From left, Gov. Arnold I. Palacios, U.S. Department of the Interior Assistant Secretary for Insular and International Affairs Carmen G. Cantor and Lt. Gov. David M. Apatang at the governor’s office on Monday.
(Office of the Governor) — In a meeting with Gov. Arnold I. Palacios and Lt. Gov. David M. Apatang, U.S. Department of the Interior Assistant Secretary for Insular and International Affairs Carmen G. Cantor confirmed $1.65 million in Compact Impact grant for the CNMI.
“Pursuant to Public Law 108-188 and calculated based on the corrected 2018 Estimates of Compact of Free Association Migrants conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) is allotted $1,652,879 in Compact Impact mandatory funding,” Cantor said in a letter she personally handed to Palacios during their meeting at his office on Monday.
“I am pleased to award $1,652,879 for a general operations offset for the reimbursement of costs associated with providing education, health, and safety-related services to FAS citizens,” Cantor’s letter added.
FAS stands for Freely Associated States which are Palau, the Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia (Chuuk, Kosrae, Pohnpei and Yap).
In addition to the announcement of the Compact Impact funding, Cantor, Palacios and Apatang discussed other topics such as the CNMI’s economic challenges, its need for technical assistance, funding opportunities, and other matters.
“The U.S Department of the Interior-Office of Insular Affairs will be playing a pivotal role in the economic recovery and growth of the CNMI,” Governor Palacios said. “The meeting with Assistant Secretary Cantor was very productive and spurred other future collaborative discussions that focused on expanding assistance to the Commonwealth.”
