{"id":221376,"date":"2016-02-22T06:06:13","date_gmt":"2016-02-21T20:06:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=221376"},"modified":"2016-02-22T06:06:13","modified_gmt":"2016-02-21T20:06:13","slug":"more-security-more-jobs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/more-security-more-jobs\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018More security, more jobs\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"U.S.<\/a>
U.S. Rep. Rob Wittman and Guam Delegate Madeleine Bordallo address reporters during a press conference at the Pedro P. Tenorio Multi-Purpose Center last Friday night. (Dennis B. Chan)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Visiting members from the U.S. House Armed Service subcommittee on Readiness said Friday that the military buildup in the Marianas means more economic benefits and security to the region and sought to allay concerns about unfunded promises to both Guam and the CNMI made as part of these plans.<\/p>\n

Readiness subcommittee chair Rob Wittman (R-VA 1st District) and Guam Delegate Madeleine Bordallo (D-GU) spoke to reporters Friday night before a sit-down dinner with CNMI leaders and a trip to Tinian to tour Department of Defense project sites the next day. Wittman said they would be visiting Saipan, Tinian, and Guam to look at military project sites involving the Marines and the Air Force, while highlighting \u201ctraining\u201d as important element in building readiness.<\/p>\n

Among others, Defense plans to use Tinian for live-fire ranges and to lease the entire island of Pagan for these purposes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas is an important part of that,\u201d said Wittman, adding they wanted to understand the full scope of what the military plans are and what concerns the CNMI may have.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been working so many years on this military buildup on Guam and we would like to see Saipan and Tinian as part of it,\u201d added Bordallo. <\/p>\n

Wittman, speaking to economic benefits, drew a parallel to his state of Virginia, where they have seven military bases either in or contiguous to his district and have the largest population of veterans and active military personnel in the U.S.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s an important economic impact,\u201d he said. \u201cOur many men and women…also do an extraordinary job of volunteering their time to the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked if these \u201ceconomic benefits\u201d meant more construction and contractor jobs to the CNMI, Wittman acknowledged this briefly but spoke more to \u201cmultiplier effects\u201d of military personnel and families\u2019 spending money and the local services related to that.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of that goes back into the local economy,\u201d Wittman said.<\/p>\n

Wittman highlighted their role in \u201cgetting all the pieces of information\u201d to \u201cbuild a framework\u201d for the Defense\u2019s budget bill, the National Defense Authorization Act. The Readiness subcommittee is the largest subcommittee in the House Armed Service committee and the \u201cmost important,\u201d said Wittman. <\/p>\n

According to an analysis by the Center for Public Integrity in 2015, Wittman is among the many lawmakers of who have received defense industry contributions for their elections and leadership committees as members of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees who were not appointed as conferees for the National Defense Authorization Act.<\/p>\n

Wittman, among lawmakers on both sides of the aisle in both the House and Senate, has received $649,969 in defense contractor contributions from a period of 2003 to 2014, according to the Center\u2019s report in July 2015.<\/p>\n

Bordallo added that Guam has benefited greatly from the military and believes that the CNMI should participate in this. The buildup means more economic benefits and more security, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMore military is more security,\u201d Bordallo said.<\/p>\n

Bordallo acknowledged that the buildup could be \u201canother reason to be threatened too,\u201d noting a missile defense system in Guam that her constituents objected too.<\/p>\n

But \u201cwe are a target,\u201d she added, speaking to both Guam and the CNMI. \u201cWe must be protected. It\u2019s important we have the training,\u201d she said, and hoped \u201cwe come to some conclusion\u201d on rifle training in the CNMI.<\/p>\n

Wittman also said Friday that after the visit to the Marianas they would be holding hearings with the vice chiefs of the military, or the second in commands of the Air Force, Marines, and Navy.<\/p>\n

Unfunded promises<\/strong><\/p>\n

The lawmakers were also drawn to concerns over the unfunded promises made in a programmatic agreement made as part of the Guam and CNMI military buildup in 2010.<\/p>\n

Last October, Guam Gov. Eddie Calvo expressed concerned about the commitments made for Defense to fund a cultural repository and public health lab. \u201cIf commitments are not kept for whatever reasons there are and an agreement is broken then there is no agreement then we have to maybe start from square one,\u201d Calvo told KUAM.<\/p>\n

On the CNMI side, DoD said in 2010 that it would seek $1.7 million to fund and authorize a curation facility on Saipan and a cultural and interpretive center on Tinian. The two projects were set at $1.2 million and $500,000, respectively.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe requests are still there,\u201d Wittman said, when pressed on this issue. \u201cThey are still a priority.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that there have been time challenges but that \u201cit was not for a lack of commitment or focus\u201d by Congress. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll be meeting with Gov. Calvo,\u201d Wittman said. \u201cWe will be reiterating our determination to make sure those projects stay on track.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wittman said they will have to balance other military issues across other states but are \u201cdefinitely committed\u201d to the rebalance in the Pacific and the commitments that have been made for Guam and the CNMI.<\/p>\n

\u201cLike any other projects, you see across the United States. Sometimes there are hiccups or time delays but our job is that the commitment from the United States stays the same,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

To these concerns, Bordallo added that there was a restriction on funds, mainly the billions of dollars supplied by Japan for the relocation of Marines and their families from Okinawa to Guam.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a restriction and it came from the Senate. And finally this restriction was lifted, except for the one section that the governor [Calvo] was referring to,\u201d Bordallo said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll be working on that,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Visiting members from the U.S. House Armed Service subcommittee on Readiness said Friday that the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":221381,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[26,1666,9836,200],"class_list":["post-221376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","tag-cnmi","tag-guam-gov","tag-house-armed-service","tag-military"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221376","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=221376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221376\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}