Some thoughts on mining bill

To chairwoman Kaipat:

As a concerned voter and citizen of our Commonwealth, I would like to share with you and the honorable members of the House of Representative some of my thoughts on House Bill 15-56.

While I agree with the intent of the bill, I strongly believe that it should apply to new or future investors and not to jeopardize or disrupt the joint venture of JG Sablan Rock Quarry (“JGS”) and Bridgecreek International Corp (“Bridgecreek”) for the following reasons:

a) JGS has a valid permit to extract pozzolan at a designated location in Pagan and it is up-to-date on its payment fee. In fact, JGS has paid an enormous amount of money to date and most recently the $20,000 for the year 2006 permit;

b) JGS has worked and tried its best for the past 10 years and thus reached this point when the joint venture is ready to proceed with the mining project;

c) The CNMI government is in dire need of money and this project will definitely bring substantial amount of revenue to the CNMI government;

d) JGS has offered not only to provide trust funds for the residents of the Northern Islands and committed funds for our Public School System, but also community projects that would benefit the CNMI and the residents of the Northern Islands in particular;

e) JGS is a local company operating in the CNMI for quite some time and has contributed a great deal to the CNMI economy and will continue to do so for generations to come. The owner of JGS is an indigenous of the Northern Mariana Islands. With this in mind, I am sure that, after the CNMI government collected the proceeds from the permit fee, royalty fees, BGRT, excise tax, after the funds are deposited into the Northern Island Trust Fund and PSS Trust Fund, and after the funds for the various Northern Islands community projects have been reserved, the share of JGS from the remaining proceeds will stay in the CNMI, which will ultimately play a major role in our economy for many years to come; and

f) To this date, I have not seen any solid evidence of other new major investor(s) coming in to the CNMI other than Bridgecreek. In fact, Bridgecreek is the only new and major investor and is here in the CNMI and, together with JGS, they are ready to generate income within months.

Accordingly, I urge the members of the committee and other elected officials to work together hand in hand with JGS and Bridgecreek and make this joint venture a success for the entire people of the CNMI and help improve our ailing local economy.

Thank you for the opportunity to share with you and the members of the House of Representative some of my thoughts pertaining to House Bill 15-56. I pray to God that you consider inserting an appropriate language(s) in the Bill that would NOT affect the on-going JGS/Bridgecreek joint venture for the reasons stated above.

Roman T. Tudela
San Vicente