Guam, feds discuss Compact impact
By Clynt Ridgell
Published Aug 28, 2009
KUAM News
The subject of Compact impact dominated discussions this morning between lawmakers and a delegation from Washington. Allan Stayman and Isaac Edwards, who are staffers with the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources along with Wendy Fink and Steve Sander from the Office of Insular Affairs are on island meeting with local elected leaders.
Speaker Judi Won Pat said, "The focus of our topic this morning was exactly that - the compact impact and a suggestion was actually made by Senator [Ben] Pangelinan and Senator BJ Cruz, that when Congress agreed to look at the war reparations, they actually created then a Commission and we were suggesting they need to do the exact same thing so they can bring in the major players Guam, Hawaii, the CNMI, and the other major players who are claiming that they have a large number of FAS citizens."
A meeting was held Thursday afternoon in the Speaker's Office with Senator Frank Blas, Jr., officials from GMH, Public Health and the consul generals of the FSM and Palau. Hawaii reportedly made the decision to cut the free services because the U.S. has not been living up to its obligations of fully reimbursing the state for Compact impact costs.
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