Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I rise with Senator Cantwell of Washington State to introduce the Omnibus Territories Act of 2015, which relates to the U.S. territory of American Samoa, as well as the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau--collectively known as the Freely Associated States. Sections 2 and 3 of the legislation are introduced at the request of the administration and section 4 at the request of the governments of the three Freely Associated States. Section 2 would permit the use of resettlement and relocation funds provided to the people of Bikini Atoll to be used within or outside of the Republic of the Marshall Islands. As a result of nuclear weapons testing by the United States in the northern islands and atolls of the Marshall Islands, Congress, through Public Law 97-257 in 1982, provided the people of Bikini Atoll a relocation and resettlement trust fund to be used by the people of Bikini to resettle from their traditional homeland of Bikini Atoll to other islands within the Marshall Islands. Currently, most members of the community live on the islands of Kili and Ejit. Today, however, the people on these islands have limited living space, lack suitable sustainable resources to provide water and food for their population, and they are exposed to tidal flooding on an increasingly frequent basis.…”