The devil will be in the details, says Reyes

Reacting to fresh assurances that S.2739 will not be detrimental to the CNMI economy, Gov. Benigno R. Fitial’s press secretary Charles P. Reyes said that a bill’s intent is usually different from its implementation.

“Again, there’s a lot of uncertainty. They have no regulations promulgated yet. The devil could be on the details. How can we agree on something that has no details yet?” he asked in an e-mail to the [I]Saipan Tribune[/I].

Reyes’ comments came after Senate Energy & Natural Resources spokesperson Bill Wicker said that S.2739, or the Consolidated Natural Resources Act of 2008, is sensitive to the plight of the CNMI and its people.

The governor’s spokesman said that particularly worrisome is the provision on extending the transition period by five-year increments.

“Businesses have no way of knowing…if a big business comes in and they’re putting in $100 million investment, they don’t know 10 years from now if they still have continued access to workers. That’s not good for business,” he said. “Especially for businesses that will pour in millions of dollars here. They want to have assurance… it’s not really good assurance for investment capital coming in.”

Reyes also took issue with S.2739’s language and the use of “may” and the local government being allowed to give only recommendations in the provision pertaining to the federal takeover of CNMI immigration.

“If you read carefully, you will again see that there are no guarantees. There is no guarantee that the CNMI will have adequate access to labor. The language only says ‘may’ and the governor can only make recommendations or suggestions that the federal government would be entirely free to reject or ignore. And Mr. Wicker freely admits that the federal bureaucracies would have to draft regulations after the law is passed, so we really do not have many specific details. Much is left to the federal government, to their own discretion, based on political more than economic considerations. It seems they are just saying, ‘Don’t worry, trust us’ but too much is at stake for the CNMI economy,” he said.

Opponents of the measure are also worried that the bill will restrict the CNMI’s access to major tourism markets, especially China and Russia.

Wicker assured, though, that S.2739 champions growing the CNMI tourism industry, pointing out that section 701(b) of the bill states that this law “should be implemented wherever possible to expand tourism and economic development in the Commonwealth.”

Section 702(b), Wicker said, would establish a special Guam-CNMI visa waiver program that is specifically designed to allow visitors to enter the CNMI without a visa from countries such as China and Russia, who are not eligible for visa-free entry into the U.S.

Moreover, under paragraph section 701(b)(6) the governor of the CNMI may request “to add a particular country to the list of countries whose nationals may obtain the (visa) waiver,” according to Wicker.

In addition, section 702(c) of S.2739 clearly mandate that the “governor of the CNMI may propose the creation of entirely new CNMI-only visa categories that ‘may include, but are not limited to, special nonimmigrant statuses for investors, students, and retiree…’”