Independent Impact and Clean-Up Assessment Must Come First

By Davis Price

Since the Hawaiʻi Board of Land and Natural Resources (BLNR) rejected the U.S. Army’s environmental impact statements in the summer of 2025, the military’s expiring land leases have come under significant scrutiny.

Following the BLNR’s decision, Gov. Josh Green and then-Army Secretary Dan Driscoll pursued a proposed “friendly condemnation” that would have transferred the leased lands at Pōhakuloa to the Army. In exchange, Hawaiʻi would receive a community-benefits package apparently developed by the governor without a transparent public process.

Native Hawaiian leaders and organizations immediately opposed the proposal, and many others quietly joined that resistance. The plan was eventually shelved. Members of Hawaiʻi’s congressional delegation are now opposing condemnation and urging the Army to comply with state law by preparing and submitting a revised environmental impact statement.

While that political struggle unfolded, a collaboration of academic research centers, public-policy organizations, and grassroots groups was examining one of Hawaiʻi’s most persistent narratives: that our economy depends on the U.S. military and could not survive without it.

For generations, this claim has been treated as unquestionable. The military remains nearly untouchable in the minds of many – and especially among those closest to political and economic power.

Published in May 2026, The True Costs of the U.S. Military in Hawaiʻi is a groundbreaking examination of the military’s economic, environmental, and social impacts. It challenges the exaggerations and incomplete claims that have helped shield the military from accountability for the harms it has caused.

The report scrutinizes information promoted by the Department of War and repeatedly presented to Hawaiʻi’s people: that military spending is overwhelmingly beneficial to our economy. Never before has research directly challenging this narrative – and the system that gives the military extraordinary power over Hawaiʻi’s lands, resources, and people – been assembled in this way.

Confronting this power structure is essential because the narrative of dependency restricts our ability to imagine and plan for a different future – one in which Native Hawaiians and local communities guide our economy and thrive.

We are continually warned that Hawaiʻi cannot survive without the military. This report challenges that assumption and creates space for serious conversations about economic alternatives.

As the lease issue develops, Native Hawaiians must continue demanding accountability for the environmental and societal harms caused by U.S. military activities. A central demand must be the full investigation and cleanup of contaminated lands, with the military bearing the costs.

These are not merely state-owned parcels available for disposal. These are the crown and government lands of the Hawaiian Kingdom over which Native Hawaiians maintain unresolved claims.

The United States has formally acknowledged that Native Hawaiians never directly relinquished their claims to sovereignty or their national lands. Native Hawaiian institutions, both public and private, must assert those sovereign rights and explore strategic legislative and litigation pathways toward the return of these lands that include Native Hawaiian and community-based stewardship, decision-making, and governance of these lands.

Any negotiations to extend the leases are premature until independent assessments determine the full extent of contamination, the work necessary to restore the lands, and the cost and timeline of that work.

Hawaiʻi must not accept promises of future cleanup in exchange for continued military occupation. The military must provide a binding, fully funded cleanup and restoration plan developed with meaningful participation by the Native Hawaiian community and practitioners.

Every available avenue – including administrative action, political advocacy, and litigation – must be considered to prevent further harm and protect these ancestral lands. Decisions concerning these lands cannot continue to prioritize military access over environmental restoration, public health, Native Hawaiian rights, and the unresolved question of sovereignty.

Davis Price is a Native Hawaiian attorney and advocate who currently serves as the senior domestic policy strategist at NDN Collective, an Indigenous-led organization founded to support self-determination and foster justice and equity.