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‘Amendment of law required on grants’
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Posted on Feb 21 2005
An act of Congress—and not just a mere amendment of regulations—is needed to increase the CNMI’s funding level for certain grants, according to Washington Rep. Pete A. Tenorio.
Saipan congressman Clyde Norita had called on Tenorio to work more closely with the federal government in amending certain regulations to enable the CNMI to tap more federal grants.
Norita cited that the CNMI does not enjoy the same funding level as Guam on some grants, particularly the drug enforcement grant, due to a different definition of terms being applied to the CNMI.
He said the CNMI and Guam both used to receive $1.2 million a year in drug enforcement grants from the Department of Justice. But in the early 1990s, the department amended the rules, offering different funding levels for “states” and “territories,” resulting in Guam keeping the same funding level but the CNMI losing most of it.
The amendment classified Guam and Puerto Rico as “states” in terms of funding, but the CNMI was grouped with American Samoa as “territories.” Even then, American Samoa gets a huge part of the funding–70 to 77 percent—while the CNMI as a territory gets the remaining funds, which amounts to $300,000.
“So the issue we’re saying here is 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.
Tenorio said that the law must be amended first because the regulations merely reflect what is in the law.
“It’s in the appropriation act that lumps the American Samoa and the CNMI together. I knew about it from the beginning. I agree that we should get the full amount,” he said.
Tenorio said that even the American Samoa delegate to U.S. Congress supports the amendment.
“He [delegate] agrees that we should get 100 percent. The amendment benefits both sides without dividing up the whole amount,” he said.
Tenorio said his staff is working toward having that particular law amended.
