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Legislature OKs bill restricting use of disaster emergencies
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Posted on Nov 03 2008
The Legislature has passed a bill clipping the governor’s powers to declare a state of disaster emergency.
The House of Representatives in a session on Rota Friday accepted minor amendments made by the Senate to the bill and sent the legislation on its way to Gov. Benigno R. Fitial for his signature.
Under the bill, the governor will not be able to use his constitutional powers to declare an emergency to deal with “financial crisis or hardship.” Proponents of the bill say such declarations should only be allowed in extreme cases such as an invasion, civil disturbance, natural disaster, or calamity. They argue that existing laws provide enough means for the governor to deal with a financial crisis without the governor having to use emergency powers.
Rep. Joseph James Camacho introduced the bill in May 2008 in the wake of the governor’s emergency declaration for the Commonwealth Ports Authority, which was facing technical default on its airport revenue bonds due to financial problems.
Since Fitial assumed office in January 2006, he has issued declarations or extensions of more than a dozen disaster emergencies for government agencies.
The CNMI is currently under three states of emergency: one for the Commonwealth Utilities Corp., one for the lack of a full-time pharmacist at the Commonwealth Health Center, and one for the island of Anatahan, which experienced a volcanic eruption in 2003.
Charles Reyes, press secretary for the Governor’s Office, in a previous interview had said each of the executive orders was necessary under the circumstances.
“The Governor would rather not have to declare such emergencies or invoke his constitutional powers so often, but the situation demands it. The architects of our Constitution contemplated such emergency situations and empowered the Governor to take extraordinary actions to meet crisis situations of this kind,” he had said.
