition, the bill includes $300 million in Foreign Military Financing for Taiwan and fully funds the President’s budget request of $400 million for the Countering PRC Influence Fund.

Humanitarian Assistance – $8.7 billion, a more than $330 million increase from last year. The bill funds humanitarian assistance programs to help meet unprecedented forced displacement, food insecurity, and other emergency needs across the globe.

Global Health – $10 billion. The bill supports critical global health initiatives and includes a one-year extension—through March 25, 2025—for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which has saved over 25 million lives worldwide. The bill provides $10 million to expand the global health workforce and includes a Schatz-led report promoting the use of telehealth and digital health solutions in U.S. global health programs.

Lacey Act Enforcement – $6 million. As a strong advocate for clean supply chains through the FOREST Act, Senator Schatz has protected funding for activities that combat illegal deforestation and illicit wildlife trafficking. The funding supports programs that train law enforcement in partner nations to combat environmental crimes.

Pacific Intelligence Innovation (P3I) – $5 million. The P3I initiative builds on the existing work focused on Hawai‘i-based academic institutions to meet emerging DoD skill to create a pipeline of AAPI talent to meet a fast-growing demand for a competent and resilient workforce. The P3I initiative will continue to foster innovation and problem-solving by leveraging the culturally diverse nature of the Asia American Pacific Islander (AAPI) ecosystem inherent to Hawai‘i by providing an opportunity for historically under-represented groups to be active in the DoD and National Security workforce.

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