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Senate urged to act on surcharge bills
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Posted on Oct 11 2005
Senators who oppose a measure that would raise poker fees to fund a fuel surcharge subsidy proposal should consider another House bill that would earmark a portion of excise taxes for the fuel surcharge, House minority bloc leader Arnold I. Palacios said yesterday.
Palacios, the author of House Bill 14-366, proposes to offer a fuel surcharge subsidy of $70 to each low- and moderate-income family. Eligible households are families of four that consume a monthly average of 2,000 kwh or less.
To fund the subsidy proposal, Palacios seeks to raise the poker licensure fee by $4,000 per machine, increasing the poker fee from $6,000 to $10,000 a year.
With about 1,500 poker machines on Saipan and Rota, the measure would generate a new revenue stream amounting to nearly $6 million.
H.B. 14-366 has been pending before the Senate for over a month now.
“I hope the Senate sees fit to do something about it. I also hope to impress upon them the urgency to do this, not because the election is coming up. We’ve got to provide relief to the consumers one way or another,” Palacios said.
He added, however, that senators who do not want to act on the bill because of interests in the poker industry have an option—a related bill authored by Rep. Jesus Attao.
Attao’s H.B. 14-365 aims to earmark 0.5 percent of the taxes collected from income taxes, excise taxes, miscellaneous taxes and license fees, amusement machine taxes, business license fees, charges for services and revenues for the fuel surcharge.
“There are two legislations from the House. They are trying to do the same thing using two different sources of funding,” Palacios said. “If they [senators] don’t want to act [on my bill] because they have an agenda in the poker industry, they could look at the other one. The bottom line is, either legislation will provide relief to the customers.”
The Commonwealth Utilities Corp. is currently charging all customers a fuel surcharge of 3.5 cents per kwh.
