Admin looks forward to working with Domenech

The Fitial administration is upbeat about working with the Washington’s new top official for insular affairs.

Press secretary Charles P. Reyes Jr. said yesterday that the CNMI government has had a good relationship with Nikolao Pula during the latter’s stint as acting deputy assistant secretary for insular affairs. The governor hopes that relationship will continue with Douglas Domenech, who was appointed to the post last weekend.

Domenech also serves as deputy chief of staff to U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne.

“We haven’t had much contact with [Domenech] in the past, unlike with Pula who has been with the Office of Insular Affairs for a long time and who is from the [Pacific] islands. But we think it’s gratifying that Domenech is apparently very close to Secretary Kempthorne. We view that as a positive sign—as Interior said in their announcement, it shows Secretary Kempthorne’s commitment to the islands,” said Reyes.

The next year is seen as a critical time for U.S.-Commonwealth relations, with the CNMI’s wage, labor and immigration policies just placed under federal control. In the next year, federal representatives will work with local leaders in drafting regulations detailing how the new “federalization” measure will be implemented.

As the U.S. government’s new point man for Washington’s relationships with the insular areas, Domenech is expected to play a key role in the process of promulgating the regulations—at least in the next eight months that he will be in office. His is a political position. New appointees are expected to be named when the administration changes in January 2009.

“It’s true, a lot of things are beyond our control. We don’t know who is going to be the next Interior secretary. There’s a lot of uncertainty. I guess we’ll just have to deal with it as we go forward,” said Reyes.

According to an Interior Department press release, Domenech joined the Bush administration in July 2001 to serve as Interior’s deputy director of external and intergovernmental affairs. From 2002 to 2006, he served as White House liaison to the Interior Department before being promoted to deputy chief of staff.

Domenech, who was born in the United States, is of Puerto Rican descent and lived in the Dominican Republic, Panama, and Puerto Rico as a child. He has a degree in Forestry and Wildlife Management from Virginia Tech and worked on national and state natural resource issues for 15 years prior to his appointment.

Among his duties at the department, Domenech represents the Secretary on the Advisory Board of the Conservation Trust of Puerto Rico, and often travels to the U.S. Virgin Islands on Interior business. He also represents the Department on the President’s Task Force on Puerto Rico Status and on the U.S. delegation to the UNESCO World Heritage Committee.