CNMI leaders reaffirm opposition to monument

After meeting in talks with the Bush administration’s leading environmental policy official earlier this week, political opposition to the White House’s proposal to establish a national marine monument in the waters around the CNMI’s northern islands remains firm, Gov. Benigno Fitial, Senate President Pete Reyes and House Speaker Arnold Palacios said in a letter Wednesday.

The letter, addressed to White House Council on Environmental Quality chief James Connaughton, says federal officials and environmentalists have rushed to see the proposed monument—which would place the waters around the islands of Maug, Asuncion and Uracus under heightened federal protection—created before the close of Bush’s presidency without meaningful discussion with CNMI authorities.

When Bush established the Papahanumokuakea Marine Monument, in Hawaii, earlier in his term, the state had several years to decide its stance on the issue, the letter notes—a delay that was due to in-fighting among federal agencies. The CNMI, it adds, should have more time to weigh the plan and perhaps put it to a public vote. Talks under section 902 of the Covenant between the CNMI and the federal government, the letter notes, are a further option.

“Respectfully, we are nonplussed by the way this entire process has unfolded to date,” it says before lambasting the Pew Charitable Trust, a non-profit organization, for its role in rallying support for the plan.

Moreover, the leaders write that in his meeting with Connaughton this week, it appeared that the Bush administration is determined to push ahead with the proposal whether or not the local government approves.

“Even though this was ostensibly the beginning of discussions, many present were left with the feeling that the result was pre-ordained and the discussion was more pretense than substance,” the letter says.

The designation of a monument, it adds, would certainly block any future fishing and mining activity in the waters at issue and bar the CNMI’s efforts to reverse a recent court decision that effectively placed near shore undersea resources under federal control.

For his part, Connaughton in a meeting with local lawmakers this week said the mineral and energy resources beneath the waters of the proposed monument are aligned in such a way that extracting them could still be possible if the president’s plan moves forward. At a public forum and later in a speech at a local hotel, he added that local people would continue to have access to the region after its designation as a monument, while fishing rules remain an open question.

However, existing environmental protections, the letter contends, are enough to safeguard the waters around the northern islands and most of the CNMI’s political factions are in “near unanimity” when it comes to opposing the plan.

“We do believe that the establishment of the proposed monument seems likely to wrest control of access to these islands from the people of the CNMI, and transfer that control to those with little familiarity with the resources in question, the history of the islands, and the culture and traditions of their people,” the letter says, adding later that local officials “will not be bullied, badgered or bought, and to be frank, an artificial deadline imposed on us will not be well received. Until and unless our governments can mutually agree on a proposal that fully addresses the concerns of the people of the CNMI, our answer is no, no, a thousand times no.”