He sponsored a June 2007 provision of tax deductions for business travel expenses incurred by a business traveler's spouse, a June 2000 repeal of the estate tax and a July 2007 bill to make the 2003 reduction in the capital-gains tax from 20 percent to 15 percent permanent. In addition, he was a cosponsor of a May 2007 bill to provide grants to small business startups owned by Native Americans, Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiians.

In October 2007-nearly a year before the AIG bailout-he cosponsored a bill that required companies to report what they paid their employees and denied tax deductions for excessively large compensation payments. He also cosponsored measures to restrict wage discrimination on the basis of gender and prohibit employment discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. None of these initiatives became law.

In September 2007, amid reports of children suffering lead poisoning from toys imported from China, he cosponsored an unsuccessful September 2007 consumer product safety bill that expanded consumer product testing programs, required third-party testing of all children's products, and expanded the actions the Consumer Product Safety Commission could take to recall unsafe products and penalize noncompliant manufacturers. He was also a cosponsor of a February 2008 bill that restricted creditors' impositions of finance charges, APR increases and other penalties on credit-card holders. It was approved by the House but not the Senate.

Environment

In January 2008, he sponsored a bill to establish a National Marine Mammal Research Program for researching marine mamals and the factors that affect their populations and habitats. He also sponsored an April 2009 bill to fund research on the effects of sonar and other human activity on marine mammals. Neither bill became law.

Additionally, Abercrombie is supportive of research and development into alternative energy and energy efficiency and will cross party lines to do so. When House Republicans presented an energy bill in 2005 that distributed tax incentives, loans, and subsidies to clean coal and renewable energy, he voted for it because of its support of ethanol, which is produced in large quantities in Hawaii.

Bills that he has cosponsored include an April 2008 boost in funding for the conservation of sharks. It passed July 2008, though it never became law. He also cosponsored unsuccessful provisions of tax credits for bicycle commuters, hybrid-vehicle owners, and investors who fund solar energy and fuel cells.

Military

The first district has a sizable population of military personnel and veterans: It is home to the Fort Shafter, the Hickam Air Force Base, and the Pearl Harbor Navy complex. Troops past and present have a steady advocate in Abercrombie, who has led numerous initiatives to raise troop pay, improve their medical care, and provide them and their children more opportunities for education and personal development. He secured the authorization for more than $3 billion in Hawaii base construction projects, plus an array of public-private partnerships to build, renovate and maintain thousands of Hawaii military housing units; the partnerships are projected to generate more than $25 billion over a 50-year period.

Abercrombie criticized the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure process, which shut down and merged multiple military bases around the U.S., even though none of his district's bases were candidates for closure, because he did not think that the projected savings of $15 billion over 20 years justified the economic "grief and suffering."

In January 2007, he cosponsored an amendment to establish a program for reducing the suicide rate among veterans. The amendment passed June 2008 423-0 and was signed into law by President Bush in November 2007.

He sponsored a June 2007 bill to establish new epilepsy research programs in the Department of Veterans Affairs, a July 2007 bill to mandate minimum periods of rest and recuperation for troops serving in Afghanistan and Iraq, and in January 2007, he introduced a bill to expressly outlaw profiteering and fraud related to military action and reconstruction. All three passed the House but died in the Senate.

Just because he supports the troops does not mean he supports the wars in which they fight. Abercrombie voted against the 2002 resolution that authorized President George W. Bush to invade Iraq and has been unwavering in his opposition to the war in Iraq.

In January 2007, when Bush announced he would seek a surge of U.S. troops to quell rising violence in Iraq, Abercrombie told Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Peter Pace during a hearing that "This is the craziest, dumbest plan I've ever seen or heard of in my life" and voted against it. He cosponsored countermeasures throughout 2007 and 2008 to block increases in troop presence, redeploy all U.S. forces from Iraq, and rescind the original 2002 war authorization.

Show less