By Ben Pangelinan
For Variety

THIS coming Thursday, the Department of Public Works will face the United States Government in District Court over the non-compliance of operations with the Ordot Dump, its closure, and the opening of a new EPA compliant landfill. The deadline is the result of the government of Guam throwing its hands up in the air to the federal government and surrendering. The current administration’s inability to manage our government and effectively deal with our problems has plunged us into federal receivership for all practical purposes. The federal government is managing the government of Guam through one consent decree after another.
The recent request by the United States Attorney for the District Court to order actions such as pass legislation, acquire specific property, establish new government corporations, and compel attendance of senior government officials at meetings is reminiscent of the old days without the endearment of nostalgia.
The original complaint against the local government over the Ordot Dump was the discharge of pollutants into the Lonfit River without a National Discharge Elimination Permit and for failure to stop the discharges based upon an order from the United States Environmental Protection Agency. The violation for failure to get a permit has now become an expansive order to our local government to create agencies, charter public corporations, privatize government functions, condemn private property, go into debt, and other policy decisions reserved for local governments in other areas. It is ironic that all this is required to resolve the Ordot Dump issue, while the U.S. Attorney has ignored the continued lack of effort to clean up over 50 identified toxic dumps owned and operated by the military on Guam.
Do not mistake my observations as being in opposition to what needs to be done. I fully realize the urgent and grave condition of our situations. However, somewhere along the path, we have lost sight of our responsibilities as local leaders to be accountable for our actions and failures to act. It is so much easier to utter the words, “the federal government said so and they made me do it,” instead of “as your leader, I have determined that this is the best course of action and I take responsibility for making the decision.” This is what leadership is all about and what it should be.
The decision to roll over and play nice at every step of the way by our local leaders, in my opinion, has greatly compromised our ability as a government in dealing with the federal government to resolving our problems. Because we have willingly taken this road in dealing with the federal government on the many consent decree issues, any noise we make to state our concerns on many other important issues facing us is now perceived as just making excuses for our inabilities.
For me, the greater loss is our ability to deal with our own people. We have essentially given up the right to craft, design and implement solutions to meet the specific needs and interests of our local people. There is no greater disservice to our people than this in recent history.
(Ben Pangelinan is a senator in the 29th Guam Legislature and a former speaker now serving his seventh term in the Guam Legislature. E-mail comments or suggestions to senbenp@guam.net or ctzenben@ite.net. )