CUC worries contractors may be unable to bid for projects

The Commonwealth Utilities Corp. is concerned that many of its contractors may be unable to bid for its many federally-funded projects because of the “touchback” rule that is going to go into effect by the end of next month.

In his report during CUC’s regular board meeting yesterday, CUC water/wastewater division acting chief engineer Larry Manacop cited the “touchback” rule affecting many of the CNMI’s foreign workers and environmental permitting delays as among some of their challenges in moving many projects forward.

Manacop said they have since learned that one of their contractors would be sending home about 98 of its staff due to the “touchback” rule. With such potential for limited staffing, many of these contractors will be unable to bid on CUC projects, he said.

“Touchback” refers to the requirement for foreign workers to leave the CNMI before their work visas could be renewed for a third consecutive time. That departure requirement also means that they will have to stay away from the CNMI until a new permit is approved, which could take months.

Manacop said he did mention the “touchback” rule during one of their meetings with federal agencies at a workshop in Honolulu. “Yes, we’re very grateful for the many millions of dollars that you guys are providing, but also please try to make it easier for us to implement these projects,” he said.

In essence, Manacop said, you have federal agencies that are providing the CNMI millions of dollars to build projects, while one federal agency—U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services—is restricting workers from working on these projects. He USCIS is making it difficult for CNMI contractors to get needed workers.

On the issue of environmental permitting, Manacop said that getting environmental clearances from the National Environmental Policy Act, Historic Preservation Office, and Division of Fish and Wildlife are the most challenging for CUC. “That’s what [preventing] a lot of these projects [from] moving forward,” he added.

Manacop said they have projects that already have designs from two years ago, but they are still struggling with HPO until now to get a memorandum of agreement.

He appealed to the CUC board to help them in this matter, that if there is something the board can help with the permitting process, they really need assistance in this aspect.

CUC project manager Nicolette Villagomez said CUC is actively working with the state HPO, along with the Office of Planning and Development, and the Infrastructure Recovery Program that is now under OPD, to put together a blanket agreement for all U.S. Environmental Protection Agency grants to streamline their archeological permitting process.

“That’s something that we are still in negotiations with,” Villagomez said, adding that they had a meeting with the National Advisory Council on Historic Preservation and EPA, and their lawyers to put together this agreement that they can use in moving forward and at least take care of all the archeological historic resource investigations.