Senate President Edith Deleon Guerrero, right, presides over a session Friday while Senate Floor Leader Corina Magofna, Sen. Celina R. Babauta, and Senate clerk Doris Bermudes review their notes.
THE Senate on Friday deferred action on its version of House Bill 23-95, which would amend the law that allowed the CNMI government to obtain a $15 million line-of-credit from the Marianas Public Land Trust.
Via voice vote, all eight senators present agreed to return the Senate version of H.B. 23-95 to the Senate Fiscal Affairs Committee chaired by Senate Vice President Donald Manglona.
Sen. Jude U. Hofschneider was excused.
Authored by Speaker Edmund S. Villagomez, H.B. 23-95 was amended by the Senate Fiscal Affairs Committee, which then endorsed its passage.
It was placed on the bill calendar for action on Friday, but after a long recess during which the Senate leadership had a last-minute discussion on the bill, Senate Floor Leader Corina Magofna moved to withdraw the bill from the calendar and return it to the Senate Fiscal Affairs Committee for further discussion.
Present in the gallery during the Senate session were MPLT Chair Philip Mendiola-Long, Trustee Alvaro Santos, Administrator Bobbie Reyes and the trustees’ legal counsel, Robert T. Torres.
Indigenous advocates Richard U. Hofschneider and wife Liana S. Hofschneider testified against the measure.
Under Public Law 23-12, the $15 million line-of-credit from MPLT will serve as “bridge financing” for the costs related to the capital improvement projects funded by the U.S. Economic Development Administration. The law pledges the reimbursements from EDA to repay the loan, which accrues interest at the rate of 5.5% per year.
H.B. 23-95, in contrast, will provide security in case of payment default by allowing MPLT to withhold public land interest income due to the CNMI government’s general fund.
Senate President Edith Deleon Guerrero on Friday said they would meet with the CNMI’s capital improvement project officials to discuss some of the delayed CIPs for Rota and Tinian.
“That is the reason why we have to refer H.B. 23-95 back to the committee so that we can resolve some of the concerns that are being brought up by Rota and Tinian regarding certain projects that are still sitting in the books for years and have not moved forward,” the Senate president said.
These delays, she added, “affect Rota and Tinian’s economy, and in order for us to identify all of these issues we need to bring in the officials that are involved in these decisions so that we can figure out what seems to be the problem — the fundamental issues that are delaying a lot of these projects.”
