Insular Areas and Freely Associated States Energy Development

Floor Speech

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Mr. Speaker, lowering the cost of electricity is extremely important to the people I represent in the Northern Mariana Islands. Residential customers in my district pay 40 cents per kilowatt-hour--three times the U.S. average. And those electricity bills are eating away at families' paychecks.

That's why I support H.R. 83.

H.R. 83 will help local governments develop and implement plans to reduce reliance on the expensive fossil fuels that make electricity so expensive in America's insular areas, including the Northern Mariana Islands.

The plans will propose technical, financial, and policy actions that island governments and local utilities can take to move the islands towards alternative sources of energy--especially renewables. The plans will show how to improve efficiency beginning with production, through distribution, and at the point of use, so that every kilowatt generated in the islands goes unwasted.

Last year, Congresswomen Donna Christensen and Madeleine Bordallo, Congressman Eni Faleomavaega, Resident Commissioner Pedro Pierluisi and I were successful in convincing Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to increase funding for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program in our islands. About 120 families were added to the rolls in the Northern Marianas and the assistance that all 420 families now receive is as much as double the previous amount.

But helping some families with the high cost of energy is only a partial fix. We need to lower costs for everyone. That's what Ms. Christensen's bill promises to do.

I want to thank Congresswoman Christensen for her years of work to move this important bill forward and congratulate her for bringing the bill to the floor today.

I urge my colleagues to support H.R 83.

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