{"id":347050,"date":"2021-07-01T06:01:53","date_gmt":"2021-06-30T20:01:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=347050"},"modified":"2021-07-01T06:01:53","modified_gmt":"2021-06-30T20:01:53","slug":"kilili-transportation-amendment-okd-for-floor-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/kilili-transportation-amendment-okd-for-floor-debate\/","title":{"rendered":"Kilili\u2019s transportation amendment approved for House floor debate"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON, D.C.\u2014The House Rules Committee approved yesterday an amendment to the INVEST in America Act, offered by Delegate Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan (Ind-MP), that aims to increase road funding for the Marianas. Sablan\u2019s amendment will be debated by the full House of Representatives, as it considers the $715-billion infrastructure bill over the next several days.<\/p>\n

\u201cCurrently, road funding is divided among the Marianas and the other areas in a way that is disadvantageous to our islands,\u201d Sablan said. \u201cGuam and the U.S. Virgin Islands get 40% each. The Marianas and American Samoa get 10% each. Those percentages are not based on population, or road mileage, or land area, or any other measure. And those percentages are not set in law. They are arbitrarily set by administrators in the Federal Highway Administration.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sablan\u2019s amendment requires the Transportation secretary to develop a \u201cdata driven, equitable allocation\u201d of the annual highway funding.<\/p>\n

Slow spending blocks change<\/p>\n

The Marianas delegate has tried repeatedly to get allocations changed administratively. And the Federal Highway Administration has admitted that any allocation based on objective measures would result in more money for the Marianas.<\/p>\n

Sablan\u2019s efforts, however, have been undermined because the Commonwealth typically carries a large backlog of funding compared to other insular governments. So, the FHWA argues, why change how much money the Marianas receives when it does not spend what it is already getting?<\/p>\n

Last November, FHWA administrator Nicole R. Nason told Sablan the Commonwealth had over two years of funding unspent\u2014\u201can unobligated balance of approximately $8.7 million\u2026.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn contrast,\u201d she wrote, \u201cthe unobligated balances for American Samoa and Guam were zero, and the U.S. Virgin Islands had an unobligated balance of less than $100,000.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even if the Commonwealth is slow to spend federal highway funds compared to the other insular governments, Sablan said, he wants to keep the issue alive with his amendment to the bill the House is debating this week.<\/p>\n

Sablan\u2019s amendment also requires the secretary to recommend an appropriate increase in the Territorial Highway Program funding. \u201cIt is always helpful to increase funding when shifting allocations,\u201d Sablan said. \u201cThat way no one insular area suffers any great loss.\u201d<\/p>\n

$18.6 million in transportation earmarks for Marianas<\/p>\n

Whether Sablan\u2019s allocation amendment passes or not he was already able to include $18.6 million in earmarked funding for Marianas projects in the INVEST in America Act, when it was reported by committee on June 10.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone on Saipan who has talked to me about how congested our roads are will be glad to see so much of the earmarked money going to support the Commonwealth Office of Transit Authority and public transportation,\u201d Sablan said. \u201cIn particular, the 187 bus stops that COTA asked me to get money for will bring the bus system closer to people\u2019s homes and provide shelter from the sun and the rain, making public transportation a better alternative to more expensive private cars.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sablan thanked the Office of Transit Authority and the Commonwealth Department of Public Works for working together with him in developing the project list that was included in the INVEST in America Act. (PR)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON, D.C.\u2014The House Rules Committee approved yesterday an amendment to the INVEST in America Act,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":347052,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[309],"class_list":["post-347050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-ok"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347050","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\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347050\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/347052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}