House PUTC tables bill to mandate CUC to change rates for CHCC
The House of Representatives Committee on Public Utilities, Transportation, and Communications has decided to suspend consideration of a Senate bill that would mandate the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. to change the power, water, and wastewater rates of the Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. from government to commercial.
Committee chair Rep. Vincent S. Aldan (Ind-Saipan) said during their meeting Tuesday that, instead of trying to do anything with Senate Bill 23-37, Senate Draft 1, they will just table it and try to get the Senate to act on House Bill 23-59, House Substitute 1 instead.
That bill, which Aldan introduced, seeks to transition all governmental electric rates to commercial rates. The bill broadens the scope to encompass all utilities: water, wastewater, and electricity.
Under House Bill 23-59, House Substitute 1, the existing governmental utility rate overseen by CUC will be discontinued and replaced with commercial rates.
During the discussions on the Senate version, Rep. Blas Jonathan T. Attao (Ind-Saipan) noted that House Bill 23-59 is in the Senate and that will take care of the hospital, moving forward.
Attao said he is not saying that CHCC shouldn’t abide with the payment plan they previously negotiated with CUC. “The thing that I know is we need to reduce the rate,” he added.
The utilities of all government buildings are currently being charged at a government rate, which is more expensive. Charging them the commercial rate is seen as a way to lower the government’s utility bills.
Attao believes the Senate should act on the House legislation so that they can stop the government charges to CHCC.
He said if they can get that House bill out of the Senate and into the governor’s desk for his signature, CHCC can concentrate on that rate rather than trying to negotiate with CUC because of calculation differences.
“So if we can move forward with that legislation, get that on the governor’s desk and CHCC and all the government entities into that rate already, we can fix the arrears because there’s other stuff that we can address,” he said.
Attao said the legislation in itself only talks about CHCC.
He said one of the arguments of the original bill from the House side was that they wanted to include all government entities.
“So we may as a body right now in this committee agreed to this legislation, but once it gets to the floor, there’s going to be amendments to it to include other government entities, right?” Attao said.
In moving to table the legislation, Rep. Marissa Renee Flores (Ind-Saipan) said they should move forward on moving the House version of the bill based on Attao’s explanation, because there’s no need to keep amending and amending when there is an existing bill at the Senate.
Aldan said Senate Bill 23-37, Senate Draft 1, only specifies the hospital or CHCC, whereas H.B. 23-59, HS1 focuses on all government agencies.
Rep. Vincent S. Aldan
Rep. Blas Jonathan T. Attao
