Report Title:

Civil Air Patrol; Appropriation

Description:

Appropriates funds to the Civil Air Patrol for operation expenses.

THE SENATE

S.B. NO.

316

TWENTY-SECOND LEGISLATURE, 2003

 

STATE OF HAWAII

 


 

A BILL FOR AN ACT

 

MAKING AN APPROPRIATION TO THE HAWAII CIVIL AIR PATROL.

 

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF HAWAII:

SECTION 1. The legislature finds that Hawaii's Civil Air Patrol (CAP) needs State funding to allow it to continue the vital operations of search and rescue and medical emergency transport. The CAP depends on receiving State funding to defray its operational expenses. Recent budget restrictions have adversely affected the CAP in Hawaii.

The CAP is an official auxiliary of the United States Air Force that provides volunteer emergency services, among other things. The funding cuts have resulted in:

(1) Termination of weekly tsunami watch patrols;

(2) Hampering notification of essential personnel for emergencies; and

(3) Scaling back of the cadet program.

Since the early 1950's, CAP has provided tsunami warning services to the State. Once a tsunami alert has been issued by the National Weather Service, CAP mobilizes and gets its aircraft in the air, making repeated passes over beaches and coastal communities using sirens and loudspeakers to warn residents.

The CAP flies more than eighty-five per cent of all federal inland search and rescue missions. Approximately one hundred people are saved every year by CAP volunteers. For example, the CAP was instrumental in locating a small plane that went down on Maui in July, 2002.

Even more vital is the role CAP plays in disaster relief. Volunteer CAP members fly disaster relief officials to remote locations and support local, state, and national disaster relief organizations with experienced pilots and manpower. The CAP transports time-sensitive medical materials, blood products, and body tissue.

Today, as a peacetime auxiliary of the Air Force, the Hawaii CAP remains an active volunteer organization with about six hundred members, including two hundred cadets. The Hawaii wing has three primary missions: search and rescue, aerospace education, and the cadet program. It is also an active participant in counter-drug operations for the Drug Enforcement Agency, flying over 179 missions last year.

The purpose of this Act is to make an appropriation to the Hawaii Civil Air Patrol to assist in defraying operational expenses.

SECTION 2. There is appropriated out of the general revenues of the State of Hawaii the sum of $35,000, or so much thereof as may be necessary for fiscal year 2003-2004, for the Hawaii Civil Air Patrol.

SECTION 3. The sum appropriated shall be expended by the department of defense for the purposes of this Act.

SECTION 4. This Act shall take effect on July 1, 2003.

INTRODUCED BY:

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