Citing the need to resolve critical issues, the House minority is pressing for the immediate holding of session at the lower chamber.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a number of issues that need our immediate attention. These are crucial issues,\u201d said minority Rep. Ray Tebuteb.<\/p>\n
He cited the need to resolve pending measures affecting the land compensation, scholarship, and purchase of monitoring equipment for the Northern Islands.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me this seismic monitoring equipment is very critical. We\u2019re talking here of a life and death situation,\u201d he said, referring to recent reports by the U.S. Geological Survey indicating that the Northern Islands remains unsafe in view of unpredictable volcanic movements.<\/p>\n
The USGS, which made a presentation before the Legislature and the Executive Branch on its latest assessment of the volcanoes in the islands, cited the urgency to install the equipment.<\/p>\n
USGS said it would need the Legislature\u2019s help to lobby the U.S. Congress for release of funds.<\/p>\n
The projects require congressional appropriation of at least $7 million and $500,000 in annual maintenance.<\/p>\n
Tebuteb said there is already a draft resolution waiting to be adopted.<\/p>\n
\u201cA resolution is ready for adoption expressing the leaders\u2019 support for the USGS project,\u201d he said. \u201cWe really have to hold a session now.\u201d <\/p>\n
Tebuteb said that the minority has been asking the leadership to call for a session but to no avail.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe haven\u2019t received a response,\u201d said Tebuteb.<\/p>\n
When asked, he said that he has verbally asked acting Speaker Timothy Villagomez on the possibility of calling a session.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been asking the leadership since last week. So far, we\u2019ve got no response,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
House Speaker Benigno Fitial is still off-island on family matters. He is said to be back in a couple of weeks.<\/p>\n
Tebuteb said, though, that a session can be held in the absence of the Speaker. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s an acting Speaker. Several of us are here; we can meet anytime,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Citing the need to resolve critical issues, the House minority is pressing for the immediate holding of session at the lower chamber.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83100","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83100\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}