releases: http://sablan.house.gov/press-release/transition-extension-gets-senate-committee-okay
Data license: MIT · Data source: dwillis/congress-press
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| http://sablan.house.gov/press-release/transition-extension-gets-senate-committee-okay | Transition extension gets Senate committee okay | 2013-12-20 | 2013 | 2013-12 | Independent | Senate | MP | Gregorio Sablan | S001177 | sablan.house.gov | legacy | The current Commonwealth-only worker and investor programs would be extended until the end of 2019 under terms of an omnibus territories bill approved by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee in Washington today. The number of foreign workers in the Northern Mariana Islands would still have to be reduced every year, however, and zeroed-out by December 31, 2019. The 184 foreign investors, who had established businesses in the Northern Marianas prior to 2009 and who now hold Commonwealth-only visas, would be allowed to stay in business, also until the end of 2019. Both the worker and investor programs are presently scheduled to end completely in twelve months. Congressman Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan thanked Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) and his Republican counterpart Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) for today’s action. “I very much appreciate this bipartisan recognition that it is impossible to fill the 10,000 jobs now held by foreign workers with U.S. workers by the end of next year,” Sablan said. “I understand there are only 1,742 U.S. workers now registered with our local employment services office. Even if every one of them took a job, we would still be 8,000 short. Businesses would close. Investors would take their money elsewhere. Tax revenues would drop. And the cost of electricity and other basic necessities would rise, because we would have fewer consumers in our economy.” In addition to adding five years to the ongoing period of transition from local to federal management of immigration in the Northern Marianas, the omnibus territories bill contains eleven other sections. They aim to cut electricity rates in the U.S. insular areas, reduce the local match island governments pay for some federal grants, and help island finance departments improve annual revenue estimates. S.1237 was introduced by Wyden and Murkowski at Sablan’s request on June 27. Sablan authored and introduced a companion bill in the House, H.R. 2200, one month earlier. Congresswomen Madeleine Z. Bordallo (D-Guam) and Donna M. Christensen (D-Virgin Islands) and Congressman Eni F.V. Faleomavaega (D-American Samoa) are all co-sponsors. The omnibus bill is an effort to get territorial issues considered outside of partisan political concerns and enacted without being dependent on larger legislation. “Having a bill dealing solely and specifically with insular area issues is a pattern I want to establish and maintain in every Congress,” Sablan explained. “Of course, I will keep working on Northern Marianas issues with stand-alone legislation and by inserting language that benefits us in the big policy bills, too. You have to create multiple opportunities, if you want to get things done here.” A Northern Marianas territorial sea provision was originally part of S.1237, but Sablan was able to have it enacted as a separate, stand-alone measure in September, one of only 57 bills that have become law in all of 2013. Four Republican Senators – Lamar Alexander (Tennessee), John Barossa (Wyoming), Mike Lee (Utah), and Tim Scott (South Dakota) – voted today against sending S.1237 to the Senate floor for final approval. None of them stated the nature of their objection to the bill. “We will be working over the holiday break to address whatever concerns remain,” Sablan said. “I would certainly like to see the Senate pass S.1237 early in the new year and send it over to the House, so we can start moving the bill through our committee process.” | 1 | 2026-03-30T12:14:52Z | 2026-03-30T12:14:52Z |