Budget bill
promises big
bucks for isles
About $150 million is included
By Pete Pichaske
for defense projects and research
Star-BulletinWASHINGTON -- The tedious process of passing federal budgets for 1999 sputtered forward this week, and one result was hundreds of millions of dollars for Hawaii.
House and Senate negotiators agreed on a compromise defense appropriations bill yesterday that includes generous amounts for several pet projects in the isles.
The bill, expected to be approved by both chambers, includes $25 million to continue cleaning up the island of Kahoolawe, $64 million for the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai, $9 million to develop an electric vehicle -- a dramatic increase in funding -- and $1 million for brown tree snake control.
The House-Senate conference committee also agreed to set aside $111.7 million for defense research in Hawaii, including $28 million for telemedicine and teleradiology at Tripler Medical Center, $11.2 million for sonar upgrades for Navy submarines and $9.5 million to build what officials hope could become a model for a high-speed civilian ferry.
The bill also includes $39.3 million for several projects on Maui, such as the Maui High Performance Computing Center ($10 million) and the Advanced Electro-Optical System Telescope and University of Hawaii spectrograph ($7.3 million).
U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye, who shepherded the Hawaii projects through the Senate Appropriations Committee, noted that Maui -- despite its small military presence -- has an abundance of high-tech military projects.
"Maui's (military) connection has been a high-technology connection," he said.
Also yesterday, the House passed a massive defense authorization bill that includes a record $248 million for military construction in Hawaii. The money has already been appropriated in a bill signed earlier this week by President Clinton.
Hawaii lawmakers here, as well as local economists, have touted the spending as a welcome boost for the state's economy.
