That was how Senate President Pete P. Reyes described the lawsuit filed in federal court by the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency against the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. over CUC’s violations of the Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act.
“The feds should be working with us, supporting our efforts to stabilize our power supply,” Reyes said in an interview on Friday. “Instead they come up with this lawsuit even though they know that we still have problems with our power supply and their action may take away our focus from the more pressing need to stabilize power.”
Reyes, R-Saipan, said “personally, I don’t care about this lawsuit and their sanctions — without power we won’t have water and sewer services anyway.”
He added, “What do they want us to do? For CUC to pay fines when it also has to fix its power plant engines and pay [for Aggreko’s generators]? The timing is so unreal, so bad. It will be a distraction from our efforts to ensure a dependable and reliable power supply.”
According to Reyes, “the problem right now is power — we’rre trying to avoid blackouts. What good is their lawsuit? To plunge us into darkness?”
He said he is also concerned about the environmental issues raised by the federal lawsuit, “but if we use our limited resources just so we can pay the feds, then what’s going to happen with the power situation and the economy of the CNMI?”
The federal government, he added, “is showing no sensitivity to the crisis we’re in. We should be working together, not against each other. Our power situation is not a secret — everyone knows about it.”
Reyes said under the islands’ Covenant with the U.S., “it is the responsibility of the U.S. government to ensure that our water standards rise to U.S. levels, but they haven’t done that. Now they’re suing us while we have this power crisis. It’s shameful that they’re doing this. It’s very undignified.”
CUC Executive Director Antonio S. Muna, in an earlier interview, said to comply with the Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act, they may increase their rates, ask for additional legislative funding, float bonds or borrow money.
