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Tenorio asks Senate panel to sponsor hearing
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Posted on Jul 23 2005
Washington Rep. Pete A. Tenorio has asked the Senate Energy Committee chair that the CNMI’s unresolved matters over submerged lands and tax “cover-over” be examined.
“These two issues have been hanging over our heads for many years now, and I believe that legislative action is the proper course to resolve them,” said Tenorio in a letter to committee chair Pete Domenici.
As a result, the CNMI’s efforts to achieve a higher standard of living for its people and to fund local self-government and much needed infrastructure have been seriously hampered and compromised, Tenorio added.
“Resolving these issues will pace the CNMI on a course toward sustainable economic development,” he said.
His letter states further that, based on CNMI records, it has been determined that the CNMI should receive:
* an estimated $7.9 million in income tax withheld by the United States from military and federal employees who are or were CNMI residents or stationed in the CNMI;
* an estimated $30 million-$40 million in estate taxes paid by CNMI estates, of which amounts have not been accounted to the CNMI and should be adjusted to reflect the increase in value of these proceeds while held for many years by the Treasury Department; and
* an estimated $28 million for tax proceeds paid to the Internal Revenue Service by CNMI residents. “It has been almost two years since your Committee requested the Administration for its estimate of the ‘cover over ‘obligations,” Tenorio reminded Domenici.
On the submerged lands issue, Tenorio informed the committee chair that the CNMI government maintains, for environmental and other public purposes, that it is vital that some degree of control over submerged lands and ocean resources be vested in the CNMI. The U.S. Congress has previously granted control to all states and the territories of three to nine miles.
“I anticipate that the committee will convene the hearing later this year or early next year. The chairman knows that we have been dealing with these issues for some time now, and I believe that he will be responsive to my request for an oversight hearing,” said Tenorio. (PR)
