Press Statement: Gov. Green Concedes: No "Boogeyman" Imminent Condemnation Threat
For Immediate Release
Wednesday, November 26, 2025
Media Contact: Wayne Tanaka, wayne.tanaka@sierraclub.org
Sierra Club of Hawaiʻi Executive Director Statement on Governor Green’s Retraction of Condemnation Threat in Military Land Deal Discussions
HONOLULU, HAWAIʻI – Sierra Club of Hawaiʻi Executive Director Wayne Chung Tanaka offered the following statement on Governor Green's concession that federal condemnation is unlikely to occur in the near future, for Hawaiian lands currently occupied by the U.S. Army under expiring, 65-year leases:
After just one meeting with his ad hoc Military Lands Advisory Committee, Governor Green has walked back his use of an imminent federal condemnation "boogeyman" to justify a fast-tracked and short-sighted land deal with the U.S. Department of War. This is a welcome development.
As community leaders, community relations experts, and even local military officials have made clear - condemnation of Hawaiʻi's lands would be a strategic and public relations disaster, for the US military and the federal government as a whole. Instead of amplifying these concerns to the Pentagon, Green chose to prematurely fearmonger and split public opinion, when we needed unity and a collective defense of our constitution, laws, and right to determine the best path forward for our islands.
From Kahoʻolawe to Red Hill, from Pōhakuloa and Mākua to Waikōloa and Puʻuloa, the military's broken promises and short-sighted priorities have inflicted untold billions of dollars' worth of needless damage to Hawaiʻi’s lands, waters, and people. To be frank, the Governor's attempt to insert himself as a surrogate for our legal processes and for the generations of Hawaiʻi residents who have suffered from, and who must continue to reckon with, these ongoing harms, was both uninformed and dangerous. The manufactured perception of consent threatened by the Governor's strategy of appeasement would have only swept our unmet needs for military accountability under the rug, for decades to come.
We are grateful for the many groups and countless individuals who refused to cave in to the specter of condemnation and who instead stood steadfast for our democratically enacted laws, our dignity, and for the needs and interests of generations yet unborn. We urge the Governor and his advisors to likewise remain committed to upholding, rather than supplanting, the laws and processes that are critical to our environmental, cultural, economic, and overall public interest.
Ua mau ke ea o ka ʻāina i ka pono.