Last week, state Land Board members voted 5-1 to reject an environmental impact study on the Pōhakuloa Training Area land on Hawaiʻi Island.

The military leases the state land for just a dollar. The Army says Pōhakuloa is the only remaining place where it conducts live-fire training for its troops and for the state’s first responders. But the community has resisted, with some arguing the lands should not be renewed.

Others argue the activity is contrary to the uses of conservation lands and point to the cleanup still going on at Mākua Valley on Oʻahu and on Kahoʻolawe.

The Conversation talked to Gov. Josh Green on Thursday morning about the lease issue at Pōhakuloa and the leases on Oʻahu that the military hopes to retain.

On compromise and negotiation with the military

GOV. JOSH GREEN: The truth of the matter is, it’s a very complicated discussion. It’s gone on for decades and decades and everyone has important points to make. We can’t walk away from security of the nation, and they do need to train in the region. I acknowledge that, and there’s no way that we can deflect anyone’s concerns about the environment. So the environmental impact studies will continue… If, ultimately, a land swap is fully proposed, I’ll get input from everybody. And the land swap would have to be very thoughtful for the people of Hawaiʻi. It would have to give us extra capacity to preserve the land. I’m sure it would result in much more land coming to us, and we could then protect our natural and cultural resources. So that’s out there… The federal government has certain capacity, which I don’t love, and that’s to use a nuclear option, and simply, ‘I’m going to domain the land.’ I don’t think it will come to that. I don’t even think that will really be threatened, but it is out there as a possibility, and that’s why I have little choice but to always work with people.

Spc. Abreanna Goodrich/AP

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U.S. Army

And I know that that can be frustrating for some that may, you know, have a true purity test on how we deal with the military, or how we deal with any presidential administration, conservative or liberal. But I have no choice but to try to keep good lines of communication going, so that extreme measures aren’t used. And that would be an extreme measure. So that’s my approach. I do think that I can get a very good compromise done by 2029, if people still have me and I’m the one negotiating this, but it does have its stresses applied to it, and I think the military was expressing that while they were here.

On the military’s land leases on Oʻahu

GREEN: I think that we will be able to settle pretty straightforwardly. I don’t think that that’s going to be difficult, and I think that I’m going to work very hard. In fact, I don’t think, I’m doing it — to have a global agreement by the end, because I don’t want other governors to have to inherit this issue for the next decade, two decades. I’d like to resolve these matters, and I’m the kind of person who likes to be able to move on and then take advantage of good results, and that’s why we’re trying to advance things like housing for everyone or health care for everybody. I don’t want these same problems to linger, and they would linger if we don’t address some of the land leases here, Kauaʻi, and so on.

U.S Army

On the complexities of new deals with the military

GREEN: There’s pretty clear consensus that there is a need to have significant training capacity in our region. Look, it’s just a reality of the times. But there’s no reason that we shouldn’t get a fantastic deal and that we shouldn’t get it for all the islands, because this is an era where environmental protection is more important to me than ever before, and that’s why we passed the climate impact fee… The deal we ultimately have with the military, especially if it significantly shrinks the footprint, and everyone can get a semi-successful settlement out of this, is good because we move on. Then we can preserve the land. We can clean up the land. We have resources. More beautiful places are preserved. All of that is good. But if this lingers forever, I really don’t want people to have the same concerns. We have new concerns to deal with.

This interview aired on The Conversation on May 15, 2025. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. Hannah Kaʻiulani Coburn adapted this interview for the web.