SERVING HAWAII FIRST

EDUCATION

Neil Abercrombie has always believed that the road to a prosperous and secure future goes through the classroom, particularly in today’s technology‐based economy.

Abercrombie has championed efforts to modernize, renovate and repair the nation’s schools while supporting jobs programs for education. He held Town Hall meetings on Oahu with Vice President Al Gore to spotlight the need for federal funds to modernize Hawaii’s public school physical infrastructure. More recently, he highlighted the great things the Hawaii public schools can do to Assistant Secretary Peter Cunningham of the Obama Administration and discussed the availability of federal funds to end Furlough Fridays. He backed emergency legislation to stabilize and stimulate the economy during the recession to help schools across the country avoid teacher and school employee layoffs and budget cuts to programs.
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ECONOMY & SMALL BUSINESS

Following near-collapse of the U.S. economy and loss of millions of jobs across the country at the end of 2008, Neil Abercrombie started looking for practical steps the government could take to start rebuilding. In a number of meetings with small business groups, he learned that bank lending to businesses had been nearly frozen, and that many small business owners had to resort to their credit cards to cover routine operating expenses. He was also told that small businesses were often victims of the same unscrupulous billing practices by credit card companies that had been outlawed for consumers. His response was to introduce The Small Business Credit Card Act (HR 3457), which extends consumer protections against illegal billing practices to small businesses with 50 or fewer employees. The bipartisan legislation, widely hailed by the nation’s small businesses, is under active consideration in the House and Senate.

Nearly two out of every three new jobs created in the past 15 years has been in small businesses, and clearly, they would have to play a major role in job creation to help turn around the current economy. Rep. Abercrombie knew their ability to expand depended on increased demand for their products and services, and access to capital. Working closely with Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY), Senator May Landrieu (D- LA) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME), he introduced legislation (H.R.4302) to increase the limit on loans guaranteed by the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) from $2 million to $5 million. The budget neutral House and Senate legislation is strongly supported by businesses and lenders across the country as a direct way to make more capital available to businesses trying to expand and hire additional staff.
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ENERGY

Neil Abercrombie has been a strong advocate for energy independence for Hawaii and for the United States. Here in Hawaii, he has championed and put federal funds into research on the use of local agricultural crops as biofuels and on ocean-thermal energy to generate electricity, and he’s helped fund research at UH into “flash carbonization” technology, a process that turns waste to energy in under an hour, 3 and could help to reduce local landfills, create jobs and produce clean energy from recycled waste.

He’s also worked on the national front advocating energy independence for the United States. Working with Democrats and Republicans, Abercrombie has produced two important pieces of legislation, including the American Independence and Clean Energy Act of 2009, to reduce the country’s reliance on foreign oil, create significant new source of revenue from the recovery of domestic fuels, and allocate the new revenue to create sustained funding that pays for the full development of alternative and renewable energy resources.
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ENVIRONMENT

In June 1992, Neil Abercrombie and his colleague, the late Rep. Patsy Mink, introduced legislation to preserve a 1400 square mile area in the shallow waters off Kauai, Oahu, Maui, Molokai, and the Big Island as a National Marine Sanctuary to protect the endangered humpback whale. In November 1992, the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary was officially designated, and has become one of 13 sanctuaries in the National Marine Sanctuary System, created under the U.S. Marine Protection, Research and Sanctuaries Act. Nearly two-°©‐thirds of the North Pacific humpback whale population migrates to Hawaii each winter.

Abercrombie has always believed that Hawaii is defined by a special bond with all the other species on the planet and a profound respect for their right to exist in harmony with the land. His role on the House Committee on Natural Resources has provided the opportunity to be in the forefront of protecting and preserving our natural treasures: the land, the oceans and the creatures in them. He was instrumental in legislation to expand Pu’uhonua o Honaunau National Historical Park on the Big Island. He introduced and passed the measure creating the James Campbell National Wildlife Refuge Expansion on the North Shore of Oahu, and in the 2010 Appropriations Bill for the Department of Interior, was able to help target $7.4M to complete the purchase of the refuge land.
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HEALTH CARE

On January 27, 1998, Dr. James Navin from Clinical Laboratories of Hawaii met with Neil Abercrombie to discuss how inadequate reimbursement levels for Pap smear screening could lead to the suspension of the test in Hawaii. Congressman Abercrombie agreed that Hawaii women and their families could not afford the loss of our local laboratories’ efficiency and expertise on Pap smear pathologies, so he introduced the Investment in Women’s Health Act. In 1999, the Medicare Balanced Budget Act Refinement legislation contained a provision directing the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) to increase the Pap smear reimbursement to a level that covers the costs of doing the lab work and a commitment to protecting the lives of women in our community. The issue bears directly on the health of Hawaii’s women because Pap smears helped produce a 70 percent decline in cervical cancer death rates over the past 50 years.

In 2009, Abercrombie wholeheartedly supported healthcare coverage for 11 million children through an expansion of CHIP, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which will provide federal funding for 3,700 of Hawaii’s keiki, saving the state millions of dollars each year. Federal funding will also be provided to cover lawful permanent resident pregnant women present in the U.S. for less than five years. This will not only ensure healthier babies who need less medical attention after birth, it will save the State of Hawaii nearly $5 million annually.
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HUMAN & CIVIL RIGHTS

Almost ten years ago, Neil Abercrombie called attention to the unequal pay received by women who performed the same work as men. He introduced a bipartisan resolution to recognize the significance of Equal Pay Day to demonstrate the disparity between wages paid to men and women. This fight culminated in the passage of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, signed into law by President Obama in 2009. This law restores the rights of women and other workers to challenge unfair pay—to help close the wage gap where women earn 78 cents for every $1 a man earns in America.

There are many challenges facing the gay community, and as a member of the Congressional LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transsexual) Equality Caucus, Abercrombie worked to change the laws of the country to ensure equality for all Americans. These issues include a repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell;” cosponsoring legislation to allow a U.S. citizen to sponsor their “permanent partner;” and supporting efforts to prohibit employers from discriminating against people based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
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IMMIGRATION & FOREIGN RELATIONS

Neil Abercrombie has long been an advocate for comprehensive immigration reform that addresses matters like backlogs for family reunification, workplace enforcement, due process, humane enforcement that respects the needs of children and other vulnerable community members, detention standards, and border security. As the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus Immigration Taskforce Chairman, Rep. Abercrombie played an active role in supporting Congressional efforts for comprehensive immigration reform, including co- sponsoring the Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America’s Security and Prosperity (CIR ASAP) Act of 2009.

During the recent healthcare reform debates, Abercrombie supported the elimination of the five year waiting period for legal immigrants in the Medicaid program; and opposed the imposition of any further barriers on legal immigrants seeking to access federal health programs, including waiting periods to obtain affordability credits to purchase health insurance.
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NATIVE HAWAIIANS

Neil Abercrombie has worked closely with Senator Daniel K. Akaka on passage of the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act, called the Akaka Bill, since it was first introduced in 1999. In fact, Abercrombie successfully shepherded the legislation through the House committees and won approval by the full House in 2000 and 2007.

Senator Akaka and Rep. Abercrombie introduced the legislation again in 2009, and Abercrombie once again steered the bill through House Committee hearings and to the floor of the House for a vote in his last week as a Member of Congress. The Akaka Bill passed in the House on a 245 to 164 vote.
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PUBLIC SAFETY

Neil Abercrombie has been an ardent and long‐standing supporter for preventing hate crimes. The Hate Crimes Prevention Act, giving law enforcement resources to prevent and prosecute hate crimes against Americans based on gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability, was finally signed into law in October 2009.

Understanding the benefits of effective treatment for minor drug offenders rather than incarceration, Abercrombie led the effort for several years to increase federal funding for drug courts across the nation and in Hawaii. His efforts garnered support from over 70 Members of Congress and led to increased funds for this proven alternative.

Abercrombie has consistently supported funding for community justice assistance programs under the Violence Against Women Act, COPS, and the Byrne Justice Assistance Grant and obtained funding for the Honolulu Police Department to update its forensic lab, the only full scale forensic laboratory in the Pacific Basin. He also obtained funding for the University of Hawaii Richardson School of Law to continue an Innocence Project in Hawaii, a legal program that allows UH law students to work to free wrongly incarcerated individuals while gaining legal experience.

VETERANS & MILITARY AFFAIRS

In January 2007, Representative Neil Abercrombie was named Chairman of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Air and Land Forces, with oversight for U.S. Army and Air Force operations, budget, and equipment and weapons systems procurement. Taking his responsibility seriously, he and his Subcommittee insisted on unprecedented levels of accountability for the Army’s multi-billion dollar Future Combat Systems. Abercrombie began questioning the program’s concept, budget and schedule, and pressing the Army for more rigorous technology testing plans and realistic cost estimates. His oversight fundamentally reshaped the program and saved the American taxpayer hundreds of millions of dollars.

With thousands of U.S. troops deployed to Iraq, Chairman Abercrombie and his subcommittee kept a watchful eye on the equipment needs of our men and women in combat. When he learned that the U.S. Marine Corps was dragging its feet on building and deploying enough Mine Resistant Armor Protected vehicles (MRAPs) to better shield personnel in Iraq from Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), he promptly held hearings to get the facts, and then pushed the Marine Corps and Department of Defense to fund an accelerated program to build MRAPs and get them overseas where they were needed. Those vehicles have been credited with saving thousands of American lives.
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