Pete A. renews ties with 109th Congress members

The members of the 109th U.S. Congress were sworn in Thursday, and began settling in for two more years of hard work. CNMI Resident Rep. Pete A. Tenorio was on hand to congratulate them and renew friendships and forge new ones.

“It is about the only day that you can just drop in and see a member of Congress without an appointment. They haven’t really begun work yet, and they are still fresh from the holiday break,” said Tenorio after visiting a number of congressmen in their offices.

Tenorio and some of his staff had participated in an Open House at Guam Rep. Madeleine Bordallo’s office and witnessed the swearing in of the new president of the Guam Society of America, Juan Salas, who is originally from Saipan. Following that, they began visiting many of Tenorio’s close friends on Capitol Hill.

Among those whose offices they visited were that Richard Pombo from California, Jeff Flake from Arizona, Ed Case from Hawaii, Eni Faleomavaega from American Samoa, David Scott from Georgia, Bill Young from Florida, and Don Young from Alaska—all co-sponsors of last year’s Delegate bill.

“It was good to touch base, and though the meetings were short, we covered a lot of ground. There are a number of crucial re-authorizations to be considered by Congress, and it’s good to let them know we have concerns early,” said Tenorio. “We are also going to be pushing hard on the Delegate bill, and we need the help of each of the original co-sponsors to get the bill through this next year. We are going to start early and keep on it until we have been granted a seat in Congress.”

Congress will be reauthorizing the Higher Education Act, and the Carl Perkins Vocational Education Act during the 109th Congress. Tenorio has a lot of interest in seeing that any changes to these two acts are favorable to the CNMI.

In a recent request to Gov. Juan N. Babauta and the leadership of the CNMI Legislature to sponsor a nonpartisan summit, Tenorio highlighted his concern over the need for more comprehensive education, especially that preparing young people for employment.

“We not only need to make sure that there are jobs for our young people, we need to make sure that they are properly trained for those jobs,” said Tenorio.

“I also spoke to Congressman Young at length about our continued need for the Talafofo bridge and other highway projects and the need for volcanic monitoring. I will also pursue with him additional funds for water system improvement projects, and for our ailing health system. As usual I invited those I visited to come to our islands,” added Tenorio.

Congress will be in recess for the next several weeks, and during this hiatus, Tenorio said he will be returning to the CNMI to assist the mayors, municipal councils, and the legislative delegations update their priority list for water projects.

his is being done to assist the Interagency group on Insular Areas prepare a report for Congress on the implementation of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ plan to bring the CNMI’s water system up to federal safe drinking water standards.