Kimberlyn King-Hinds: “my district, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, is incredibly far from this Chamber, nearly twice as far…”

“my district, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, is incredibly far from this Chamber, nearly twice as far from Washington, D.C., as Moscow, Russia. Yet, the distance between the Northern Mariana Islands and Washington is not measured only in miles. In many ways, our people are also living with systems and conditions decades behind the rest of our country. Power infrastructure built over 40 years ago struggles to stay online. Water systems built generations ago are failing under the weight of time. Long before Super Typhoon Sinlaku struck our islands this year, our economy was already under extraordinary strain. Tourism had not recovered. Businesses were closing. Families were leaving. Air service was shrinking. Government revenues were collapsing. Mr. Speaker, this did not happen in a vacuum. For decades, Federal policies toward the territories, while often well-intentioned, have too often operated as barriers instead of bridges to long-term economic sufficiency. One-size-fits-all Federal policies may work on the mainland, but they do not work for small, remote-island economies in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. When transportation policies fail to account for isolation, we pay more. When healthcare systems fail to account for remoteness, people leave. When economic policies fail to account for the fact that tourism is our customer base, entire industries collapse.”