“I will oppose any appeal by DoD that challenges the State’s authority to regulate Red Hill operations,” Hirono said. Each of the lawmakers serves on a key Pentagon oversight panel. Members of Hawaii’s four-member, all-Democrat congressional delegation expressed varying degrees of outrage Tuesday about Hicks’s decision. Yet, on Monday night, Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks announced that the Pentagon would, in fact, fight Hawaii’s order in court. Then, at a January hearing of a House Armed Services panel, a top Navy admiral said the service was complying with the order to defuel after all. The Navy filed an objection to the order that month in which a service attorney wrote that the harm was not imminent and the state was exceeding its authority, according to Honolulu Civil Beat, a news site. The state health department, in response, proposed an order in December that the tanks be emptied, at least temporarily. Hawaii's members of Congress expressed deep skepticism Tuesday about the Defense Department's motivations in contesting in court their state’s order that the Navy empty fuel from tanks on Oahu that have repeatedly leaked and sickened residents.įuel from the Navy’s Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility near Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam leaked most recently in November, forcing thousands of residents out of their homes for the holidays and leaving many ill with nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.
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