Nov
8
D.C. Five-O
Filed Under Sunrise on KGMB9
Once America seized power in Hawaii. Now it’s like the other way around.
Aloha Power has come to the fore in the nation’s capital, where a son of Kalihi will sit in the Oval Office and a former Beach Boy will chair the Senate Appropriations Committee.
West Virginia Sen. Robert Byrd, a nonogenarian who for decades would play the fiddle and sing when he campaigned, is retiring from the chairman’s chair on Jan. 6 and gave his blessing to Sen. Dan Inouye to succeed him. The leadership confirmed Friday that Inouye has got the job.
Sen. Daniel Akaka is in line to chair the Senate Homeland Security Committee if, as expected, the Senate leadership strips Joe Lieberman of the post for campaigning for John McCain. (Maybe they want to drive him to the GOP after seeing what a gripping campaigner he was as Al Gore’s running mate.)
Bobby Byrd used his power as Appropriations chairman to help his state, one of the poorest in the nation. He stood in the way of anything that would hurt the coal industry. He made the IRS site its largest computer center in the eastern panhandle, a two-hour drive from Washington, D.C. He saw to it that every road in West Virginia is well-graded and well-paved and you can drive a beautiful road all the way to top of Spruce Knob, the state’s tallest mountain.
The other Appropriations committee members always support what the chairman wants because they have their own needs. Sen. Inouye could get even more than Byrd, simply because Byrd grabbed at anything that would help his constituents whether it was good for the nation or not, while Inouye has always had the knack of finding things that help Hawaii which ARE good for the entire republic, making it enjoyable rather than distasteful for colleagues to support him.
Homeland Security money would be spent plentifully in Hawaii even if we had junior senators. We handle a lot of international visitors, our ports have the potential to be a remote access point to the West Coast if not guarded well enough, and we are home to many military men and women and their families. I have also been told that Hawaii airports, with their openness to the elements, are good places to test new screening equipment. But with Akaka in charge of the committee, it would be easier to secure such funds.
As for President-Elect Obama, see if he doesn’t name a transportation secretary who will facilitate rail, the mass transit form so well-suited to the linear population centers of our islands. Neighbor islands should explore the possibility of getting federal funds to acquire land for transportation corridors, knowing that rail takes less land than highways and tourists riding trains cause fewer accidents.
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As a Hawaii expat living in D.C., I really appreciated this post — thanks, Howard. I was surprised when I moved here at how tight the Hawaii community is here, too. It’s like Las Vegas … but so much better.