By Gemma Q. Casas
Variety News Staff

THE U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources is likely to hold a hearing on the CNMI immigration federalization issue before the U.S. House Subcommittee on Insular Affairs, which plans to hold its first field hearing on Saipan sometime in August.
According to Allen Stayman, the Senate committee’s senior staff member in-charge of insular affairs, hearings will follow once U.S. Interior Deputy Assistant Secretary for Insular Affairs David Cohen submits the draft federalization bill to the U.S. Senate.
“Interior has not yet submitted its draft,” said Stayman in an e-mail to Variety. “The deadline was moved to this Friday.”
Assuming that Cohen’s draft bill is acceptable to the committee, Stayman said hearings will follow.
“The Senate will hold a hearing in D.C., probably before the House holds their hearing,” he added.
Stayman, the former director of Interior’s Office of Insular Affairs, led a three-man delegation in February on a fact-finding mission to Saipan.
The U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources originally set an April 30 deadline for the draft bill.
This was later pushed back to May 5 and then to May 11.
Press Secretary Charles P. Reyes Jr. said the administration views the delay in the submission of the federalization draft bill as a “positive development.”
“We view it as a positive development because we support the most thorough and complete consideration of the proposal, given the potential adverse impact on the commonwealth,” he said.
The administration opposes the extension of federal minimum wage and immigration laws to the islands.