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Ogumoro wants more than 3 miles of submerged lands
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Posted on Jun 07 2011
On the day that House Speaker Eli Cabrera (R-Saipan) invited Delegate Gregorio Kilili Sablan to their session, vice speaker Felicidad Ogumoro (Cov-Saipan) pre-filed a joint resolution urging the U.S. Congress to convey 200 miles of submerged lands to the CNMI.
Ogumoro’s proposal is much more than what Sablan’s HR 670 is proposing, which seeks to convey 3 miles of submerged lands to the CNMI.
Sablan repeatedly said it will be impossible to get all the 200 miles that Ogumoro wants, adding that the CNMI spent 14 years on the same proposal but failed.
The delegate said his HR 670 has received support from the House, just like in the previous Congress. But the U.S. Senate blocked his previous bill, prompting him to reintroduce it this year.
Short of saying a 200-mile proposal is a long shot, Sablan said “claiming something does not necessarily mean we can get it.”
He called on the CNMI government to rally behind his HR 670, and once it passes the U.S. House and Senate and becomes law, then he will work on expanding the 3 miles.
The speaker said Oumoro’s joint resolution will be taken up during the next session, since copies of it were distributed only on Monday and members need time to review it.
For the first time in the 17th Legislature, Ogumoro used a lectern placed in front of the chamber and read a five-page prepared privilege speech to justify her House Joint Resolution 17-36.
Her resolution requests and urges the U.S. Congress “to recognize the longstanding ancestral rights of persons of Northern Marianas descent with respect to their ownership of the submerged lands for the Northern Mariana Islands and its adjacent waters.”
Ogumoro said this is in accordance with the Covenant and the Constitution.
“The submerged lands and the waters adjacent to our islands belong to our people,” Ogumoro said.
Sablan, during a question-and-answer with House members, said even bigger and mightier U.S. states have not gotten more than what they have asked for. He cited Hawaii and California as examples; the latter, he said, has been batting for control of over 12 miles of submerged lands.
