The House of Representatives introduced and\/or passed 15 measures yesterday, including a bill reinstating a Commonwealth Utilities Corp. board of directors and an initiative asking voters whether they want to repeal or continue Article 12 of the NMI Constitution.<\/p>\n
Article 12 restricts land ownership to persons of Northern Marianas descent.<\/p>\n
The House introduced 10 bills or from House Bills 17-206 to 17-225, one local bill, and one initiative. Members also passed three House bills.<\/p>\n
Among the bills passed:<\/p>\n
-HB 17-144, by Rep. Ray Yumul (R-Saipan), seeks to officially establish a CNMI Veterans Cemetery. <\/p>\n
-HB 17-214, by Rep. Stanley Torres (Ind-Saipan), strengthens the Commonwealth Public Utilities Commission.<\/p>\n
-HB 17-7, also by Torres, creates a Second Marianas Political Status Commission to reexamine the CNMI\u2019s political relationship with the United States.<\/p>\n
The 12 bills\/initiative\/local bill introduced were:<\/p>\n
-HB 17-206, by Yumul, authorizing the Department of Public Health to regulate private ambulance services, compliance and response time.<\/p>\n
-HB 17-217, by House minority leader Joseph Deleon Guerrero, reducing the rebate tax.<\/p>\n
-HB 17-218, by Yumul, allocating funds received pursuant to U.S. Public Law 110-229. This is the $150 CNMI education funding fee to be paid by employers for every foreign worker they hire.<\/p>\n
-HB 17-219, by Rep. Joseph Palacios (R-Saipan), to create a CNMI Product Seal Act of 2011.<\/p>\n
-HB 17-220, by floor leader George Camacho (Ind-Saipan), repealing in its entirety the Beneficiary Derivative Lawsuit Act or Public Law 17-51.<\/p>\n
-HB 17-221, by Rep. Joseph Palacios, establishing a Government Employee\u2019s Self-Insurance Fund.<\/p>\n
-HB 17-222, also by Camacho, reinstating a CUC board of directors.<\/p>\n
-HB 17-223, by Rep. Teresita Santos (Ind-Rota), amending the qualifications for the position of a resident director for the Rota Health Center.<\/p>\n
-HB 17-225, by Rep. Tony Sablan (R-Saipan), seeking to provide resident workers with the same benefits given to nonresident workers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The House of Representatives introduced and\/or passed 15 measures yesterday, including a bill reinstating a Commonwealth Utilities Corp. board of directors and an initiative asking voters whether they want to repeal or continue Article 12 of the NMI Constitution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-155126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155126\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}