{"id":204043,"date":"2015-06-12T06:00:52","date_gmt":"2015-06-11T20:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=204043"},"modified":"2015-06-12T06:00:52","modified_gmt":"2015-06-11T20:00:52","slug":"kilili-restore-fuds-funding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/kilili-restore-fuds-funding\/","title":{"rendered":"Kilili: Restore FUDS funding"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>WASHINGTON, D.C.<\/strong>\u2014Delegate Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan (Ind-MP) argued for more money for the U.S. military to clean up after itself, during House debate on the fiscal 2016 Defense appropriation yesterday.<\/p>\n<p>There are 24 formerly used defense sites, FUDS, in the Northern Mariana Islands and 5,000 nationwide, in every state and territory. Sablan wants funding kept at $250 million, the same amount appropriated for fiscal 2015.<\/p>\n<p>Sablan used rusting fuel tanks in the village of Tanapag, as an example of the mess the military has left behind \u201cleaking oil into the ground since Harry Truman was President.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd, everyday,\u201d Sablan said, \u201ckids walking by to school, fishermen in the lagoon just a few feet away, families living with the smell of oil in their homes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As important as cleaning up the formerly used defense sites is for the environment and public health, the congressman noted, it is also important to the credibility of the U.S. military.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn the Northern Marianas, today, the Defense Department wants to expand training activities\u2014using live-fire, running pipelines, building more fuel tanks\u2014doing the very things we know contaminate the environment and threaten public health.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd the people I represent are saying \u2018no\u2019 to this expanded military activity.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRestoring FUDS funding will not change anyone\u2019s mind about the military\u2019s proposed build up in my district,\u201d Sablan said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut, if the people I represent see Congress cutting funding for FUDS,\u201d he added, \u201cthen the military\u2019s promise [to clean up after itself on Tinian and Pagan] has no credibility at all.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>President Obama included $204 million in his fiscal 2016 budget for the FUDS program. The House Appropriations Committee added $25 million to that amount in its bill, H.R. 2635.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is not enough,\u201d Sablan argued. \u201cWe have 5,000 sites already identified for clean up nationwide and another 10,000 on the list of potentially contaminated areas.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Army Corps of Engineers estimates total clean up costs of $14 billion. So at $250 million a year, we will still be having this same discussion 50 years from now.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have to do better.\u201d <strong>(Office of CNMI Delegate)<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WASHINGTON, D.C.\u2014Delegate Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan (Ind-MP) argued for more money for the U.S. military&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[5352,55,200,1589],"class_list":["post-204043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-fuds","tag-health-2","tag-military","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204043","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\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204043\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}