GOVERNOR Arnold I. Palacios has appointed former Rep. Tina Sablan as special assistant for climate policy and planning.
Sablan’s appointment, which does not require Senate confirmation, came after the governor, through Directive No. 2023-008, created the Climate Policy and Planning program within his office.
According to the Office of the Governor, Sablan’s salary is fully funded by the grant.
Sablan told Variety that her $65,000 annual salary does not exceed the cap.
She started performing her job of special assistant last week at the Bureau of Environmental and Coastal Quality, but she works under the Office of the Governor.
Her duties include management of federal grant applications and coordinating the use of funding available for climate and clean energy initiatives such as the Climate Pollution Reduction Grants Program under the Inflation Reduction Act.
She will work with the Office of Grants Management and the Office of Planning and Development to ensure compliance with all of the grant requirements, including but not limited to the timely submission of plans, reports and data.
Sablan, who also volunteers as a senior adviser to the administration, said her primary role as special assistant for climate policy and planning “is to manage a new federally funded program under the governor’s office, to develop the CNMI’s climate action plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across sectors, and transition the Marianas to a clean energy, low-carbon economy.”
She added, “Several months ago, we applied for and submitted a workplan for U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Climate Pollution Reduction Grant.”
She said USEPA awarded the Office of the Governor a planning grant. The first deliverable is a Priority Climate Action Plan due in April, she added.
The projects identified in the plan will be eligible to compete for implementation funding in the second round of the program, she added.
Through the Inflation Reduction Act, she said, the U.S. Congress and the Biden administration have made $4.6 billion available for the implementation projects nationwide. Of that amount, $300 million has been set aside just for the territories and tribes to compete for. USEPA is looking to fund projects that are innovative, transformative, replicable, and scalable. They are also encouraging collaboration across agencies, sectors, and jurisdictions.
Tina Sablan
