Gov. Ralph DLG Torres said the lawsuit filed against the military\u2019s proposal to conduct live-fire training facilities on the islands of Tinian and Pagan has affected their ongoing discussions for increased presence of U.S. forces in the CNMI.<\/p>\n
Torres said he agrees with the concerns of the environmental groups and has renewed the administration\u2019s stand of opposing the military\u2019s original plans of using both islands as live-fire training facilities.<\/p>\n
Last month, four environmental and cultural preservation groups filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Navy and Secretary Ray Mabus, and U.S. Department of Defense and Secretary Ashton Carter.<\/p>\n
\u201cI agree with all the concerns of these environmental groups and respect their decision of filing a lawsuit. Pagan was part of the military\u2019s proposal and we oppose what is being originally proposed,\u201d said Torres.<\/p>\n
\u201cI also instructed Department of Public Lands Secretary Marianne [Teregeyo] to move ahead with the homestead program that needs to be availed to locals up north.\u201d<\/p>\n
The lawsuit also limited the U.S. military\u2019s statements in their ongoing talks with the CNMI government on their plans for the Commonwealth. \u201cThey are prohibited to talk because of the lawsuit. They would like to discuss some more issues but they are prohibited to talk.\u201d<\/p>\n
Torres said that the Earthjustice lawsuit is a private matter. \u201cWe didn\u2019t file the lawsuit. It is a private entity. Organizations and citizens who decided to file the lawsuit.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe military are hesitant to discuss some information because of the lawsuit. It prohibits them from saying some issues during our meetings,\u201d added Torres.<\/p>\n
He said that the goal of the CNMI delegation that went to Hawaii is just to observe how live-fire training is done. \u201cOur goal there is to look at the facility and look how it is being done. And also make sure they know what our concerns are.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIn order for us to move forward on the military\u2019s plans, they must and need to know our concerns. We want our concerns to be heard and we would like to see an amended proposal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Torres added that he fully supports the military but disagrees with what they have been proposing. We support the military, and that\u2019s why we signed the programmatic agreement for a divert airfield on Tinian.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe support the men and women of our armed forces. At this point, I disagree with the plan in the original proposal. What\u2019s being proposed is something that we disagree with,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Torres and members of the Tinian delegation went to the military\u2019s live-fire training facility in Kane\u2019ohe Bay in Hawaii where they were shown small caliber types of munitions used like 50 caliber and M16.<\/p>\n
\u201cAmphibious training is also proposed. But for most part they wanted to show us that this is the training range. The more important is what they wanted to show is the military base can co-exist with locals. I don\u2019t disagree with that because it works for them.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat is being proposed now, with what the people of Tinian are disagreeing. We emphasize again to the relationship that we have with the Covenant and not to divert from it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Gov. Ralph DLG Torres said the lawsuit filed against the military\u2019s proposal to conduct live-fire…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[26,259,200,13221],"class_list":["post-235627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-cnmi","tag-lawsuit","tag-military","tag-torres-earthjustice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235627","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\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235627\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}