Without naming her, Sen. Brian Schatz seemed to take a jab at Rep. Colleen Hanabusa last week, when he said in a television interview, “Sequestration doesn’t make sense. It shouldn’t have been approved.”

Hanabusa, of course, voted for the Budget Control Act as part of the debt ceiling debate. The act created a super committee to come up with a deficit reduction deal, with the understanding that if there was no deal the automatic sequestration cuts would take effect. No deal was struck, triggering the cuts.

Schatz, it can be argued, also voted for sequestration under a similar situation. As Hanabusa did to prevent the U.S. from defaulting on its loans, Schatz voted for the continuing budget resolution earlier this year to avoid a government shutdown. The temporary budget didn’t create sequestration, but kept it in place. Hanabusa voted against the budget compromise for that reason.

Schatz’s comments came in an unusual setting — on the Weather Channel. He made the comment in the context of sequestration cuts to NOAA.

According to recent press reports, the cuts could ground “Hurricane Hunter” flights that record real-time information from storms for forecasters. It could also end an annual clean up of ocean floors off Hawaii’s coast, like one that recently removed a tractor-trailer’s amount of human junk. 

Photo: Sen. Brian Schatz at a Senate committee hearing earlier this year. (Courtesy of Schatz’s office).

— Kery Murakami