The Legislature may have acted in haste in approving a bill repealing the fuel surcharge fee, said House minority leader Arnold I. Palacios yesterday, noting that in emergency situations like the current power crisis, a constitutional provision for the fuel surcharge fee is necessary.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no denying that we voted for the repeal but maybe the Legislature acted in haste. If you look at the provision of the law, 4 CMC Section8148 (b), that\u2019s what it is for: in case the Commonwealth can no longer afford fuel cost. That\u2019s why it\u2019s there. The law gives us this flexibility to impose FSF and get at least half of the fuel cost,\u201d said Palacios.<\/p>\n
Gov. Juan N. Babauta had written the Legislature on Monday, asking the lawmakers to find funds for the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. if they want to repeal the fuel surcharge provision.<\/p>\n
The governor justified in his letter that the fuel surcharge is needed at this time to partially recover CUC\u2019s fuel cost, citing that prices of oil have increased 100 percent since over a year ago.<\/p>\n
CUC\u2019s fuel cost rose from $30 million in late 2003 to $60 million this year.<\/p>\n
In his letter, the governor said that the central government has paid over $9 million to CUC so far this year, including a $3.4 million advance payment to the utility firm.<\/p>\n
Since 2002, he said the government has paid $32.6 million to CUC.<\/p>\n
In view of the current state of emergency, he said he recently reprogrammed over $5 million for CUC.<\/p>\n
The fuel surcharge at 3.5 cents per kilowatt hour, he said, brings $1.4 million to CUC a month, which is still $1 million short of CUC\u2019s fuel needs.<\/p>\n
The governor said that if the fuel surcharge is repealed, the Legislature should first guarantee that it can appropriate $31 million for CUC in the next 15 months to avoid disruption in the fuel supply.<\/p>\n
He also asked the lawmakers to appropriate funds to pay the government\u2019s outstanding debt with CUC, which the utility firm claims to be $20 million. This is under litigation following protests from the central government.<\/p>\n
At the same time, the governor is asking the Legislature to appropriate funds for government utilities.<\/p>\n
Under the continuing resolution, the government is allotted only $5 million for utilities.<\/p>\n
\u201cInasmuch as we want the fuel surcharge fee to disappear, the reality of oil prices is such that we really must be prudent and face this. The choice now is whether we want to experience Commonwealth-wide blackouts or partially cover the fuel cost through this fuel surcharge. I know it\u2019s a hard reality but we\u2019ve got to face it,\u201d said Palacios.<\/p>\n
He said the Legislature may be able to find some funding for CUC if priorities are changed.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we go that way, we can identify funds, of course we can, but we need to change a lot of priorities. The question is, do we have the political will to switch funds from a priority program to CUC? Well, I believe that power generation is of utmost priority so I\u2019m willing to sit down with my colleagues and the Executive Branch to collectively address this issue,\u201d said Palacios.<\/p>\n
House majority leader Oscar M. Babauta said there is just no money to give CUC.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe could identify funds if we have enough money but right now, I don\u2019t think we have enough resources to continue operating,\u201d said Rep. Babauta.<\/p>\n
He said that if the administration can identify which funds to appropriate, then the Legislature would do it.<\/p>\n
Rep. Babauta echoed the House leadership\u2019s earlier statement that it is the governor\u2019s responsibility to reprogram funds during the power emergency.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe [governor] has the authority. He can reprogram funds but I again question the motive of the emergency declaration because it is due to CUC financial crisis and the inability of CUC to execute a contract with Mobil,\u201d said Rep. Babauta.<\/p>\n
Sen. Joseph M. Mendiola, chair of the Committee on Fiscal Affairs, meantime said that the government cannot subsidize CUC.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no way the government can do that. That\u2019s too much,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Mendiola, who earlier abstained from voting on the fuel surcharge fee, said that while he wants to get rid of the fee, he knows that there is no alternative to solve the problem.<\/p>\n
He earlier said that removing the fuel surcharge would only address the consumer side of the problem, but not the root cause of the power crisis.<\/p>\n
The Legislature passed House Bill 14-343, which aims to repeal the law that allows the CUC board of directors to impose up to 3.5 cents per kilowatt per hour as surcharge fee. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Legislature may have acted in haste in approving a bill repealing the fuel surcharge fee, said House minority leader Arnold I. Palacios yesterday, noting that in emergency situations like the current power crisis, a constitutional provision for the fuel surcharge fee is necessary.<\/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-92061","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\/92061","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=92061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92061\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}