GOVERNOR Arnold I. Palacios on Monday signed three House bills into law.
House Bill 23-1 will lower the interest of civil judgments; H.B. 23-6 will include public libraries in net metering; and H.B. 23-10 will create exemption to the requirement that a marriage certificate includes “places of residence” if executed during the Trust Territory period.
Authored by Rep. Marissa Flores, H.B. 23-1, which is now Public Law 23-1, reduces to 3% from 9% the interest rate of civil money judgments.
The new law states that “many of our constituents, particularly those whom our judicial courts ruled against in regards to money judgments, find it problematic and extremely burdensome to compensate for the amount set forth by our court as well as its corresponding excessive amount of interest.”
It is “imperative to lower the interest rate…to provide necessary financial relief for those individuals who are struggling to pay the money judgements without violating the integrity of such judgements and allow for them to efficiently continue their court-ordered obligation.”
Rep. John Paul Sablan’s H.B. 23-6, which is now P.L. 23-2, will include public libraries as “an education entity for net metering and prioritize the interconnection with net metering for renewable energy capacity” at the Commonwealth Utilities Corp.
In addition, the bill stated, including public libraries in the definition of education entities, will allow the entity to qualify and apply for federal grants that support the administration’s priorities for clean energy to power the future in the U.S. territories as part of the larger efforts toward energy security in America.
Sablan also authored H.B. 23-10, which is now P.L. 23-3. According to the new law, “the inability of a person to file an otherwise valid marriage certificate can prevent a governmental agency from confirming the marital status of that person. For example, a person seeking to initiate survivor retirement benefits might not be able to complete the administrative process if the Recorder is unable to file the marriage certificate.”
“However,” it added, “before the modernization of marriage certificates for governmental purposes, church certificates did not always include information regarding residences. This is particularly true during the time when marriage was administered when the…Northern Marianas were still under the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands.”
The new law creates “an exception to the requirement that a marriage certificate include ‘places of residence’ if the certificate was executed during the time that the islands were under governance of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, and to make the amendment apply retroactively to allow such marriage certificates to be recognized by the CNMI government and filed at the Commonwealth Superior Court.”
Gov. Arnold I. Palacios reads a House bill as Reps. Vincent “Kobre” Aldan, Marissa Flores, John Paul Sablan, Special Assistant for Administration Oscar M. Babauta and Speaker Edmund S. Villagomez look on.
