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Legislature deadlocked on CUC measure
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Posted on Oct 19 2006
The Senate rejected yesterday the House amendments to a bill proposing to scrap a requirement for Saipan’s future independent power producer to pay half of the government utility’s waived debt to the Commonwealth Development Authority.
Senate President Joseph M. Mendiola appointed three senators to resolve the deadlock with their counterparts from the House of Representatives.
Sens. Maria Pangelinan, Henry San Nicolas and Felix Mendiola will represent the Senate in the conference committee. House Speaker Oscar M. Babauta has yet to name who will sit on behalf of the Lower House.
Authored by Mendiola, Senate Bill 15-62 proposes to amend Public Law 15-12, which waives the loan and interests owed by the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. to CDA.
S.B. 15-62 seeks to remove a provision of the law that requires any private company taking over CUC’s power plants to pay half of the $45.5-million loan principal.
But the Lower House has amended the bill. The amendments sought to retain the $22.75 million payment requirement and proposed that the money be distributed as follows: $7 million to fund a windmill power generation for Rota; $4.75 million to the general fund to bring government work period back to 80 hours; and $11 million to CDA.
CDA’s portion was further divided to fund three projects: $8 million for the Saipan airport fuel farm, $1 million each for separate fuel farms at the Rota and Tinian airports, and $1 million for the Tinian breakwater construction.
According to Mendiola, the Senate has drafted a new version for the conference committee’s consideration.
“The new version of the bill proposes to have the money stay with CUC and be given back to the consumers in the form of rebates or billing credits. It will be left to the Public Utilities Commission to determine how the credits should be distributed. But the intent is to have the money go back to the consumers and lower utility rates,” he said.
