Task force eyed to help craft federalization regs

With seven months to go before the federal government assumes control of local labor and immigration, lawmakers are mulling the creation of a task force to help craft regulations to implement the federalization law.

The House of Representatives on Thursday adopted a resolution calling for the establishment of an ad hoc legislative task force that will work with other concerned groups in pushing for the CNMI’s interests as federal agencies develop the federalization regulations.

The resolution, now bound for a Senate vote, expresses the Legislature’s desire “to be an informed participant, in collaboration with concerned public and private entities, in the development of [U.S. Public Law] 110-229 regulations as they pertain to the CNMI.” It also requires the Senate president and the House speaker to appoint members to the task force.

According to the resolution, the task force should get organized within five days of the resolution becoming adopted by both houses of the Legislature. Its job will be to conduct public hearings, make official inquiries on federalization, and keep the Legislature informed of any development on the drafting of the regulations.

Private sector organizations such as the Saipan Chamber of Commerce and the Hotel Association of the Northern Mariana Islands formed similar committees even before the federalization effort became law, in a bid to ensure that local employers will continue to have access to needed foreign workers under the new labor and immigration system.

The resolution came even as Gov. Benigno R. Fitial reiterated that the time is up for talking with the U.S. government.

“I cannot continue to negotiate when this is already a statute. The only remedy I have is Section 903 [of the Covenant between the United States and the Commonwealth],” Fitial said in a press conference on Thursday.

Section 903 states that any disputes arising under the Covenant could be brought to court.

On Sept. 12, 2008, Fitial filed the lawsuit in the federal court for the District of Columbia in a bid to block the pending federal takeover of local labor and immigration. At issue in the governor’s complaint are the labor provisions of the federalization law, which Fitial claims the U.S. Congress does not have the authority to impose upon the Commonwealth. The governor also says that federalization is against the CNMI’s Covenant-protected right to self-government.