MPLA is dissolved

The 15th Legislature and the Fitial administration fast tracked yesterday the enactment of a bill that abolished the Marianas Public Lands Authority as an autonomous agency.

Both houses of the Legislature held back-to-back sessions yesterday to discuss the revised House Bill 15-57, which sought to transfer all of MPLA’s functions to a Department of Public Lands within the Executive Branch.

Gov. Benigno R. Fitial and Lt. Gov. Timothy P. Villagomez themselves sat through five hours of discussion to see to it that the bill passed both houses.

The House of Representatives convened first, passing the bill on an 11-6 vote. The Senate then went into session and voted 6-3 in favor of the measure.

The MPLA bill, which was initiated by the administration, is now Public Law 15-2.

“I commend the House for taking the action that they did. We expect the same thing to happen in the Senate. This will prevent further abuses of public funds,” Fitial told the Saipan Tribune in an interview following the House session.

On the opposition’s concern over the House and Senate leadership’s railroading of the bill, the governor said: “We have a cancer and this cancer must be cured right away. That’s the only way to cure it—to fast track this legislation that would remove the autonomous status of MPLA.”

Fitial said that the Legislature will have an opportunity in the future to amend the new law if some members believe that there are important issues that still need to be addressed.

“If they amend the law, so be it. That would be another issue,” he said.

For his part, press secretary Charles P. Reyes Jr. said that the Legislature’s fast action on the MPLA bill was another indication of the administration’s close working relationship with the lawmakers.

Changes

P.L. 15-2 included several amendments to the H.B. 15-57 that was originally introduced in the House. The changes were made following several well-attended public hearings conducted by the House Committee on Natural Resources and the Senate Committee on Resources, Economic Development and Programs.

P.L. 15-2 did away with the term “abolition” in the title and referred instead to the transfer of MPLA’s obligations and responsibilities to the to-be created Department of Public Lands.

The new law also used a constitutional provision as basis for the legislation. Specifically, the bill referred to Article XI Section 4(f) of the Constitution, as amended in 1986, which provided that the functions previously performed by the Marianas Public Lands Corporation should be transferred to the executive branch of the government after its dissolution.

The nine specific findings set forth in the original draft were also omitted and replaced by a finding that “the Commonwealth’s experience with the management of public lands over the years has demonstrated the need for additional controls.”

The new section relating to the secretary of Public Lands specified further qualifications for the person serving in the position. It required that the secretary be of Northern Marianas descent and have the experience and credentials appropriate to the position.

The substitute section on the advisory board obligated the secretary to consult with the board before adopting any comprehensive land use program and homestead program.

The new section designated the mayor and municipal council, rather than the mayor and the legislative delegations, as appointing authorities for the advisory board. It also eliminated the earlier requirement that one member be a woman and one be a person of Carolinian descent.

Furthermore, a new subsection was added to require the department to adopt and promulgate a comprehensive land use plan within one year after the law has been enacted.

Another important change provided that public lands transferred to other government agencies that are not in compliance with the specific non-commercial use approved by the Department of Public Lands will revert back to the department.

Opposition

The passage of H.B. 15-57 faced opposition from minority members of each house.

Those who did not vote for the bill in the House were minority leader Arnold I. Palacios and Reps. Ramon Tebuteb, Manuel Tenorio, Joseph Deleon Guerrero, Benjamin Seman, and Candido Taman.

Collectively, the Republican lawmakers criticized the manner with which that the majority fast-tracked the passage of the bill.

Deleon Guerrero proposed that the board members simply be replaced, rather than abolishing the entire structure. He also urged his members to wait first for the result of the audits being conducted by the Office of the Public Auditor.

Tenorio raised issues that he said have not been addressed by the bill, including the Tinian and Rota mayors’ request for decentralization of public lands management.

“There are still issues hanging in the air and here we are [already passing the bill]. I don’t know if time is really of the essence. We are not condoning the violations committed by the MPLA board; we can prosecute and that’s what we should do,” Tenorio said.

Taman called on his colleagues to be more careful and prudent in approaching the bill. “Senior members of the House and the Senate have admitted that they did make a mistake in creating the agency [in the 12th Legislature]. Let’s make sure we wouldn’t go back and say we made a mistake back in 2006,” he said.

In the Senate, those who voted against the bill were senators Paul Manglona, Luis Crisostimo, and Jude Hofschneider.

Crisostimo made an attempt to amend the bill, proposing to make the “advisory board” a “mayor’s board” and to insert a sunset clause providing that the management of public lands revert back to MPLA after Fitial’s administration.

The Senate majority rejected his proposed amendment, preventing a delay in the bill’s passage. A Senate amendment to the bill would have required that the measure be transmitted back to the House for approval.

Administration officials and House members were present in the audience during the Senate session.