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Tenorio urged to lobby for changes to grants regs
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Posted on Feb 17 2005
A member of the House leadership has called on Washington Rep. Pete A. Tenorio to work more closely with the federal government in amending certain regulations to enable the CNMI to tap more federal grants.
Rep. Clyde Norita, during a recent session of the Saipan and Northern Island Legislative Delegation, cited that the CNMI does not enjoy the same funding level as Guam on some grants simply due to the different definition of terms being applied to the CNMI.
He said the CNMI, just like Guam and other insular areas, used to receive $1.2 million in drug enforcement grant a year from the U.S. Department of Justice. But in the early 1990s, the department amended the rules, offering different funding level for “states” and “territories.”
As a result, Guam and Puerto Rico were classified as “states” in terms of funding, but the CNMI was grouped with American Samoa. American Samoa receives a “state” funding and gets 70 percent of the amount, while the CNMI gets only 30 percent or about $300,000, being a territory.
“In the definition of states, we were not really classified as state but a territory. That definition gives us less. We only get the minimum amount of 1/4 of 1 percent in some of regulations. So our Washington Representative needs to work with respective agencies to amend their regulations to include us as a state,” said Norita, a former deputy Public Safety commissioner.
During the session, which was attended by Tenorio, the Washington Representative said that American Samoa naturally has an upper hand on certain funds partly because it has its own congressional delegate.
He concedes, “There’s a need to follow that up.”
Norita said there is a need to work closely with DOJ and other agencies “that define us that way.”
“I look at it as a job for our own Washington Rep. In terms of federal grants, we get a lot. But we could get a lot more through simple amendments of current regulations in our definition of state,” said the lawmaker.
He said it is not understandable why Guam, which is only hundreds miles away, would get $1.2 million in drug enforcement money, “while we’re in the same status as Guam but we don’t get the same funding level.”
