APIL backs $30M ‘bridge to sustainability’

A regional lawmakers group has adopted a resolution backing the CNMI and American Samoa’s request for a combined $30-million financial aid from the U.S. Congress.

The Association of Pacific Island Legislatures approved the resolution during a meeting in Guam last week. The document called on Congress to either reconsider minimum wage increases, or approve an emergency supplemental appropriation of $15 million each for the Northern Marianas and American Samoa.

“The funds will provide necessary support for the local economies during this period of economic crisis in each jurisdiction, and will create the base of information that will assist the Congress committees’ interest in helping these jurisdictions attain a greater degree of economic sustainability,” the APIL said.

The CNMI and American Samoa have asked for the federal aid as a backup plan in the likely event that Congress fails to heed both governments’ plea for the suspension of future minimum wage increases.

The so-called “bridge-to-sustainability funds” is seen to cushion the impact of the wage increases on the ailing economies of American Samoa and the Northern Marianas. The two governments plan to use the money to maintain public services, provide incentives to American Samoa’s tuna industry and the CNMI’s tourism industry, install fuel storage facilities, offer emergency financial relief to affected employers, supplement local Medicare caps, increase economic data collection, and conduct wage increase impact studies.

Gov. Benigno R. Fitial praised APIL for the resolution. “I commend and applaud the expression of support from APIL in recognizing the economic vulnerability of American Samoa and the CNMI,” said Fitial.

“On behalf of the people of the CNMI, I am grateful to our Pacific Island legislators for calling on federal policy makers to provide much needed financial relief for our struggling islands. I am very pleased that Pacific Island leaders have embraced the cause of the CNMI and American Samoa,” he added.

CNMI Vice Speaker Joseph Deleon Guerrero and Vaito’a Hans A. Langkilde, a member of American Samoa’s Legislature, pushed for the adoption of the APIL resolution.

Lynn Knight, chairwoman of the Hotel Association of the Northern Mariana Islands, also welcomed APIL’s move. “I am happy to see this happen under the leadership of our vice speaker and Representative Langkilde. Efforts are still underway for us to get this bridge to sustainability funding,” said Knight, who traveled to Washington last month to discuss the federal aid with congressional appropriations committees.

Fitial and Eni Faleomavaega, American Samoa’s delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives, have written Congress asking for a suspended minimum wage hike or an economic assistance package to help mitigate the adverse economic impacts of forced federal wage hikes during weak economic conditions on the islands.

“Simply put, the fragile private sectors of American Samoa and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands cannot support additional costs when we are already in economic decline,” said Fitial and Faleomavaega, in a letter to Senators Ted Kennedy, Daniel Inouye, Jeff Bingaman, and Daniel Akaka.

Absent a federal wage suspension, Fitial called for the U.S. Congress to provide a minimum safety net to offset the impact of diminished revenues and economic activities that would likely result from higher wage costs. The Fitial and Faleomavaega proposal called for $30 million in federal financial support for the two jurisdictions to be included in an emergency supplemental appropriation bill now being drafted in both houses of Congress. These funds would be used for “investments in critical areas that have the potential to bring multiplying economic benefits” to the islands.