Gov. Ralph DLG Torres is concerned by U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s proposed budget that includes a 31-percent cut for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which in turn would cut 47 percent of the Division of Environmental Quality\u2019s budget altogether.<\/p>\n
In a letter to Senate President Arnold I. Palacios (R-Saipan) and House Speaker Ralph S. Demapan (R-Saipan), Torres expressed concern over Trump\u2019s EPA budget cuts and its impact on the CNMI.<\/p>\n
According to an article by the Washington Examiner, the EPA is being proposed to have $5.6 billion budget in fiscal year 2018. It got $8.2 billion in fiscal year 2017.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe President\u2019s proposed fiscal year 2018 reductions to the EPA\/DEQ budget will have direct and possibly irreversible effects on the environment and public health in the CNMI,\u201d Torres said.<\/p>\n
Torres cited a report by Delegate Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan\u2019s (Ind-MP) newsletter that indicated a 47-percent reduction in \u201cpass-through EPA State Revolving Funds\u201d for all states and territories, the CNMI included.<\/p>\n
This drastic cut prompted Torres to seek help from Palacios and Demapan in putting in place a \u201ccontingency plan to include a supplemental budget for the agency.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reduction of EPA state grants will significantly impact the\u2026[DEQ]\u00a0operations,\u201d wrote Torres, further saying that DEQ would be forced to \u201cimplement drastic austerity measures that will undoubtedly include reduction in force.\u201d<\/p>\n
Torres warned that laying off DEQ employees would affect numerous programs that are crucial to an economy whose main revenue generator is the tourism industry.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese programs include many others: clean air, clean water, waste disposal, and regulation and monitoring of chemicals and toxins,\u201d wrote Torres.<\/p>\n
DEQ is also the primary agency involved with addressing the contamination of soil and water through its water quality surveillance program\u2014a key feature of the department that the community, especially the resorts, depends on.<\/p>\n
\u201c[The cuts will have a] tremendous adverse impact to DEQ in its continuing efforts to protect the public health and the environment,\u201d wrote Torres.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Gov. Ralph DLG Torres is concerned by U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s proposed budget that includes…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[20,111,112,352],"class_list":["post-257529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","tag-budget","tag-deq","tag-environmental-protection-agency","tag-epa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257529","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\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257529\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}