CNMI Attorney General Edward Manibusan warned yesterday against a Senate bill to give Rota and Tinian mayors control over solid waste funds for their home islands, noting that the funds are under the constitutional control of the CNMI Finance Department and transferring expenditure authority could risk federal grants loss or fines.<\/p>\n
Senate Bill 19-60, if enacted, would essentially allow the mayors of Tinian and Rota to serve as the expenditure authority for the Solid Waste Management Revolving Fund programs on their islands. The bill is currently under review by the House Committee on Judiciary and Government Operations.<\/p>\n
In a letter yesterday to committee chair Rep. Glenn Maratita, Manibusan notes two concerns over the authority over the funds, and the expertise needed to manage these solid waste programs.<\/p>\n
Manibusan notes that if the Senate bill is enacted into law, these funds would remain \u201cCommonwealth and public funds which are subject to the constitutional authority of the Secretary of Finance\u201d to control and regulate the expenditure of public funds.<\/p>\n
Further, Manibusan is concerned over the \u201cextensive federal governance over solid waste management.\u201d<\/p>\n
The U.S. Code on waste disposal regulations is \u201c114 pages long in two-column layout,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
And the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency\u2019s compliance manual on solid waste management runs another 242 pages, he added.<\/p>\n
Noncompliance with these regulations, Manibusan said, can result in the loss of federal grants or in penalties\u2014\u201cnot to mention the potential for environmental degradation.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile the mayors of Tinian and Rota may be knowledgeable about their islands\u2019 solid waste needs, it is unlikely that they will be able to familiarize themselves with federal solid waste management rules unless they undertake extensive training or hire additional employees,\u201d Manibusan said. \u201cWithout such expertise, a misdirected expenditure could cost the Commonwealth a significant sum of money.\u201d<\/p>\n
Manibusan concludes with this recommendation: a cost-benefit analysis of the bill and whether it would \u201cfrustrate the ability of the Department of Public Works and the Bureau of Environment Quality\u201d to do their jobs in in complying with federal solid waste management law.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
CNMI Attorney General Edward Manibusan warned yesterday against a Senate bill to give Rota and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[112,8525,1882,1411],"class_list":["post-215940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-environmental-protection-agency","tag-glenn-maratita","tag-public-works","tag-senate-bill"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215940","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\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215940\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}