CNMI drafts measures to put programmatic agreement with DoD back to drawing board

The administration of Gov. Ralph DLG Torres has finalized its version of a programmatic agreement for a proposed U.S. Air Force divert airfield on Tinian, drafting language that essentially forces parties to re-negotiate terms, if the military chose to site the airfield on another CNMI location over the preferred “Tinian-only” site.

Programmatic agreements are essentially measures agreed to by consulting parties to protect cultural and historic properties affected by Department of Defense projects.

The CNMI’s draft version was sent over to PACOM’s Lt. Gen. Anthony Crutchfield on Monday, the single point of contact for the CNMI on Defense projects, and is the version that the CNMI is willing to sign on to, Torres officials said yesterday.

Torres said yesterday that they emphasized, “that it’s only Tinian” and that if there were any other proposal again, on another site in the CNMI, that “they have to come back and review it.”

“It’s specifically Tinian,” said Torres told Saipan Tribune in an interview between meetings at his office on Capitol Hill yesterday afternoon. “And if there is any other option then we have to come back to the drawing board.”

CNMI officials have insisted, among other concerns, that the divert airfield be placed on Tinian, despite the military’s previously heavily advertised “hybrid” option which would spread divert project on both Saipan and Tinian to lessen project impact.

Torres said yesterday municipal mayors also want to see the buildup on Tinian, and that he looks forward to working with Crutchfield on making this a reality.

“I am optimistic about it. I feel that both sides have worked in good faith. At least I know we have worked in good faith. The ultimate goal is…to see the divert airfield be in Tinian.”

The Torres administration also aims to have Torres be one of the main signatories on the document.

Officials explain that there are three signatories to the document, signatories, invited signatories, and consulting party signatories.

Torres wants to be a signatory, or an invited signatory given the same purviews as main signatory to the document, to have say and consent over any amendments that the military may propose to the document.

The Torres administration also has included language to have the Air Force show they have a lease or are in the process of getting a lease from the Commonwealth Ports Authority for the divert project on Tinian.

Torres said these were one the “changes” they put into the agreement so that the military “have some sort of draft proposal that CPA agrees on.”

This includes a master plan, or airport layout plan, that CPA and the military must agree on.

Torres told Saipan Tribune their programmatic agreement will be “requiring” these.

“The other one was that we have to be part of the signatories” on “what contracts they agree or what CPA agrees,” Torres said, so that his signature on the programmatic agreement “is not the last one.”

“Normally once they sign [the agreement] every one else goes on their own. But we would like to come back and say ‘what have you agreed to,’ ‘do we agree on the contracts you’ve had with the other departments?’” Torres explained.

The negotiations for this agreement come as previous agreements to fund over million-dollar cultural and historical projects for another military project, the Marianas Island Range Complex” project, or MIRC, remains unfunded.

The MIRC agreement also identified military “constraint” and mitigation areas and measures agreed to for Tinian that Torres believes had been “undermined” by a more recent and larger-scale live-fire training proposal, the CNMI Joint Military Training project, on the island.