Rep. Case Selects Key Assignments

Rep. Ed Case this week followed up on his appointment to the House Committee on Natural
Resources with selection of assignments to three subcommittees critical to Hawai‘i.

Rep. Ed Case. Courtesy photo.

“While Natural Resources covers a whole range of national issues, these assignments provide me with the ability to focus on areas especially important to preserving and protecting Hawaii’s unique cultural and natural heritage,” said Case.

One especially key assignment is to a panel with jurisdiction over our country’s indigenous people including Native Hawaiians.

“We are at an especially critical time as our Native Hawaiian community charts the best course toward establishing a direct relationship with our federal government akin to that recognized with other indigenous peoples for some 150 years now,” said Case. “My role on the subcommittee will be to oversee and support that effort in Congress in close partnership with Native Hawaiians.”

Key subcommittee assignments include:

• Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands. This subcommittee has jurisdiction over the National Park System (including Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park, Haleakala National Park, and the Pu‘uhonua o Honaunau National Park). It also manages the National Wilderness Preservation System, the Land and Water Conservation Fund, the Bureau of Land Management, and the U.S. Forest Service.
• Subcommittee on Water, Oceans and Wildlife. The subcommittee has jurisdiction over areas including but not limited to environmental, habitat, wildlife and endangered species research, restoration and conservation; fisheries management, including commercial and recreational fisheries, aquaculture, seafood safety and fisheries promotion; oceanography and ocean engineering; international programs for the protection of ocean; the protection of coastal and marine environments; Sea Grant programs; and ecological services, fish and aquatic conservation, national wildlife refuge system, and wildlife and sport fish restoration.

“While our island state is renowned for its beauty, it is also fragile, subject to all manner of threats including climate change, the loss of native species of flora and fauna, and the degradation of ecosystems and ocean environments,” said Case. “We need to stand vigilant and aggressively protect, preserve and enhance what we have, for our sake and for future generations.”

Subcommittee for Indigenous Peoples of the United States. This is the only panel in the U.S. House focused exclusively on American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiians. The jurisdiction of this panel includes federal trust responsibility and the sovereignty of Native Americans, as well as general and continuing oversight and investigative authority over activities, policies and programs within the jurisdiction of the subcommittee.

Case was also recently appointed to the House committee on Appropriations, one of the U.S. House’s few exclusive committees, meaning that members are not usually permitted to serve on others, but
was asked to the House leadership to add Natural Resources to his portfolio.

“This combination of Natural Resources and Appropriations should be especially effective for programs under Natural Resources in being able to focus not only on the programs themselves but on adequately funding them,” said Case.