Gregorio Sablan: “People in the Northern Mariana Islands pay up to 40 cents per kilowatt hour for electricity. That's four times the…”

“People in the Northern Mariana Islands pay up to 40 cents per kilowatt hour for electricity. That's four times the national average because we're dependent on diesel oil shipped long distances. A technical assistance grant for the Department of the Interior's Office of Insular Affairs, however, has helped identify a possible source of geothermal energy on one of the islands. Further exploration and more investments are needed to be sure that this alternative source will work for us; but without the technical assistance grant from Interior, we wouldn't even know that we have this possibility of getting off our dependence on expensive foreign oil. And now, H.R. 1 proposes to cut the funds that Interior uses to help the Northern Marianas and the other insular areas in this way. That kind of thinking is penny wise and pound foolish. But helping us get free of foreign oil is only one example of how this Interior Department funding helps us. These cuts threaten the brown tree snake program. I know this may sound like a joke to some, but on Guam there are literally 500,000 or more of these snakes. A few came in on military aircraft and spread quickly. They have caused millions of dollars in damage to electrical distribution systems and destroyed the rare indigenous bird life. And we don't want to see these pests spread to the Northern Mariana Islands or Hawaii or mainland United States. And the Interior Department funding is keeping these snakes in check.”