U.S. renews partnership
pacts with MicronesiaHawaii will receive part of
a $30 million impact aid package
The U.S. House has passed legislation that renews the partnership agreements between the United States and two Pacific island nations and provides financial aid to Hawaii and three U.S. territories to help offset the costs related to immigrant islanders.
The legislation to renew the Compacts of Free Association with the Federated States of Micronesia and the Republic of the Marshall Islands includes $30 million in impact aid.
The House version passed last week on a unanimous voice vote. The Senate has yet to schedule a vote on either the House bill or its own version of the legislation.
The financial provisions of the agreements expired Sept. 30, but Congress extended the funding another month.
The United States has contributed an estimated $2.6 billion to the two island nations since the compacts were established in 1986, when the governments first entered into the agreement.
The new compacts will authorize the federal government to provide $3.5 billion over the next 20 years, with the goal of weaning the two countries from U.S. aid.
The new compacts also provide $30 million in impact aid for Hawaii, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas and American Samoa to help offset the costs incurred by Micronesian and Marshalese citizens, who are free to migrate to any U.S. state or territory.
"It's a very good result for both Hawaii and the other impacted jurisdiction locations like Guam," said U.S. Rep. Ed Case.
He said the version of the compact legislation passed by the House not only contains the $30 million in impact aid over the next 20 years for Hawaii, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands and American Samoa, it makes the aid mandatory.
"That taken together is a clearer victory for those of us that have argued that the impact aid was insufficient," Case said.
Case said the legislation also contains a provision for reimbursing hospitals and health care providers in Hawaii for unpaid bills generated by Marshalese and Micronesian patients.
"They have been servicing the compact community but not been paid for it," he said.
Case said that under the new compacts, the U.S. government would recognize those debts as impact from the compacts.
"We're going to work on getting them paid," Case said. "Congress has authorized the money to be paid as long as it's reconciled and appropriated."
The money, which is in addition to the impact aid, applies to debts incurred before the term of the new compacts.
The legislation had stalled over the issue of funding education programs, but Case said the impasse was resolved when members agreed to fund college Pell grants on a discretionary basis.
"Clearly, education needs to be one of the priorities, and it's something that the United States, the Marshall Islands and FSM all agree on," said Gerard Finin, an expert on Pacific island studies at the East-West Center in Honolulu. "The disagreement focused on how the funding was to be administered."
Finin sat in last week on a meeting between President Bush and the presidents, prime ministers, governors and other leaders of 10 independent island nations and three U.S. territories, who met in Honolulu at the Pacific Islands Conference of Leaders.
The compact legislation was one issue discussed during the hour-long meeting, he said.
"The passage was what they focused on," Finin said. "The president was very much aware of the need to move the compact amendments forward."
