{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["http://sablan.house.gov/rota-national-park-study-goes-obama", "Rota National Park study goes to Obama", "2014-12-15", "2014", "2014-12", "Independent", "Senate", "MP", "Gregorio Sablan", "S001177", "sablan.house.gov", null, null, "legacy", "Marianas Variety by Cherrie Anne E. Villahermosa -- LEGISLATION instructing the U.S. Interior Department to study whether areas of Rota should be designated as part of the National Park system is on its way to President Obama for his signature, according to U.S. Congressman Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan.\n\u201cI was able to add the necessary language to the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act, which the House passed last week and the Senate passed on Saturday,\u201d he said in his weekly e-newsletter.\n\u201cEstablishing a Rota National Park has been part of my legislative agenda since my first term in Congress. Stand-alone legislation authorizing a \u2018suitability and feasibility\u2019 study for the Park has passed the House three times without action by the Senate, but attaching the study to the larger Defense bill finally did the trick.\n\u201cA 2005 Park Service reconnaissance, requested by then-Rota Sen. Diego Songao, found that archeological, historical, and natural resources on Rota have \u2018national significance,\u2019 the first criteria for a Park. But without a finding of suitability and feasibility Congress will not make the final designation.\n\u201cA 2001 study, for instance, found that the commonwealth\u2019s lease of Tinian to the military meant that North Field was not feasible for a park, so that area could not be included in the Manhattan Project National Historical Park that Congress voted to establish this month.\n\u201cDayton, Ohio, where polonium was made for the atom bomb, likewise, was found not feasible for inclusion in the Manhattan Project Park.\n\u201cCreating a Rota National Park will still require active participation by the people of Rota, when the study moves forward over the next five years or so.\n\u201cBut adding the National Park brand to Rota has the potential to make the island an international destination for tourists, a game changer for Rota\u2019s economy.\u201d\n$7M for the NMI\nKilili also reported that $7 million will soon be available for CNMI water and sewer improvements.\n\u201cAnother important benefit for the Northern Marianas in H.R.83 [or the $1.1 trillion federal spending measure] is continuation of the formula change for drinking water and sewer construction that we got started in 2010 and that has resulted in over $47 million dollars in the years since,\u201d Kilili said.\n\u201cThat money has brought Saipan very close to 24-hour water. The 2015 spending bill keeps the set-aside for insular areas at 1.5 percent, 5 times more than the set-aside in the authorizing law.\u201d\nAccording to Kilili, \u201cWater and sewer funding increased sharply with a formula change first achieved in Public Law 111-88 and continued every year since then. Before the change, Safe Drinking Water Act and Clean Water Act funding averaged $1.1 million per year. After the formula change the average annual funding has been $7.9 million.\u201d\nH.R. 83, among other things, will also extend the E-2CNMI visa program for the islands\u2019 261 foreign-owned small businesses.", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["http://sablan.house.gov/rota-national-park-study-goes-obama"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.8917730301618576, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}