~ Sen. Hirono’s provisions invest in DOD’s critical infrastructure needs in Hawaii, the U.S., and the Pacific region ~
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Mazie K. Hirono (D-HI), a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support, secured several key priorities for Hawaii and the U.S. Military during the Committee’s markup of the Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), released earlier today.
“I am proud to have secured critical investments in infrastructure projects in the state, throughout the country, and across the Indo-Pacific region, as well as additional funding to continue the safe and expeditious closure of the Red Hill Fuel Facility, and prioritization of the DOD workforce,” said Senator Hirono. “Military Readiness and support for our servicemembers are crucial to national security, and my provisions investing over $1.1 billion for military construction projects in Hawaii, increasing pay for military servicemembers and DOD civilian employees, and securing an additional $20 million to support sustainability and military resilience, will help strengthen our force. It’s disappointing Republicans chose to insert partisan provisions that would undermine national security just to advance their far-right agenda, but I will continue working with my colleagues to reject this politicization of military policy and hold this administration accountable.”
As Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support, Senator Hirono has made modernizing DOD infrastructure in Hawaii and across the country a top priority. The NDAA markup includes numerous provisions secured by Senator Hirono focused on infrastructure; delivering for communities in Hawaii; supporting servicemembers and their families; strengthening DOD’s capabilities in the Indo-Pacific region; and prioritizing sustainability within the DOD.
Specifically, the bill includes provisions that:
Delivers for Hawaii:
- Continues the Hawaii delegation’s work to safely and expeditiously close the Red Hill Fuel Facility by adding $35 million to support additional environmental restoration and remediation efforts and $5 million to continue ongoing community engagement as the Navy works to close the facility permanently by 2028.
- Provides $141.6 million for the next increment of funding for the new water treatment plant at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.
- Grants the Military Service Secretaries with additional flexible authorities to support the renegotiation of the training land leases in Hawaii.
- Adds $13 million above the President’s budget for the Pacific Intelligence and Innovation Initiative (P3I), which creates a local skilled workforce to meet DOD demand for intelligence, IT, and cyber professionals in Hawaii.
- $2 million increase for the Pacific Disaster Center (PDC), which mitigates the large program cuts from the President's Budget
- $50 million for the High-Performance Computing Modernization program and for additional infrastructure capability to support increased AI demand.
- $9 million to continue funding the transfer of Navy facilities and non-Navy customers off outdated Navy-owned electrical grid infrastructure at Kalaeloa (Barber’s Point).
- Prevents the Navy from retiring or decommissioning oceanographic research vessels, including the KILO MOANA, a 186-foot multi-purpose oceanographic research vessel owned by the Navy and operated by the University of Hawaii.
- Requires President Trump’s “Golden Dome” Missile Defense System to include the Defense of Hawaii.
- Requires the Secretary of Defense to develop a report and brief the Armed Services Committees on the Department’s plan to increase accessibility and affordability for small businesses seeking to comply with the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) program.
Invests in Critical Infrastructure:
- Invests over $1.1 billion for military construction projects in Hawaii:
- $492.7 million for the next increment of funding for the Dry Dock 3 replacement at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.
- $65.7 million for airfield pavement upgrades at Pacific Missile Range Facility Barking Sands, Kauai.
- $141.6 million for the next increment of funding for the water treatment plant at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.
- $83 million for DDG-1000 destroyer ship support infrastructure upgrades at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.
- $49.26 million for the entry gate at Marine Corps Base Hawaii
- $94.25 million for Electrical Distribution Modernization at Marine Corps Base Hawaii
- $37.35 million for the next increment of funding for the water reclamation facility compliance upgrade at Marine Corps Base Hawaii
- $147.55 million for 460 Air Force housing units at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam
- $5 million in planning and design funds for a new Air Force Operations Building at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.
- $2.1 million in planning and design funds for a new Wildland Fire Station at Schofield Barracks.
- Requires each of the Military Service Secretaries to develop and annually update a 20-Year Infrastructure Improvement Plan.
- Directs the DOD to implement the recommendations of the GAO’s report on information sharing to improve oversight of military construction projects, including the documentation of after-action reviews and validation of lessons learned.
- Extends the admission of H-2B nonimmigrant visas to Guam and CNMI by two years to support military construction projects, a priority for Pearl Harbor Navy Shipyard.
- Improves the DOD’s facility management of joint bases by reassessing requirements to maintain facilities in good working order, identify workforce gaps, and require a strategy to address any gaps and funding needs.
- Requires the incorporation of Digital Infrastructure and Platforms into the Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program (SIOP), which expands existing reporting requirements to consider and include digital infrastructure into SIOP to improve the efficiency and throughput of Navy shipyards.
Supports People:
- Authorizes funding to support a 3.8% pay raise for military servicemembers and DOD civilian employees.
- Exempts the public shipyard workforce from reductions related to spending cuts, reprogramming of funds, or those personnel in a probationary status.
- Authorizes $50 million for DOD assistance to educational agencies affected by the enrollment of military and DOD civilian dependents, $10 million for impact aid payments for children with disabilities, and $20 million for local educational agencies determined by the Secretary of Defense to have high concentrations of military children with severe disabilities. Modifies the 5-year military housing requirements and market analysis process to account for the impact of DOD civilians and contractors in the nearby community.
- Improves on Senator Hirono’s work to support servicemembers who are the victims of medical malpractice by requiring DoD to create an independent, 5-person appeals board to review initial claim denials. This creates additional fairness and objectivity into the process to ensure servicemembers are compensated appropriately when they are the victims of medical malpractice.
- Modifies the 5-year military housing requirements and market analysis process to account for the impact of DOD civilians and contractors in the nearby community.
- Directs a study on the impact of behavioral and mental health staffing shortfalls at military medical treatment facilities.
- Improves transparency and understanding of military compensation by requiring clear explanations on pay statements, creation of a regular military compensation pay table, and an education campaign for servicemembers and families on military compensation
- Requires DOD to provide members of the Armed Forces serving on Active Duty access to legal services provided by an attorney specializing in guardianship transfers in each state in which a military installation is located
Strengthens Our Ability to Protect the Indo-Pacific Region:
- Authorizes the full budget request for the Pacific Deterrence Initiative (PDI) and requires a plan for more effectively budgeting for PDI in future years.
- Requires the Secretary of Defense to submit a report to Congress analyzing the critical digital infrastructure capabilities of Taiwan and how the commercial technology sector can most efficiently be leveraged to provide for and secure Taiwan’s critical digital infrastructure, drawing upon lessons learned in the war in Ukraine. This provision will bolster deterrence in the Indo-Pacific.
- Authorizes $68.5 million in minor military construction projects at the discretion of the Commander of INDOPACOM.
- Provides INDOPACOM and other combatant commands with authority to conduct critical experimentation, prototyping, and technology demonstrations. This will support the development and in-theatre testing of innovative technologies and capability solutions to address priorities from the combatant commands.
- Modifies and simplifies the responsibilities of the Pentagon’s Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC) by focusing on identifying actionable gaps in force design, instead of validating complex requirements. This critical and much needed change will speed up DoD’s acquisition process and deliver critical capabilities to our servicemembers.
- Redefines “program executive officers” as portfolio acquisition executives, which provides the DoD workforce with reformed authorities to improve the acquisition process.
- Improves “buying things as a service” to be metered and billed based on actual usage, and has predetermined pricing based on fixed price units, saving money for the DoD and American taxpayers.
- Expands the commercial solutions openings solicitation procedure purposes to encourage more non-traditional companies and small businesses to bid for DoD programs.
- Requires DoD to keep the Missile Defense Agency’s (MDA) Aegis Guam System, including radar, missile launcher, and ancillary equipment, in the Indo-Pacific Region.
- Requires the Navy to expedite the investigation, qualification, and integration of specific advanced technologies and processes into Navy surface ship maintenance to improve readiness, reduce costs, and address delays.
- Continues the requirement for semiannual briefings on the operational status of the amphibious warship fleet including a plan to meet the statutory mandate for the Navy to have at least 31 operational amphibious ships.
- Directs the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs to conduct an analysis, define, and program the requirements in order to meet a 3.0 deployed Amphibious Readiness Group / Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) presence.
- Requires a report from the Air Force, which has been designated by DoD as the military service program lead for the Joint Fires Network (JFN), and an independent assessment on meeting the operational requirements of INDOPACOM when making acquisition and budgeting decisions in the execution of the JFN program of record.
- Requires the Department of the Navy to develop a report to streamline authorities to establish a Navy Rapid Capabilities Office (RCO) to advance critical capabilities for the Navy.
- Directs an initiative to strengthen security cooperation across the respective defense industrial bases of U.S. allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific.
- Directs DoD to establish a working group to enhance international coordination for advanced manufacturing techniques, technologies, and adoption.
- Directs the Department to establish a new advanced manufacturing guidance and technical manual that will allow DoD to adopt and integrate advanced manufacturing capabilities (i.e. 3D printing) for current and future platforms across the joint force.
Prioritizes Sustainability and the Environment:
- Secures an additional $20 million in funding for DoD’s Readiness and Environmental Protection Integration (REPI) Program to avoid land use conflicts near military installations, address environmental restrictions that limit military activities, and increase military installation resilience.
- Encourages DOD to establish and resource additional staff to increase REPI capability and implementation.
- Increases the cost cap to restore/replace a damaged or destroyed facility from $100 million to $150 million to assist reconstruction from extreme weather events.
- Requires the Army and Air Force, in consultation with the National Guard Bureau, to provide support for the training of appropriate National Guard personnel on wildfire prevention and response.
- Requires a GAO Report on assessing DOD Resilience to Extreme Weather and Natural Hazards and providing recommendations for DoD to improve the resilience of its facilities, operational readiness, and warfighting capabilities in predicted extreme weather conditions in the future.
- Directs the DOD to provide a briefing on best practices from existing recycling efforts of the Strategic Material Recovery and Reuse Program (SMRRP) to expand the scale to recycle, reuse, or recover additional materials like cobalt, lithium, and nickel.
- Requires DOD to consider the ability of batteries to operate and recharge at temperatures as low as -75°F as the DOD standardizes its battery procurement strategy.
- Modifies and extends the sustainable building materials pilot program by four years and requires each military department to build at least two military construction projects with at least three of the materials identified by the GAO: low carbon cement, electric heat pumps, generator and battery storage, solar panels, reflective white roof, landscaped green roof, energy efficient wall/roof insulation, energy efficient windows/doors, water catch basins, water storage tanks, and geothermal loops.
- Amends the ability of operational energy program savings to be reinvested into operational energy programs on tighter timelines, rather than just before the end of the fiscal year.
- Directs the Navy to conduct an assessment and provide a briefing on locations where modular composite utility poles will improve grid resilience from extreme weather events.
Holds this Administration Accountable:
- Requires DoD to promptly notify and provide extensive details to Congress when the Department uses military aircraft to support Department of Homeland Security missions, including deportation operations.
- Requires the Commander of United States Northern Command to provide a report to Congress on the DoD’s efforts at the southern border.
- Prohibits the expenditure of funds to reduce the total number of servicemembers permanently stationed in or deployed to South Korea below the current 28,500.
- Prohibits the reduction in U.S. military force posture in Europe or relinquishment of U.S. command of the Supreme Allied Commander Europe position until the Secretary of Defense provides more impact on U.S. and NATO interests to Congress.
- Requires the Secretary of Defense to brief Congress on the advisability, feasibility, and cost of using qualified DOD personnel in support of Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
- Requires the President to notify Congress at least five days prior to the removal of a Service Judge Advocate General (JAG), along with a substantive rationale for the removal.
- Directs the Secretary of Defense to provide a briefing on the status of DoD developing and maintaining a system to retain records of law of war violations.
- Affirms the value of independent legal advice of judge advocates.
- Requires the Director of Operational Test & Evaluation (DOT&E) to put specified programs, including Golden Dome and the Joint Fires Network, on its oversight list to ensure timely, safe, and responsible delivery programs for our military while safeguarding taxpayer dollars.
Committee approval is the first step in the process to establish defense funding levels and set policies for the DOD. The bill will next be debated and voted on by the full Senate. Once both the Senate and House pass their versions of the NDAA, they must be reconciled by a bicameral conference committee, and then approved by each chamber before a final version is sent to the President to be signed into law.
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