Stacey Plaskett

Investing in coastal restoration is good policy. It is not just the right thing to do for the environment; it is the right thing to do for coastal communities, vulnerable coastal populations, and the U.S. economy.

Our response to these losses needs to address the causes of decline and accelerate recovery through the restoration and resilience projects that my bill, H.R. 660, would authorize.

Healthy coastal ecosystems provide critical social and environmental benefits in addition to playing important roles to the fishing industries and broader economies of coastal communities across the country.

I am pleased that the Committee is holding today's hearing on the important issue of improving our coastlines and oceans.

American Samoa is unique by virtue that it became the only U.S. territory by deed secession starting in 1900.

We simply cannot ignore the basic truth that the super majority of people actually living in American Samoa vociferously opposed the case.

The residents of the territories each have their own opinions about their relationship with the mainland.

Congress has better tools than a House Resolution to make things right.

It is undeniable that the cases contain outdated and racially biased language.

If anyone is holding onto these racist Insular Cases as a way of keeping Article XII afloat, they may be holding onto an anchor, not a life preserver.

What makes me proud to call myself an American, is the fact that the country is capable of recognizing its past mistakes.

I sincerely appeal to you to follow her example, because as she recognized, this is a fundamental issue of self-determination.

I would like to submit for the record letters from Governor Lemanu Mauga and myself to our counterparts in other insular territories asking them not to support or endorse efforts to deny self-determination.

We want any change in our political status and rights under federal territorial law to be decided by elected leaders in the local government.

We support the intent of the resolution to repudiate the racist and shameful attitudes depicted in the Insular Cases.

We do not want to have court decide the fate of our people as it was done resulting in the Insular Cases.

House Resolution 279, which calls the Insular Cases racist, undemocratic, unconstitutional, unAmerican, and having no place in the America we know and love, is the first and important step to make amends.

It is a central principle of our American democracy that Americans, through their votes, can have a say in their own governments.

I support denouncing the Insular Cases' for their racist origins and racial subordination of people in the U.S. territories.

I offer my qualified support for House Resolution 279, which acknowledges that the U.S. Supreme Court's decisions in the Insular Cases and the territorial incorporation doctrine are contrary to the text and history of the U.S. Constitution.

Simply put, America has a colonies problem.

The Supreme Court's decisions in the Insular Cases are contrary to the text and history of the Constitution.

At the core of the disenfranchisement of territory residents are the racially charged series of Supreme Court decisions in the early 1900s--the Insular Cases.

As a resident of the Virgin Islands, it is of the utmost importance that we, as Members of Congress, confront our disenfranchisement.

More than 3.5 million U.S. citizens are denied constitutional rights simply because they reside in one of the five U.S. territories.