Holt on the record

The annual state budget bill. Cristina's testimony focused specifically on two issues: (1) opposing any state funding for the Military and Community Relations Office (MACRO), a Pentagon-funded operation housed inside state government, and (2) urging the committee to support publicly funded elections. Aloha Chair Dela Cruz, Vice Chair Moriwaki, and members of the Committee, My name is Cristina Holt. I am a resident of Hilo, Hawaiʻi Island, a small business owner, and a community organizer. I am submitting this testimony today for two purposes. First, I urge this Committee to aggressively support publicly funded elections in Hawaiʻi. A government that is insulated from the influence of large donors is a government that can actually serve its people. That work matters deeply and I hope this Committee will treat it accordingly. Second, and the primary focus of this testimony, I am urging this Committee to oppose any use of state funds for the Military and Community Relations Office, or MACRO, and I am formally requesting that this Committee provide the public with a clear accounting of whether any state funding for MACRO has already been appropriated, allocated, or released, and if so, from what source, in what amount, and under what authority. The people of Hawaiʻi have been asking this question for months. We deserve an answer. What MACRO Is and Where It Came From MACRO was established on April 1, 2024, by Governor Josh Green in partnership with the U.S. Department of Defense. It is housed within the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism as an attached agency. According to documents obtained through public records requests, the Pentagon's Office of Local Defense Community Cooperation awarded $3,192,198 to DBEDT on September 26, 2023, before MACRO formally existed. The principal investigator named on that grant was John Greene, then serving as DBEDT's Defense Industry Specialist. Greene later became MACRO's Deputy Director. He is an active U.S. Navy Reserve Lieutenant Commander with 32 years of service. In a March 25, 2026 interview on Hawaiʻi News Now, he stated on camera, "I'm still in the Navy." In the same interview, he also claimed that MACRO does not work for the Department of Defense. As of June 2025, MACRO has received $8,010,646 in total federal Pentagon funding, with a period of performance extending through February 28, 2027. MACRO's own website states: "The Military and Community Relations Office was established on April 1, 2024, and is fully federally funded." The Missing $650,000 Despite that statement, the public has been told repeatedly that MACRO has also secured $650,000 in state legislative funding. MACRO's own website posted December 1, 2025 states: "MACRO recently secured $650,000 from the State Legislature to advance STEM, cybersecurity, and trade workforce development in K-12 schools, preparing students for careers in engineering, technology, and defense manufacturing." A March 6, 2025 Maui Now article reported that the House Finance Committee's draft budget allocated "$650,000 in both fiscal years for the Military and Community Relations Office." DBEDT's own Act 100 Report for 2026, a document covering goals for Calendar Years 2026-2030, states under Goal 1 that DBEDT intends to "Leverage $650,000 in legislative funding to implement education and training programs aligned with defense industry needs" and to "Train or engage at least 500 students statewide through STEM, Cyber, and Trades programs aligned with defense industry workforce needs." I have spent considerable time reviewing both the 2025 and 2026 budget drafts presented to the legislature. I cannot locate this $650,000 appropriation anywhere in any enacted budget document. I cannot find it in HB 1800. I cannot find it in Act 250, Session Laws of Hawaiʻi 2025. I cannot find a MACRO line item under BED, DBEDT, or any other program code in any version of the state budget I have been able to access. The bills specifically designed to appropriate state funds to MACRO did not pass. SB 3240, which would have appropriated state funds to DBEDT for MACRO, passed the Senate 24-1 after a Ways and Means committee vote that took approximately seven seconds with zero public discussion. It was then referred to the House Committee on Public Safety. By the time the House heard it on March 16, 2026, the public had caught up. Over 600 pages of testimony were submitted. 292 individual and organizational submissions came in, the overwhelming majority in opposition, representing 25 organizations against and fewer than 10 total in support. The bill was killed by House Public Safety Chair Belatti on March 18, 2026. She cited public pressure, the state's fiscal situation, and the fact that the military has plenty of its own funding. HB 2235, the companion House bill with the same intent, passed out of committee with a 7/1/2050 effective date signaling it was held for further discussion, and currently sits in House Finance unheard. So the standalone bills failed. And yet MACRO and DBEDT continue to reference $650,000 in state legislative funding as if it exists. This Committee is in a position to answer that question definitively. I am asking you to do so. What MACRO Actually Does With Its Money It is worth being specific about what this office does, because the framing of MACRO as a benign workforce development and community relations office does not survive contact with the actual documents. Documents obtained through public records requests reveal that MACRO has a contract with Becker Communications, Inc., a Honolulu-based PR firm, for $390,000, executed October 1, 2025, following a competitive sealed proposal process in which Becker was the only bidder. The contract is funded by Pentagon dollars flowing through DBEDT. The scope of services in that contract includes requiring Becker to "utilize automated data scraping tools to collect and analyze relevant public commentary from news sites, blogs, forums, and social media platforms to assess evolving sentiment toward military-related issues and MACRO initiatives." In other words, public social media commentary from Hawaiʻi residents about military issues is being systematically scraped and analyzed using Pentagon money, without disclosure to the public. The contract also requires Becker to draft legislative testimony for MACRO with a 24-hour turnaround, approximately 20 times per legislative session. Pentagon-funded contractors are writing state legislative testimony on demand. That is a direct and undisclosed influence on Hawaiʻi's lawmaking process. The contract further reveals that Becker has ghost-written op-eds placed under third-party names to amplify MACRO messaging. Among the writing samples submitted with Becker's 2025 proposal is an op-ed attributed to LTG (Ret.) Frank Wiercinski, former Commanding General of U.S. Army Pacific, arguing that Hawaiʻi must allow the Army to retain its land leases ahead of the 2029 Pohakuloa renegotiations. That op-ed was written by MACRO's Pentagon-funded PR firm and placed under a retired general's name. That is astroturfing. It is the manufacture of the appearance of independent community support for military land retention, paid for by the Pentagon, operating through a state agency. Why 2029 Matters Military leases on land taken in the illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom come up for renegotiation in 2029. Pohakuloa Training Area on Hawaiʻi Island sits on 23,000 acres of state ceded lands. The military has documented depleted uranium contamination at Pohakuloa that it denied for years. The Board of Land and Natural Resources rejected the Army's Environmental Impact Statement in 2025. Dozens of Native Hawaiian organizations oppose fast-tracking new lease agreements. MACRO sits on the Governor's Advisory Committee for Military Leased Lands, the body that will advise the state on those negotiations. An office created by the Pentagon, funded by the Pentagon, staffed in part by an active Navy officer, is now positioned to advise the state on whether to renew leases with the Pentagon. That is not a community relations office. That is a conflict of interest operating inside state government. The manufactured economic dependency MACRO exists to create, the workforce pipeline, the sentiment management, the ghost-written op-eds, the social media surveillance, the K-12 STEM programs targeting public school students for defense careers, all of it is designed to ensure that by the time 2029 arrives, Hawaiʻi's political and economic landscape has been shaped to make resisting those lease renewals feel impossible. We see it. And we are naming it. On the State's Fiscal Situation Hawaiʻi is facing significant budget shortfalls. Federal funding cuts are threatening MedQuest, SNAP, public education, and essential services for our most vulnerable residents. In that context, the use of state funds to support a Pentagon propaganda operation, or to co-sign that operation through any form of state budget line item, is not just a policy disagreement. It is a betrayal of the people this budget is supposed to serve. This Committee has a responsibility to ensure that every dollar in HB 1800 serves Hawaiʻi's residents, not the Pentagon's public relations agenda. My Requests to This Committee I am asking this Committee to do three things. One: Provide a clear, public, on-the-record accounting of whether any state funding for MACRO has been appropriated, allocated, or released since its founding on April 1, 2024. If yes, how much, from what source, under what authority, and for what purpose. If the $650,000 referenced by MACRO, DBEDT, and Maui Now exists somewhere in the budget, the public deserves to know where it is. Two: Oppose the inclusion of any state funding for MACRO in HB 1800 or any related budget provision. The military has $8 million of its own money in this office already. Hawaiʻi taxpayers should not be asked to fund Pentagon propaganda, K-12 defense pipelines, social media surveillance, or ghost-written op-eds designed to shape public opinion about military land leases on Native Hawaiian land. Three: Support publicly funded elections. The people of Hawaiʻi need a government that works for them. That starts with removing the outsized influence of large donors from our political process. The communities who showed up in opposition to SB 3240, who resubmitted testimony after a rescheduled hearing with no notice, who flooded committee members with calls and emails, who made videos and shared them and got their neighbors to show up, those people are watching this budget process too. We know the bills can be killed and the money can still find its way through. We are paying attention. Mahalo for your time and your service to the people of Hawaiʻi. Respectfully submitted, Cristina Holt Hilo, Hawaiʻi Island

Requires the Office of Consumer Protection to study the extent to which companies operating in Hawaiʻi use surveillance pricing, where algorithms set prices based on data about individual consumers. Consumers deserve to know when they are being targeted. SUPPORT!!!!