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Torres to Bordallo: Support subsea mining for NMI
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Posted on Mar 11 2009
Rep. Ralph DLG. Torres has asked Guam Delegate Madeleine Bordallo to support the CNMI’s wish to benefit from any subsea mineral extractions outside the 3-mile exclusive economic zone, which the Commonwealth will have a control over once a bill pending in U.S. Congress becomes law.
Torres, chairman of the House Health, Education and Welfare Committee, said although there are no mining activities now, there are interests for commercial mining in the CNMI by Neptune Minerals and other groups.
He said present technological advancement in mining systems and the competitiveness of subsea minerals stimulated interests in commercial mining.
“Nautilus Minerals had been given extraction permits by Papua New Guinea at the Solwara fields within PNG EEZ. Therefore, pertinent section of the Outer Continental Shelf Act needs to be amended to allow mining in the Northern Marianas and for our government to benefit from these enterprises,” Torres added.
This is part of Torres’ March 5 letter to Bordallo, chairperson of the Subcommittee on Insular Affairs, in support of H.R. 934, which he said embodies the CNMI’s aspiration to have control of its own land.
Delegate Gregorio “Kilili” C. Sablan introduced H.R. 934, which conveys to the CNMI the submerged lands surrounding each of the Northern Mariana Islands out to 3 miles from the coastline.
The U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources will meet Wednesday in open markup session to consider bills that include Sablan’s H.R. 934.
If passed into law, the bill will give the CNMI the same benefits from its submerged lands as Guam, the Virgin Islands and American Samoa have.
On March 4, the CNMI House of Representatives passed House Joint Resolution 16-24 supporting Sablan’s H.R. 934.
In 2005, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the CNMI did not own the submerged lands. The ruling angered many people in the Marianas, who believed the court was wrong.
