{"id":188157,"date":"2014-12-24T04:00:10","date_gmt":"2014-12-23T18:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=188157"},"modified":"2014-12-24T04:00:10","modified_gmt":"2014-12-23T18:00:10","slug":"bill-allowing-5m-mplt-used-cuc-stipulated-order-okd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/bill-allowing-5m-mplt-used-cuc-stipulated-order-okd\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill allowing $5M from MPLT to be used for CUC stipulated order OK\u2019d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Senate approved yesterday a bill appropriating future Marianas Public Land Trust interest distributions to meet the CNMI\u2019s obligations under a settlement agreement it signed with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_188159\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-188159\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a attid=\"188159\"  href=\"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/MPLT-pix.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/MPLT-pix-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"Commonwealth Utilities Corp. executive director Alan Fletcher speaks before yesterday\u2019s Senate session on HB 18-216, HS2 that appropriates future Marianas Public Land Trust interest distributions to meet the CNMI\u2019s obligations under a settlement agreement it signed with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. To Fletcher\u2019s right is CUC legal counsel James Sirok. (Mark Rabago)\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-188159\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-188159\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Commonwealth Utilities Corp. executive director Alan Fletcher speaks before yesterday\u2019s Senate session on HB 18-216, HS2 that appropriates future Marianas Public Land Trust interest distributions to meet the CNMI\u2019s obligations under a settlement agreement it signed with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. To Fletcher\u2019s right is CUC legal counsel James Sirok. (Mark Rabago)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Under the deal, the local government is required to deposit over $22.8 million until 2018 to complete some stalled Commonwealth Utilities Corp. projects.<\/p>\n<p>House Bill 18-216, HS1 unanimously passed, with all eight senators present saying yes to the measure. Sen. Paul Manglona (Ind-Rota) was absent.<\/p>\n<p>HB 18-216, HS1 instructs the Department of Public Lands to \u201cimmediately transfer\u201d at least $5 million to MPLT.<\/p>\n<p>MPLT will then loan $5 million to the CNMI government at an interest rate of not less than 7 percent per annum to used to satisfy the Commonwealth\u2019s obligation under its settlement agreement with EPA.<\/p>\n<p>Under the settlement agreement with EPA, the CNMI must deposit $5 million by Dec. 31, 2014, into the U.S. District Court for the NMI\u2019s court registry.<\/p>\n<p>Other court-mandated payments to settle the CNMI government\u2019s agreement with EPA are as follows:<\/p>\n<p>-$2,800,000 no later than Feb. 1, 2015;<\/p>\n<p>-$5 million no later than Feb. 1, 2016;<\/p>\n<p>-$5 million no later than Feb. 1, 2017; and<\/p>\n<p>-$5 million no later than Feb. 1, 2018.<\/p>\n<p>CUC executive director Alan Fletcher and legal counsel James Sirok attended the hearing yesterday to voice their opposition to a particular provision of HB 18-216, HS1crediting the $5 million used to satisfy the government\u2019s agreement with EPA to settle outstanding arrears of the Public School System and the Commonwealth Healthcare Corp.<\/p>\n<p>Fletcher said it doesn\u2019t consider the $5 million as payment to the outstanding debt of PSS and CHCC since the \u201cmoney goes directly to the court.\u201d He said the utility company cannot simply \u201cwrite off\u201d some of the government\u2019s debt because it deposits $5 million that will be used for CUC projects.<\/p>\n<p>HB 18-216, HS1, which passed the House of Representatives last Dec. 18, now goes to Gov. Eloy S. Inos\u2019 desk for approval.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Senate approved yesterday a bill appropriating future Marianas Public Land Trust interest distributions to&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":188159,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900,4],"tags":[26,49,352,161],"class_list":["post-188157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-local-news","tag-cnmi","tag-cuc","tag-epa","tag-mplt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188157","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\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}