{"id":394653,"date":"2023-06-27T06:06:22","date_gmt":"2023-06-26T20:06:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=394653"},"modified":"2023-06-27T06:06:22","modified_gmt":"2023-06-26T20:06:22","slug":"senate-oks-commercial-rate-for-chccs-utilities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/senate-oks-commercial-rate-for-chccs-utilities\/","title":{"rendered":"Senate OKs commercial rate for CHCC\u2019s utilities"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

The Senate passed Friday a bill that would mandate the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. to change the power, water, and wastewater rate for the Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. from the current government rate to the lower commercial rate.<\/p>\n

With five senators voting \u201cyes,\u201d one voting \u201cno,\u201d and three excused absences, Senate Bill 23-37, SD1 now goes to the House of Representatives for action.<\/p>\n

The five senators who voted \u201cyes\u201d were Senate President Edith E. DeLeon Guerrero (D-Saipan) and Sens. Jude U. Hofschneider (R-Tinian), Corina L. Magofna (Ind-Saipan), Francisco Q. Cruz (R-Tinian), and James Mendiola (R-Rota). Sen. Celina R. Babauta (D-Saipan) was the sole \u201cno\u201d vote. Sens. Paul A. Manglona (Ind-Rota), Donald M. Manglona (Ind-Rota), and Karl R. King-Nabors (R-Tinian) were absent but excused.<\/p>\n

Hofschneider, Magofna, and Donald M. Manglona are the co-authors of the legislation.<\/p>\n

Befire voting, Babauta asked that the bill be tabled or referred back to the committee. She said the Public Utilities Commission board is responsible for establishing the rates for utilities and that these can be fixed with regulations\u2014not legislation.<\/p>\n

She pointed out that, at the Senate Executive Appointments and Government Investigations Committee confirmation hearing last June 16 for James Sirok and Dr. Jack Angelo, who were nominated by Gov. Arnold I. Palacios to the Public Utilities Commission, a question directly related to what this bill proposes was posed on both nominees.<\/p>\n

Babauta said that Sirok cautioned the Legislature from introducing such legislation because it would put the onus on the other two classes of ratepayers: households and the commercial ratepayers. She said it would be unfair to households and commercial ratepayers to subsidize CHCC.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not trying to neglect the needs or abandon the needs of CHCC,\u201d Babauta said, but she believes that with the confirmation in the near-future of Sirok and Angelo\u2014whom she described as experts in the field of utilities\u2014the senators should give them every opportunity to do their own research and make the proper determination as to what the rate adjustments should look like today, rather than rush to judgment and pass the bill.<\/p>\n

Hofschneider said Babauta made valid points, but this is not the first time that they have introduced this legislation and that for every day that they wait is every day that CHCC is going to risk being shut down because of unpaid utilities arrears.<\/p>\n

Hofschneider said it\u2019s an injustice also for senators to continue neglecting the obvious situation currently being faced by CHCC when the Legislature is unable to properly give CHCC the needed funds to address the operations and their obligations such as the utilities and, recently, medical referral.<\/p>\n

He said the issues will not go away for CHCC and that he understands that PUC will be the commission tasked to oversee the rates.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut are we going to wait for months again to continue the deliberation on what rates CHCC should be paying? Or should we put this to rest?\u201d Hofschneider asked.
\nHe said they can revisit this with CHCC when the PUC is in order.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen this thing is booked since 2011 it doesn\u2019t look good on their financial portfolio. There\u2019s no way that they are going to pay the $58 million that is before them,\u201d Hofschneider said.<\/p>\n

Babauta said that CHCC has waited for years to pay their utilities, so there should be no rush to regulate by legislation. She said they don\u2019t have to wait for months as the two nominees will hopefully be confirmed by the end of this month.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is so unfair to put this onus on households who are suffering right now because of high utility rates,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Before voting \u201cyes\u201d to pass the bill, Senate President Edith E. DeLeon Guerrero (D-Saipan) said that when the bill passes the Senate that day, it will be transmitted to the House of Representatives for further deliberation.<\/p>\n

\u201cTherefore, for the record, nobody\u2019s rate changes,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

According to the bill, CHCC should not have to subsidize CUC by paying the higher utility government rate. Instead, CHCC should be classified as a commercial entity and charged commercial utility rates, similar to every other healthcare provider in the CNMI.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Senate passed Friday a bill that would mandate the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. to change…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":394662,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[666],"class_list":["post-394653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-chcc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394653","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=394653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394653\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/394662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=394653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=394653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=394653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}