Chamber opposes $1 fee for scuba dive shops

The Saipan Chamber of Commerce is opposing a bill that would require scuba dive shop operators and marine sport concessionaries to impose a $1 surcharge per customer who avails of their services.

The CNMI’s largest business organization is also opposed to a bill requiring employers to provide resident workers the same benefits given to alien workers.

The Chamber also reiterated its call for the abolition of Article 12 of the NMI Constitution, which restricts landownership to persons of Northern Marianas descent, in its comment on two separate initiatives.

Douglas Brennan, Chamber president, sent four separate letters to the Legislature commenting on four pieces of legislation.

Among these bills is House Bill 17-75, HS1, SD1, requiring dive shop operators and marine sport concessionaries to pay a $1 surcharge per customer. A portion of the funds collected will go toward buying a decompression chamber.

Brennan said the Chamber is generally against increased costs of doing business in the CNMI. He said passage of this bill will create additional hardship on a specific area of commerce and trade.

He said the Northern Marianas Dive Operators Association had already raised thousands of dollars for the purchase of a decompression chamber several years ago, but there’s been no purchase made “and those funds disappeared into the CNMI general fund.”

“Although it has no bearing on the merits of the acquisition of the decompression chamber itself, the NMDOA is justifiably upset that the Legislature would ask them to fund again, through a surcharge that harms their very operations,” Brennan said in a letter to House Speaker Eli Cabrera (R-Saipan).

Brennan, general manager for Microl Corp., also said the Chamber opposes HB 17-225 or the Resident Workers Fair Compensation Act of 2011.

He said a better alternative would be to repeal the mandatory requirement for employers to shoulder the medical costs of foreign workers.

Richard Pierce, executive director of the Chamber, said last night that if there were enough trained and qualified locals to take positions that will now be held by the new H-1B visa holders, “we wouldn’t need any H1-B persons in the CNMI.”

“You cannot substitute a prevailing wage rate for H1-B visa holders for those existing CNMI minimum wage earners unless they are qualified to hold those positions. And if they are, and they are being forced to accept CNMI minimum wage pay, then they should visit EEOC. That’s the way it works,” he said.

Brennan, in commenting on House Legislative Initiative 17-3, said that simply amending the blood quantum levels to “at least a certain degree” of indigenous blood does not address the primary problem with the current restrictions under Article 12.

“With the abolishment of Article 12, SCC believes the current economic challenges where financial institutions are unable to extend loans and further financial assistance would be alleviated, and investment opportunities would be enhanced through Article12’s absolute abolishment,” he said.

Brennan made a similar comment on Senate Legislative Initiative 17-9, extending private land leases from 55 years to 99 years.

“Investment in the CNMI, through land acquisition as securing that investment, is further enhanced by abolishing Article 12. SCC believes SLI 17-9 will only potentially decrease the economic impact of Article 12 as a deterrent to investment in the CNMI,” he added.