Date: 1983-11-18
Speaker: WON PAT (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr. Speaker. if the gentleman will yield. the Senate made relatively minor amendments to our major amendment of S. 589. The other body essentially agreed to the Houses bipartisan development of the initial Senate bill into the omnibus insular areas assistance bill of 1983. They H 10515 made only a couple of modffications and a few additions. Thle three new provision. are worthwhile and. I unlerstand. supported by the administration. Thle most important would rqsol%-e a problem that has resulted from thle long delay In terminating our United Nations Pacific islands trusteeship. This is the inconvenience and discrimilnation the people of the Northern Mariana Islands have been subjected to because they still have not received the U.S. citizenship promised them in their covenant. The reason they have not Is thiat Public Law 94241. which approved the establishment of our newest territory. linked the granting of citizenship to termination of the trusteeship which still covers the Northern Maniana Islands Insofar as the United Nntions Is concerned. When the covenant was approved. no one anticipated that it would take so long to resolve the future political status of the other entities of the trust territory and. thus. for the promised citizenship to be actually granted. The Senate amendments would not. confer citizenship earlier than termination of the trusteeship. What they would do is prevent further incidences of inconvenience or discrimination until citizenship Is actually granted. This would be accomplished by exempting Northern Marianas citizens from certain U.S. citizenship or nationality requirements in law regarding compensation. employment. Federal services and financial assistance. The President would also be authorized to make other exemptions from laws Identified by the Northern Marlana Islands Commission on Federal Laws. If lie does not act. U.S. citizenship or nationality requirements would not apply to Northern Marianas citizens In laws that apply to the territory. with certain limitations. Another new provision would extend article VI. clause 3 of the Constitution to the Virgin Islands. This would require the territorys officeholders to take the same oath of support for the Constitution as do Federal and State officeholders. This would be In lieu of the oath currently required by the Revised Organic Act which wvould be repealed by this bill. The third new provision would clarify that certain provisions of territorial law. intended to deal with Indians In Western Territories. do not apply to thle current insular territories. It would also repeal a number of other archaic provisions of territorial law. The two. modifications of the Houses amendment made by the Senate are also acceptable to Its bipartisan sponsors. The primary change in one Is Imperative because of impending but unnecessary legal action. The language is needed to permit the Environmental Protection Agency not to take action Novem ber 18. 1.983 against the Gjuamn Power Authority. The act ion would force thre utility to comply with Clean Air Act standards that EPA has long known would be unreasonable in terms of cost but yet produce no clean air benef Its. The addition to the purpose of section 11. as passed by the House. would specifically exempt OPAs plant from hiaving to comply with the new source performance standards relating to sulfur dioxide for 18 months. Compliance would cost an estimaffted $12 million initially for scrubber equipment or equally significant amounts for low sulfur fuel but. as I said. produce no percep~tible clean air benefits. This is because of the location of the plant and wind conditions and GPAs use of low sulfur fuel when necessary. The 18month exemption would provide sufficient time for the basic procedures which would be established by section 11 to come into operation. These permit EPA to adjust thle application of Clean Air Act requirements upon the request of any of the three Pacific territories onl a casebycase basis if compliance would be unreasonable or not feasible. EPA would be required to notify congressional committees when it received anid acted on requests of the territories. The other change has a worthwhile aspect. in my estimation. But it also would be a less preferable solution to the problem that thle insular areas have with the assessment to dairy farmers designed to partially defray the cost of the milk price support program. Thle House language would simply waive the fee In the insular areas since they are separate milk markets that do not benefit from the program and. therefore. should not contribute to It. But the Senate limited this waiver to thle period between December I of this year and May 31 of next. Their intentand commitment to usis to supersede this temporary waiver through a permanent waiver In dlairy legislation. It is only onl thre understanding that I agree to the Senates limitation. The fee makes no sense at all for thle insular areas. I do agree with the Senates change to exclude all of the noncontiguous jurisdictions from the assessment. however. This would have been accomplished by legislation which came out of the Committee on Agriculture. So. I urge final approval of this important Omnibus Insular Areas Assistance bill of 1983. And. as I do. I want to express again the everlasting gratitude of the Americans of thle territory to my predecessor as chairman of the subcommittee with Jurisdiction over legislation affecting the territory. the late Phillip Burton. I pointed out when this bill first passed the House that this is very much our great colleagues bill. He began our work on it anid favorable action today would be a fitting tribute to him.