Gov. Ralph DLG Torres said Friday that the CNMI government is going appeal to the administration of President Joseph Biden Jr. to reconsider the denial of the Commonwealth\u2019s request for a waiver on the local match required for COVID-19-related grants from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. <\/p>\n
Speaking at a radio news briefing last Friday, Torres expressed optimism that FEMA under the new Biden administration will reconsider the CNMI government\u2019s appeal because they are fully aware of what is happening in the CNMI.<\/p>\n
The governor said he just spoke with governor\u2019s authorized representative Patrick Guerrero Thursday about appealing acting FEMA administrator Robert Fenton\u2019s Jan. 15 denial letter.<\/p>\n
In that letter, Fenton told Torres that his request for a waiver on the local match \u201cis not warranted.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fenton, who is an appointee of former president Donald J. Trump. said that, based on their review of all of the information available, it was determined that the increased level of funding that Torres has requested is not warranted.<\/p>\n
\u201cTherefore, I must inform you that your request for a cost share adjustment for this major disaster declaration is denied,\u201d said Fenton. <\/p>\n
Torres said the CNMI has a very good working relationship with Fenton and that he is optimistic that with the Commonwealth\u2019s success rate in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, the CNMI is putting a very good justification on the appeal that should be going out soon. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to do what we need to do. We understand their process\u2026but we\u2019re here to highlight our success and our challenges as well,\u201d Torres pointed out. <\/p>\n
The governor said Fenton was previously the administrator for FEMA\u2019s Region IX so he knows exactly what the CNMI has been going through.<\/p>\n
Torres said Fenton had been in the CNMI a few times and that they\u2019ve dealt with him.<\/p>\n
He said Fenton has an excellent team that does continue to help the CNMI on the ground. <\/p>\n
The governor pointed out that as the CNMI has been trying to fix and recover from Super Typhoon Yutu\u2019s devastation, then now this pandemic.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo they know exactly our situations here. I\u2019m optimistic that, once we send in again our letter of appeal, that will be taken into consideration,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
If the CNMI\u2019s appeal is denied, Torres said he does not know yet the exact amount as to how much the CNMI would need to match. He, however, believes that in the first 60 or 90 days of a disaster declaration, the CNMI is covered 90%-10% local match and then certain cost is 75%-25% local match. <\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t have the exact number of the amount now. But we might be able to get that later on,\u201d the governor said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Gov. Ralph DLG Torres said Friday that the CNMI government is going appeal to the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":337364,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-337358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-cnmi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337358","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\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337358\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/337364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}