Responding to Vice Speaker Felicidad T. Ogumoro’s remarks that the submerged lands and the waters adjacent to NMI “belong to our people,” Sablan said he agrees.
Ogumoro introduced House Joint Resolution 17-36 which states that the U.S. “wrongfully” asserted ownership of NMI submerged lands. It also urges the U.S. Congress to recognize the rights of the NMI people to the waters and submerged lands surrounding the islands.
Sablan told the local House members that if the CNMI can get 200 nautical miles, it should. Unfortunately, “we can’t.”
The U.S. Virgin Islands, he noted, has been trying to get nine miles of EEZ.
Even the most powerful delegation, California, is clamoring for 12 miles only. But those proposals, Sablan said, are not going anywhere in the U.S. Congress.
Pursuing three miles of EEZ, added, is the most practical and realistic thing to do.
“It will take us a very long time to get 200 miles if we are going to ever get it,” Sablan said adding that it’s not going to happen in his lifetime.
Sablan, who met with the lawmakers in the House chamber yesterday, explained that the revenues that can be generated from the waters outside the EEZ’s are shared with all the states including Montana and others that have no coasts.
In U.S. Congress, he added, it is argued that taxpayers in Montana should also benefit from revenues generated by EEZ’s nationwide.
Every federal dollar that gets here is from American taxpayers, Sablan said. “Should they give us their money but those that belongs to us is ours only?” The CNMI doesn’t pay federal taxes.
Sablan explained that in the minds of other U.S. lawmakers, pursuing 200 miles is like saying, “What ours is ours and what’s theirs are ours, too.”
Ogumoro disclosed that all Pacific islands, except the CNMI, are participating in the three-day workshop regarding the Secretariat of the Pacific Community’s Deep Sea Mineral Project in Nadi, Fiji.
This gathering, she said, will address legislative, regulatory, capacity requirements and environmental issues pertaining to deep sea minerals in the region.
All our neighbors, Ogumoro said, are participating except the CNMI because she heard from the federal government that “we do not own our own resources.”
The CNMI is not listed as a member of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community.
Early this year, Congressman Sablan introduced H.R. 670, which will convey three miles of submerged lands back to the Northern Marianas.
