Service to the Nation

It is a great honor to serve our country as one of Hawaii’s senators.  My positions on key Senate Committees has given me the opportunity to take leadership on many pressing national issues—such as the economy, climate change, and civil rights. 

To learn about my work for the nation as a whole, I have prepared the following reports to summarize my key accomplishments on different Senate Committees.  In addition, please click here if you wish to review position papers I have prepared on some of the pressing issues we face.

In 1973 Senator Inouye became Chairman of the Subcommittee for the District of Columbia.  From 1975 to 1988, he was Chairman or Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations.  In 1989, Senator Inouye became Chairman of the Subcommittee on Defense, with direct responsibility for the largest single item in the annual discretionary funding bills. As Chairman or Vice Chairman of the Defense Subcommittee for the past 20 years, Senator Inouye has always put service members first, with a special interest in ensuring quality healthcare for those in uniform, as well as their families. Senator Inouye believes that ‘you recruit a soldier, but you retain a family.’  Operating with an all-volunteer force, Senator Inouye knows that quality of life issues are the key to maintaining the best trained and equipped military force in the world.

In 2009, Senator Inouye became Chairman of the full Appropriations Committee.  As Chairman, he has emphasized his desire to return the Committee to its traditions of regular order, in which each of the 12 appropriations bills are passed individually, as opposed to the use of Continuing Resolutions or Omnibus bills, which have become increasingly common over the past 10 years.  (for more information on regular order, please follow this link to an opinion piece by Senator Inouye that explains his reasons for supporting regular order.)

To visit the Appropriations Committee website, please follow this link.

Commerce
When Senator Inouye joined the Commerce Committee in 1969, he did so for a very good reason: the Commerce Committee, perhaps more than any other Senate authorizing committee, has jurisdiction over issues that are among those of the greatest importance to the State of Hawaii.  The Committee oversees issues and industries including telecommunications and the Internet, interstate commerce, fisheries and ocean management, aviation and consumer safety.  All of these are important issues to the citizens of Hawaii, and as a member of the Commerce Committee, Senator Inouye was well-positioned to ensure that the unique needs of Hawaii would be considered in all of the legislation that passed through the Committee.

In 2005, Senator Inouye became Vice Chairman of the Committee, serving with Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) in a productive and bipartisan relationship that enabled the Committee to push forward a number of long-stalled initiatives, including finalizing the transition to Digital Television and overhauling the nation’s transportation safety laws. In 2007, Senator Inouye became Chairman of the Committee, and again working with Senator Stevens, he was able to lead one of the most powerful committees in the Senate to one of its most productive two year work periods.  His efforts led to the passage of 34 bills that were eventually signed into law, including the first significant increase in fuel efficiency standards in more than 30 years and a reauthorization of the Consumer Product Safety Commission that gave the agency unprecedented authority and resources to protect American consumers from harm.

In 2009, Senator Inouye was appointed Chairman of the Appropriations Committee, and had to relinquish his Chairmanship of the Commerce Committee.  He remains a senior member of the Commerce Committee, and continues to insist that all legislation considered by the Committee take into consideration the unique needs of the citizens of Hawaii.

For additional information on the Commerce Committee and the Accomplishments of the Commerce Committee Under the Leadership of Senator Inouye, please click on the links.

To visit the Commerce Committee website, please follow this link.

Indian Affairs

Senator Inouye joined the Committee on Indian Affairs in 1978, and served as the Chairman of the Committee from 1987 to 1994.  Beginning in 1994, the Senator served as Vice Chairman, until June 2001 to December 2002, when he once again assumed the Chairmanship of the Committee.  From January 2003, he again served as Vice Chairman until he resigned his leadership position on the Committee in 2005 in order to assume the Vice Chairmanship of the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.

In the 100th Congress, when Senator Inouye assumed the Chairmanship of the Indian Affairs Committee, the Committee held more hearings and reported more legislation to the full Senate than any other committee of the Senate.  Landmark legislation including the reauthorizations of the Indian Health Care Improvement Act, the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act, the Indian Education Act, the Native American Languages Act, and the Native American Programs Act, and the enactment of the Indian Finance Act, the Indian Land Consolidation Act, the American Indian Trust Fund Management Reform Act, the National Museum of the American Indian Act, the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, the Native American Housing Assistance and Self-Determination Act, the Native Hawaiian Education Act, the Native Hawaiian Health Care Improvement Act, and scores of Indian water rights and land claims settlement laws were also accomplished under the Senator’s leadership.  In addition, the Senator was successful in securing permanent committee status for the Committee on Indian Affairs, which had previously been a Select Committee of the Senate. 

 The Senator remains a senior member of the Committee on Indian Affairs, and is honored to work with Native leaders from American Indian tribes, Alaska Native communities as well as regional and village corporations, and the Native Hawaiian community, in furtherance of the United States’ government-to-government relationship with the sovereign Native governments that represent America’s indigenous, native people.

To visit the Indian Affairs Committee website please click here.

Equality for the Nation

In the Declaration of Independence are 35 simple words that have served as my guiding principle throughout my years of public service.  Follow them, and you will never go wrong in whatever path you choose:

“We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness -- ”

During World War II, as a young soldier, I witnessed first-hand the bloody sacrifices of my comrades in the 442nd Infantry Regimental Combat Team who were fighting for, and in many instances dying for, the same nation that held their loved ones in virtual prison camps.  I returned home from the war with a resolve to do all that I could to bring justice to those Japanese Americans who were unjustly mistreated by our nation.

And, so began my public service career.  I promised myself that whenever I was confronted with an injustice, I would not stay silent.  I would gather the facts, step forward and work to correct the wrong.  Learn More...