The Governor launches Website for a proposed land deal with the U.S. Army
Governor Josh Green recently launched a website to provide “transparency” and receive community input on an incredibly rushed land deal with the Army, to allow the Army to continue occupying Hawaiian lands under leases set to expire in 2029.
Although at launch, the website provided no insight into the Governor's “nearly daily” talks with the Army Secretary over the Army’s “retention” of these lands, its existence only reaffirms his belief that he hopes to seal a land deal by the end of the year.
The rushed land deal timeline - requested in a letter from the Secretary from the Army - is not only unrealistic, it is dangerous for our ʻāina, our people, and generations to come. We must make this clear to the Governor before he tries to cut a deal that sells out our ‘āina, our dignity, and the rights and interests of our future generations.
Please take a minute to submit comments via the Governor’s website - instructions and sample comments (along with more details on what is at stake) below!
Comment Submission Instructions:
Online comments can be submitted here.
Message type: “Express and Opinion or Suggestion”
Type or attach your comments (feel free to use the sample comments below).
Sample Comments:
Aloha e Governor Green,
My name is _____ and I am a resident of _____. I strongly oppose any attempt to cut a land deal with the US Army for its currently leased lands by the end of the year. Such an attempt is foolhardy, legally impossible, and risks blindly bargaining away the health, dignity, and security of our islands and our future generations.
Legally, it is impossible to finalize any land deal by the end of the year. Environmental review laws, land use regulations, historic preservation processes, land disposition requirements such as appraisals, and potential legislative approval requirements would all need to be completed before any meaningful deal can be made. This would take far longer than the few months we have left in 2025. Do not attempt to undermine our democratically-enacted laws and long-established protections simply because the Army wants you to.
More importantly, the expiration of the Army leases provide us with a once-in-a-lifetime chance to carefully assess the true impacts of the past, ongoing, and future military use of our land— on our environment, health, food security, housing, and social fabric. These cumulative impacts cannot be meaningfully understood in the Army’s wholly unrealistic time frame - a critical first step before we can even begin to contemplate the best path forward for our islands and our future generations.
[Feel free to insert your own experiences/stories/perspectives here]
I understand you may be concerned about eminent domain, but such a move would flush hundreds of millions of dollars of public relations investment by the Department of Defense down the toilet, and permanently poison the military’s relationship with the Hawaiʻi community. Please do your best to convince the Pentagon that eminent domain is a terrible and wasteful strategy - rather than try to convince us that we should concede to threats and bully tactics.
Finally, there is no crisis to justify this approach. The Army’s leases remain in place until 2029, and nothing stops them from continuing to train for several more years. What we need now is transparency, accountability, and real community discussions— not rushed and uninformed backroom dealmaking.
Sincerely,
Your name
Additional Background
The Army’s Timeframe: An Affront to Our Laws, Democracy, and Dignity
Legally speaking, there’s no way the Governor can finalize a land deal in the Army’s desired timeframe.
Environmental impact statements (EISs) must be finalized and accepted; the deficiencies cited by the Land Board in their rejection of the Army’s EISs for the continued occupation of leased lands in Pōhakuloa and Oʻahu will take months if not a year or longer to address.
Land use issues still need to be resolved. For example, military training is not a permitted activity on conservation lands, meaning that the Army’s desired lands would need to be reclassified as non-conservation lands, or the rules governing the conservation district would need to be amended.
Appraisals would be required for any lease, exchange, or sale of the lands at issue.
Notice to OHA and supermajority approval by the legislature would also be required for any exchange or purchase of Hawaiian lands currently leased by the Army.
Accordingly, finalizing a land deal by the end of the year would be illegal, and an affront to our democratically enacted laws and the people and ʻāina they are designed to protect.
The Deeper Risks
Even more troubling is that the timeframe provides no way to fully assess what we should be accounting for in any decision regarding the Army’s expiring land leases. The community, much less the Governor, cannot begin to understand the extent of issues that have arisen and that may continue to arise from past, present, and future military live-fire training and other activities in Hawaiʻi - much less contemplate what the best path forward may be for our islands, communities, and future generations. These may include:
Environmental and public health impacts: unremediated toxic chemicals, unexploded ordnance,the introduction and spread of invasive species, the contamination of water sources, and the destruction of native habitat have all been associated with prior and ongoing military training activities;
Cultural harms: the destruction of sacred sites, the desecration of iwi kūpuna, restricted or prohibited cultural access, and the dispossession of land stolen from the Hawaiian Kingdom have occurred and may continue to occur under military occupation of ʻāina;
Food security setbacks: military training has disrupted and may continue to disrupt our ability to restore traditional agricultural and land tenure systems that hold the key to our future food security;
Housing impacts: with 14,700 private homes currently occupied by military members receiving $3k–$5k/month in housing allowances, the mere 5,000 new homes the Governor suggested that the military should build will hardly address current, much less future, impacts of military’s presence on our housing supply, and our ballooning housing rents;
Planetary destruction: the military’s myopic focus on resolving geopolitical tensions through a show of force enables it to ignore the greatest and most imminent threat facing not just the United States, but humanity itself: climate destabilization. To truly defend us, the military must declare war on climate change - not exacerbate it by remaining the largest institutional consumer of planet-destroying fossil fuels.
All these and many, many other considerations must be much more fully understood before any meaningful discussions can be had about whether and how to move forward after the Army leases expire in 2029.
Bully Tactics?
Governor Green has warned that if Hawaiʻi doesn’t reach an agreement, the Army could use eminent domain (a.k.a. condemnation) to seize the land. But as our Chapter Director, Wayne Tanaka, points out:
“The US military has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in community relations PR, promising to ‘rebuild trust’ with the people of Hawaiʻi. Eminent domain would flush all this down the toilet, and poison military-community relations in our islands, perhaps permanently.”
Governor Green should be working to get the Pentagon and Congress to recognize these realities - not conceding to the Army, and using its bully tactics against us.
What’s the Rush?
Notably, nothing is preventing the Army from continuing to train under its current leases for several more years. The Governor’s agreement to negotiate a short-sighted, dangerous land deal in such a short timeframe is based on nothing more than manufactured urgency he is far too willing to accept, rather than question.
What You Can Do
Submit comments to the Governor via his website here. See above for sample comments and instructions!
Follow @sierraclubhi and other groups such as @kalahuihawaii, @oahuwaterprotectors, @kanaeokana, @protectmaunakea, @hawaiiaction, and others on Instagram for other action alerts and developments on the military land deal issue.
Ask your friends and networks to do the same!
Mahalo for taking action! Together we can make clear to the Governor that a rushed and uninformed backroom deal is unacceptable — for our ʻāina, our dignity, and our future generations to come.