ISLES' MAJOR FEDERAL FUNDING STAYS INTACT

The Spending Bill Also Allocates New Money For State Projects

Projects Funded

Hawaii held on to major funding in the new federal spending bill and managed
to pick up new money for programs ranging from $4 million to combat the Big
Island's "ice" drug problem to $50,000 for a community health center on
Kauai.

The $397.4 billion appropriations bill passed by Congress on Thursday
includes hundreds of millions of nonmilitary government dollars for Hawaii,
according to U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye.

The bill, which pays for operations of nearly every federal agency for the
current fiscal year, awaits President Bush's signature.

Hawaii's major federal dollars -- $40 million for impact aid for schools,
$31 million for native Hawaiian education, $29.7 million for federal transit
administration formula funds, $9.6 million for the Hawaiian Homelands
community development block grant program -- remained either roughly the
same as last year or slightly higher. The East-West Center, located on the
University of Hawaii's Manoa campus, will receive $18 million, $4 million
more than last year.

Funding for many Hawaii programs, from agriculture research to brown tree
snake control to educational programs, will remain fairly level, something
that was hard-won in a competition among states for tight federal dollars,
said U.S. Rep. Neil Abercrombie.

"Everybody had to sacrifice a bit," he said.

One program that will see its funding slashed is the childhood rural asthma
project, which was allotted $150,000 this year. It began last year with
$500,000 to help children with asthma in rural and remote areas.

The $4 million for the Hawaii County Comprehensive Methamphetamine Response
Program is one of several items in this year's measure that have not
previously received funding.

"Interest in this (problem) is not new," Abercrombie said. "This is an
attempt to try and work with local jurisdictions within the state to address
this problem."

Abercrombie noted that use of the drug commonly known as "ice" is often a
precipitating factor for juvenile and adult crime. At the Hawaii Island Ice
Summit in August, Hawaii County Police Chief Lawrence Mahuna told officials
that from 1998 to 2000, there was a 10-fold increase in crystal
methamphetamine arrests on the Big Island -- to 282 from 28 -- and that the
drug's reach extends to middle schools.

The state will also get $2.5 million for the Hawaii High Intensity Drug
Trafficking Area Program, the same amount as fiscal 2002, according to the
list of Hawaii initiatives issued by Inouye's office.

Among the many programs for native Hawaiians, Papa Ola Lokahi and the Native
Hawaiian Health Care Systems will receive $9 million, a $2 million increase
over last year, to help make primary care, health education and disease
prevention services available for native Hawaiians.

There's also money for community health centers on Kauai and Maui, and in
Waimanalo and Waianae. There's money for "high tech training" on Maui,
funding for rural computer training on the Valley Isle, and money to fund a
program for girls and science.

The University of Hawaii's Hilo and Maui campuses will each receive money
for specific programs, and there is funding for the construction of an
emergency homeless shelter in Kailua-Kona. Construction projects at Kauai's
Kikiaola small boat harbor and Maui's Maalea Harbor also received funding.

In addition to road improvements on Oahu, Maui and the Big Island,
transportation dollars will go toward public transit, including up to $20
million to spend on a ferry boat, which would likely operate between Leeward
Oahu and downtown Honolulu, Abercrombie said.

The bill designates millions of dollars for the ocean and the environment,
including $6.3 million for the protection of the endangered sea turtle. That
amount is more than twice the appropriation for fiscal 2002, the result of
more knowledge about the endangered sea creatures, Abercrombie said.

"It's part of the whole question of endangered species in the Pacific and
what we can do to help document and see what needs to be done," he said.

The state will also receive $5 million for economic disaster assistance to
the longline fishing industry and $3 million for the Hawaii Longline
Fisheries Observers program, intended to help fishermen obey the laws while
they try to make a living.

"How can we harvest in the sea and at the same time not decimate it?"
Abercrombie said. "We don't want to create the water equivalent of the dust
bowl."

The budget also includes $700,000 to help the state combat invasive species
and $1 million for coral reefs, which Abercrombie said is related to the
designation of the Northwest Hawaiian Islands as a National Marine
Sanctuary.

A December 2000 executive order signed by President Clinton set aside 84
million acres of ocean around the archipelago as the Northwestern Hawaiian
Island Coral Reef Ecosystem Reserve, the largest protected area ever
established in the United States.

Federal officials last year began drafting a management plan to cover
preservation of the coral and regulate fishing in the waters off the 10
mostly uninhabited islets and atolls extending 1,200 miles northwest of the
main Hawaiian Islands.

"We're now moving to the stage from getting the Northwestern Hawaiian refuge
to a sanctuary," Abercrombie said. "Coral reefs are fundamental and vital to
that.

"We have a special responsibility," he said. "We're the principal caretakers
and stewards with respect to coral reefs."