‘OPERATOR ERROR’: The tone of the House Armed Services subcommittee hearing into the leaks at the Navy’s Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility on the Hawaiian island of Oahu was set in the opening statements of the committee’s chairman and ranking member.

California Democratic Rep. John Garamendi began by questioning whether it is even possible to make the massive fuel storage facility safe for continued operation and whether its continued operation is the best use of taxpayer resources. ”Can the billions of dollars the United States taxpayer will be asked to invest in this facility be better used in finding a new, innovative engineering feat for this millennium, suitable for modern warfare?”