when september 11 happened. i was one of the last people on the planet to find out about it. i got stuck because the borders were closed and could not fly over canada. as soon as i got home i walked into the recruiter's office and said, i have a pilot's license, was a researcher at nyu. >> watch members of congress all this week starting at 9:30 p.m. eastern on c-span. u.s. postmaster general has informed the postal board of governors he intends to stand wn from his roling the usp set -- usps. rote i worked tirelessly to lead the men and women of the an extraordinary transformation. we have served the american people through an unprecedented pandemic aough high infland sensationalized politics. our successful r delivering 930 million covid

test kits to 91 million households is one testament to the superb work performed these last five years. the letter requests the board o governors begin the process of selecting a new postmaster genel. mr. dejoy was originally tapped by mr. trump to lead the agency, 2020. >> later today fmer republican new hampshire governor chris sununu dcusses democracy and trump administration policies at an eve hosted by george washington university. watch live at 6:00 p.m. eastern on c-span, c-span now, or online at c-span.org. [applause] >> next, hawaii governor josh green delivers his 2025 state of the state address before a joint legislature in honolulu. he comments on ongoing recovery efforts after the 2023 maui

wildfires. governor green was first elected in 2022 after serving four years as lieutenant governor. it is 35 minutes. gov. green: first lady, lieutenant governor, madam speaker, senate president, chair, chief justice, colleagues, members of the cabinet, distinguished guests, all the people of hawaii, a loja -- aloha. jamie, i could not do this job without you. your support, thoughtful perspective, hard work, you are truly valuable to me. thank you on behalf of all the people of hawaii. i love you very much. [applause] sylvia, thank you for your

tireless work to improve hawaii. specifically your efforts on early education and broadband technology. you are a great teammate and i truly appreciate you. nadine, i'm so excited for you to become our first woman speaker of the house. let's give her a crazy round of applause. [applause] you have already shown me you will help lead the house in a thoughtful way and bring your own style to the support leadership role. ron and kai we served in the senate together and i have so many great memories from that era. i look forward to resuming our work together this year and ways to improve the lives of all the people of hawaii. enqueue. cj, we honor you for your years of distinguished service to our

state. i'm going to miss you as you head toward retirement. cj, thank you, brother. [applause] here we dive in. legislative colleagues thank you for being such great partners these last two years in our work for the people. i see new faces join our ranks and it reminds me we were all new ones. sometimes us best -- a new perspective leads us to greater progress. i want to thank cabinet members and the executive team including brooke wilson who have done so much to -- for our priorities. thank you for taking on our biggest challenges and to address the most important issues are state faces. we have been through extremely difficult times in recent years there he the fear and uncertainty of the covid pandemic, the devastating losses of the wildfires on maui, our

long road to recovery and healing from that day, so many things. by uniting as one we found the faith, hope and strength we needed to rebuild. today i'm incredibly proud of our state and people for the way we come together to support each other through these enormous challenges. i'm proud to report to all of you the state of hawaii is strong. two years ago i came into the governor's office after attending hundreds of stories, community meetings across our state, having thousands of conversations with people from every walk of life. the people of hawaii wanted to see real results on issues our state has faced for years, that only seemed to be getting a modicum of progress or getting worse. to my colleagues in the legislature and state government, we are privileged to serve the people of hawaii and work for them every day. as we start the new year and a new legislative session we reflect on the progress we made

together over the past two years and look forward to asking this question. what do the people of hawaii want us to accomplish for them now and in the coming years? let's talk affordability. this is the cost-of-living question in our state. it is too high, the highest in our country. there are too many families struggling to make ends meet, too many considering leaving the places they grew up in and love, and too many have left in search of a cost-of-living that is lower on the mainland. two years ago the people of hawaii told us to find ways of making living in this state more affordable. we made this a top priority and took action. we lowered taxes. in our first year we worked with the legislature, all of you, and double the earned income tax credit in the food credit, increased the existing child tax credit to save hawaiian families $188 million in taxes.

last year you the legislature passed and i signed into law the largest income tax break, largest income tax cut, for hawaiian families in our state's history. [applause] for everyone out there this tax cut will take effect in steps over the next seven years. it provides an estimated $5.6 billion in savings for our people. it reduces taxes from between 10% to 71% for working families depending on household income. it moves hawaii from having the second highest tax rate to the fourth lowest tax burden in the country. this is something you should be proud of and thank you for doing that for the people of hawaii. [applause] people feel this and understand

better, family of four making $88,000 in hawaii will see the take-home pay increase by more than $3600 per year by 2031. these tax cuts are already going into effect now. by 2031 the number of hawaii households that will pay zero state income tax will rise from 25% to 40% keeping more money in peoples pockets and stimulate the statewide economy and growth. over the last two years we made careful budgetary decisions to reduce spending by $500 million in 2024 and 2023. we also maintained a rainy day fund for future challenges we have. our goal continues to be that we make the state more affordable and also so families can live in hawaii for the next generation and have a future here. in the coming years we will

continue to find new ways to lower the costs of living. thank you for your partnership in this endeavor. let's talk about housing. in hawaii we face the highest housing costs in the nation. the people of hawaii asked us to make housing more affordable and available to all within our state. housing is the single largest expense for hawaii families. it counts for up to 38% of household spending on average. even before fire destroyed nearly 4000 homes on maui in august 2023, we faced an estimated 50,000 housing units short statewide. hawaii's building regulations have driven up the cost of condominium element 50%, making this the highest cost of housing in the country. because of our lack of affordable housing, we face a shortage of teachers, shortage of health care workers, and more

native hawaiians live in the mainland than in our state. i know that was mentioned another speeches. together we took action and approved 10,800 new units of low income housing for struggling families. exemptions from our proclamation helped approve or accelerate nearly 7000 units of affordable housing across our state. we also worked closely with the legislature and over the last two years you deliver the most significant regulatory and zoning reforms in over 40 years. it has cut red tape, helped update and improve rental laws, and increased housing inventory statewide. our combined efforts are paying dividends. affordable housing measures passed are fueling a surge in housing across the islands. we are tracking more than 62,000 units, over 257 projects built

by state and county agencies with private developers over the next decade. with 13,000 new units completed this year and 10,000 more next year. this includes 46,000 new units of affordable housing. thank you everyone for this incredible work. [applause] let's talk about the budget for this year on housing. the next two years we requested over $500 million for housing initiatives including $250 for a fund to develop more formal housing, $30 million for phase 2 on oahu, and money for the university village. we have also requested $68 million to transform -- this

will add more than 2000 housing units for the district's working families. thank you for leading us in this way. [applause] with the same sense of urgency the department of hawaiian homeland is tackling the affordable housing crisis for native hawaiians which overlaps with the housing crisis for all of us. more than two years ago your approved act 279 which appropriated a historic $600 million to dhhl to reduce the wait list which has -- had swelled to 29,000. since then they embarked on a bold five-year plan which you vetted to deliver more than 7500 homes and lots for native hawaiians. this includes projects like a homestead project, the first residential dhhl on maui into decades. when completed will have 137

turnkey homes and 24 improved lots. it also includes the 23 story project at the former bowling site where ed lost his bowling shoes. the shoes are returned and we will put up 278 much needed apartments in honolulu's urban core with rent as low as $657 per month. [applause] innovative projects like these will help provide new affordable housing for native hawaiians who have long been on the wait list and have died on that waitlist. thank you for everyone on this work. building alone will not solve the housing crisis. in hawaii we have far too many short-term rentals owned by individuals who live on the mainland.

tens of thousands of housing units across our state that should not be short-term rentals any longer. they should be homes for our people. [applause] why does this happen? short-term rentals make on average four times what they would make if the property were rented long-term to a local family. here is the additional challenge. 52% of short-term rentals are owned by nonstate residents. 27% owned more than 20 units. so you can see so much housing been taken out of our market and we saw that after the wildfire. an estimated 75,000 of 89,000 units in the short term rental market are not legal based on the definition, according to existing laws. last year after listening to activists like lahaina strong on maui and i thank them for speaking up, we passed legislation to empower counties

to reform short-term rentals, returning thousands of housing units to the local market, increasing supply and bringing down prices. in just two years we made significant progress on housing, but there is more work to be done. i can commit to you we will work to create more affordable housing in our state for all families including nurses, teachers, firefighters, every single family that needs a home. let's talk about homelessness. the people of hawaii asked us to take on and reduce homelessness on our islands. when we started in 2022 we faced the second highest per capita homeless rate in the nation. 43 out of every 10,000 people in our state were homeless, more than double the national rate of 18 per 10,000. 6223 individuals were homeless when we started. as many of you know, homelessness is a complex and

challenging issue. many who are homeless suffer from mental illness, addiction or both with some developing ptsd from being on the streets. many can only get medical care in our er. the cost to care for homeless individual in hawaii is an average of $82,000 per person per year. when they are discharged they do not even get that. they go right back to the streets where they are sick or get injured again. instead of conducting sweeps that just move homeless people from one place to another without offering help or hope, we saw an opportunity for a new approach more compassionate and effective. by adopting this, that housing is health care, we broke this vicious cycle, by putting people in inexpensive tiny homes after they are discharged from hospital emergency rooms. we did this across from washington place. when i took office two years ago there was only one cal poly in our state, a village we created.

immediately we signed an emergency proclamation on homelessness to cut through the red tape preventing us from building more of these villages. now, our communal villages offer tiny homes for the homeless, shared space for cooking, eating, recreation, growing food, community activities, job training. studies have shown providing housing for chronically homeless individuals not only improves their health, but saves taxpayers millions of dollars in health care costs. a recent report by the university of hawaii found six months after individuals were placed in permanent housing, their health care costs dropped 76%. that was from $8,000 a month down to today, we have built a total of 17 kauhale villages across our state, with a total of 30 villages to be completed by

2026, which will provide over 1,500 housing units for the homeless. [applause] if i may, i'd like to recognize all the mayors for their collaborative work on homelessness, especially mayor blangiardi and his team led by jim ireland. we worked day and night together where homelessness has been concentrated on oahu so i thank you, mayor blangiardi. you've been extraordinary. i'd also like to recognize john mizunon, who some you guys know, from our homelessness team and all the service providers who are helping build the kauhale initiative in our fight to end homelessness in hawai'i. in our executive biennium budget, we have requested $50 million each year for the next two years for kauhale

development, to continue to provide these services, wrap-around services, social services, and lower the cost to the state of hawaii. we have also requested $10.8 million to support family assessment centers, the housing first program, the rapid rehousing program, homeless outreach, and civil legal services. all of these services help us address our social challenges. with these innovations and investments, over the next five years we project a net savings of all costs over $450 million for hawaii taxpayers at the same time we are reducing homelessness and caring for those in need. we are well on our way to achieving our goal of cutting homelessness in half in our state by the end of next year. again, thank you for your support. [applause] a few comments about health care. the people of our state continue to ask us to make health care more accessible and affordable for everyone. so over the past two years, we

have made greater investments to strengthen and extend our health care system to help those in need. one of the ongoing challenges, as you know, is to attract and maintain enough health care providers in our state. the hawai'i physician workforce assessment project's december 2023 report estimated we have an unmet need of 757 physicians statewide. to address our state's shortage of health care professionals, we launched the healthcare education loan repayment program, our help, which is the acronym. it's state funded. it's been a great initiative and it's provided $30 million for educational loan repayment to more than 900 providers licensed or certified to practice in the state hawai'i. in exchange for a the two-year commitment of service in our state, a diverse list of health care professionals has been able to get these loan repayments for up to $50,000 a year. keep in mind, some health care professionals have loans up to $400,000 when they exit medical school or training. we offered 600 scholarships in

our first year and another 600 in the second year. and what does help prioritize? it prioritizes primary care and behavioral health specialists with deep ties to our state who are committed to practicing in their communities. we're placing this extra emphasis on mental health and addiction treatment because we have to address the heightened concerns that have arisen since the covid era and the maui recovery. and so we're asking you humbly, please fund an additional $30 million over the next two years cumulative to continue help with generous support also coming from ben factors outside. salesforce, for example, co-founder marc benioff, who has pledged $10 million, $5 million last year and another $5 million in 2025 to support the program. in our first two years, we also invested in improvements to our rural spectrum on neighboring

islands, especially on big island, hawaii, maui and kauai. our nursing facilities needed an update. for the next two years, we have requested $25 million for the keau -- kea' au outpatient center for the construction of urgent care, primary care, specialty care imaging centers, and a behavioral health center, and over $44 million for improvements to hhsc facilities, including the renovation of kona emergency department. and we requested $27 million for additional hawaii state hospital beds to address the psychiatric beds for mental health. it will help families get care they need. in the last two years we dedicated more state and federal funds to raising medicaid rates which was a smart move with the legislature because it basically had a dollar for dollar match from the federal government. and this will help the 450,000 who have medicaid and are the

most vulnerable. [applause] let's talk about public safety a bit. over the past few years, we've lost too many loved ones and endured far too much gun violence in our neighborhoods where our children should be safe. so we have taken action to prevent gun violence and make our schools and communities safer. we passed two new gun safety laws, designating sensitive places where firearms will be prohibited statewide, and providing active shooter training in public and charter schools. even though that's scary we could prevent tragedy. we have held two successful gun buyback events so far, collecting approximately 500 firearms each time and taking them off our streets for good. we collected assault rifles, semi-automatic rifles, handguns, revolvers, shotguns, and ghost guns. and we gave $100 foodland gift card in

exchange for each firearm. this initiative is an amnesty program, with no identification but these gun buyback events which are continue to go on in our administration are really just a larger effort to combat gun violence and promote safe neighborhoods across hawaii. i'm proud to be working with law enforcement agencies to expand these programs statewide. but there is much more work to do on public safety than just addressing gun violence. three weeks ago we all witnessed the horrific fireworks explosion in salt lake, which took the lives of several of our 'ohana and critically injured more than two dozen. if we're going to prevent deadly incidents involving illegal fireworks like this one, we're going to have to make a collective decision as a society to allow only safe and legal fireworks in our state going forward. let me pause here for a moment. the tragic landscape of that explosion was something i had never seen in my life. not years in the hospital, not

years in training, not even the pictures we see on television. it was unbelievable, and no matter what laws we pass, i fear they may not move the needle enough. we will try all the things we can come up with to help keep people safe, but i'm speaking to you-all now, the people of hawaii, please strongly consider, please strongly consider moving away from illegal aerials because no matter what we try to do as a society, if they continue to go up, people we love are going to continue to get hurt. so i hefshlly ask you to make -- so i humbly ask you to make that change for us. in 2023, we established the illegal fireworks task force to identify and disrupt supply chains. the task force did extraordinarily things. they seized 227,000 pounds of illegal fireworks already but incidents like this remind us of the ongoing challenges we face. this year i'll continue to work with our friends in the legislature to curb illegal

fireworks, like i said, so the children and families in hawaii can enjoy beautiful fireworks displays safely. our efforts to expand the health care workforce, stop illegal guns, take fireworks off the streets, reduce overdoses, they'll all help ensure we have a healthy and safe society but it really comes down to the decisions we make as people. that's how we get healthy and safe, so please join me in this initiative. thank you, guys. [applause] i was simply going to share that already we're ranked as the healthiest state and the safest state in the nation, but we still see these tragedies so let's work together to keep it that way. now climate and environment, an hour key issue for all of us. the people of hawaii want us to protect our environment and do our part in the global fight against climate change and reducing carbon emissions in our state. we took immediate action in our

first year, and six months ahead of schedule, we made sure that 104 million gallons of fuel at red hill were safely removed. that was an important accomplishment. we are shutting down red hill for good, so that it never again poses a threat to our health or the safety of our wain again. [applause] -- of our water again. [applause] that was only part of our challenge. last year we joined youth plaintiffs from across our islands in the navahine v. hawai'i department of transportation case in announcing a resolution to the world's first youth-led constitutional climate case that sought to address transportation emissions. in other words, young people sued the governor who we love and we settled that case. but it was overdue and what we did was we did the following: we took action with them and that basically that settlement to make sure that climate emergency is addressed for our youth, for

the next generation, so we can transition hawaii to a climate safe zero transportation emissions system. i'd like to recognize these young people today for their passion and commitment to creating a healthy and sustainable future for their generation and for generations to come. thank you. [applause] last year, we also formed the climate advisory team led by chris benjamin, bringing -- and what that's done is it brought together the best of our climate science experts and our business and financial advisors and legal professionals to tackle the challenges of climate-related disasters. this team's provided a comprehensive road map for all of us, for the state's strategy to mitigate the severe impacts of climate change in the coming years. and i urge my friends in the legislature to pass landmark legislation based on their report which takes all the ideas we've been talking about for many years, take those ideas into account and pass landmark

legislation this year to fund our critical efforts on climate impact. [applause] it is in that report where they outlined that we have $500 million a year of climate impact that we have to somehow address, and we give a series of possible recommendations, a menu, if you will, to look at it. that's where we talk about climate impact, t.a.t. questions and so on. you lead us, let us work with you completely to find some solution this year. we must take action on science-based recommendations from experts, like this climate advisory team, before it's too late to protect hawaii from the advancing climate crisis. i'd like to turn my attention now to the maui wildfire and our recovery. on august 8, 2023, wildfires swept across maui, claiming the lives of 102 of our beloved friends, neighbors, and family

members. these fires, fueled by drought, fanned by hurricane-force winds, were an unprecedented tragedy for maui and for our entire state. since that date, the people of hawai'i have united in showing care and support for the survivors and their families. i want to take a moment right now to thank mayor bissen for being an incredible partner in the recovery effort. thank you, thank you. [applause] in the 17 months since the wildfire disaster, we've continued to lead the coalition of state, local, and federal agencies in an enormous effort to clear debris, which took just under year, to clear all the debris in residential and commercial areas, to restore infrastructure, build temporary and long-term housing and local schools. we supported survivors with food, housing, medical care and mental health resources and financial resources. they still struggle.

a year ago we announced the maui interim housing plan, a $500 million initiative to create a pool of more than 3,000 housing units for displaced families. this partnership included the hawai'i community foundation, cnha, and so many other advancement and so many other generous philanthropists. i'd like to acknowledge micah kane and kuhio lewis for their critical help and leadership. currently, the state and its partners are building more than 1,200 temporary housing units for survivors on maui, in addition to providing direct rental assistance aid for more than 5,600 displaced people. working together with our congressional delegation, the white house, and maui county, we will have over $2 billion in federal disaster relief funds to

invest in building housing and aid in the full recovery of maui. by leading this effort altogether we've also been able to reach the global and financial settlement, which you've been well updated on, what did it do? it help us avert a financial collapse of maui county and hawaii's energy system, sparing our state years of economic hardship and higher energy costs. last year we began to build or built a total of 810 new universities of permanent housing -- units of permanent housing across four projects on maui, and we are finishing 1,044 units of transitional housing to meet the community's needs until we can fully rebuild lahaina the way the people want it. now we've moved more than 99% of those who were displaced by the fire into long-term housing, and it was a great challenge. and we'll be able to keep working day in and day out to make sure every survivor has a safe and stable place to call home but it requires these

resources. as maui continues to rebuild, i, with you, will do everything possible to do everything to ensure everyone has the resources they need. so in the budget these next two years, in addition to the global settlement -- and thank you for helping these people heal, our people, we've requested over $350 million for other projects on maui to aid in their recovery, to fund new schools, to make sure that housing is updated, to improve wildfire prevention, and that's a statewide initiative, by the way, to prevent a future disaster. the wildfires on maui have forced us to confront the risks that we face as a state from climate-related disasters. so working with the counties, we've updated and improved our emergency siren protocols. we've also re-established the state fire marshal. thank you for that. that includes $2.2 million in funding, which will help that office regulate building and fire safety standards, guide the state's wildfire prevention and education efforts, which is very

important. develop and scorecard with all -- coordinate with all of our state agencies. with the help of the federal government, we are deploying 80 wildfire and 16 wind sensors across our state to provide an early alert system with 24-hour sensing and alerts cape able of identifying changes and conditions -- in conditions before wildfires start and to continuously transmit information and send electronic notifications when problems are detected. we are a much safer state from fires than where we were two years ago. but the tragedy in los angeles validates the urgency of this effort. i've also proposed that the state create defensible spaces around homes, developed mapped out evacuation plans statewide and encourage in community-wide preparedness initiatives to mitigate the impact of any fires. and with all that there's still so much work to do. we'll continue to work with our federal partners with resources, nonprofit organizations and local communities to ensure greater resilience to climate-related disasters and

preto prevent them in the -- and to prevent them in the future. since the fires we faced enormous challenges but we've been united and we're determined to help maui and our ohana and much -- help them rebuild. while much of our work has been driven by the housing crisis, our state's pandemic recovery, the maui wildfires, and more recently the new year's explosion, we are also constantly thinking about the future. we will continue to dream big in our state, pursuing major transformative projects and initiatives in the years ahead—- such as building a modern stadium for our people, pursuing restorative reforms to our justice system which also meet our needs for new, more humane correctional facilities, and finally, we'll develop a statewide food security plan to address childhood hunger, which the first lady and i have been working on together. [applause]

in conclusion, over the last two years, working together with our partners in the legislature, our team's taken action on the biggest challenges facing our state and we have made real progress on the issues that matter most to the people of hawaii. again, i'd like to thank everyone for coming together to help maui recover and for making possible the results that have been achieved. we've made progress but there's so much more to do. there's still too many families searching for affordable housing. there's still too many people struggling to make ends meet. there are still too many people living on the street. but if we stand together as one 'ohana like we have over the past two years, and continue to put our values into action, we will reach our dreams, and together we will build the hawai'i our children and grandchildren deserve. mahalo and aloha. and much love. [applause] [captions copyright national

cable satellite corp. 2025] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> this afternoon, a look at elite challenges -- the american enterprise institute for public policy research hosts. watch live at 4:30 p.m. on c-span, c-span now, our free mobile video app, or online at c-span.org. >> non book lovers, c-span has a number of podcasts for you. listen to best selling annonauthors on the afterwards podcast. and on q&a, non authors and others who are making things

happen. and book notes + that regularly feature fascinating authors of ononbooks on a variety of topics. download c-span or go to our website c-span.org/podcast. joina sense of what is the week ahead, spectrum news, he serves as the national political reporter. thanks for your time. what do you know as far as the agenda for this week. but what are they looking for this week. >> a slightly quieter week paid i'm hoping not to jinx it by saying that but the president is down in florida. he went to his mar-a-lago club last friday and is staying in florida at least through wednesday because the white house official confirmed to me tomorrow he is set to