Cabinet adopts bills to fund U.S. forces realignment

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Cabinet adopts bills to fund U.S. forces realignment

The Abe Cabinet on February 9 approved U.S. forces realignment-related bills to fund for the relocation of U.S. Marine Corps units from Okinawa to Guam and create subsidies for the local governments on which the realignment will impose heavier base burdens.

The government and ruling parties intend to have these bills enacted into law effective until the end of March 2017 in the current ordinary session of the Diet.

Last May, the Japanese and U.S. governments agreed that Japan should pay 6.09 billion dollars (about 730 billion yen) as part of the cost of relocating Okinawa-based U.S. Marine Corps units to Guam for a further buildup of the U.S. forces in that island.

It is unprecedented for any nation to use its tax money for the buildup of foreign military bases outside its territory, but the bills will allow such an aberrant cost sharing.

With the aim of forcing concerned local governments to cooperate to the end in implementing the realignment plan, the bills will establish a system of increasing the amount of subsidies to them in accordance with the progress of the project.
- Akahata, February 10, 2007