[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 9]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 12732-12733]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




     H.R. 339, THE NORTHERN MARIANA ISLANDS ECONOMIC EXPANSION ACT

                                 ______
                                 

                  HON. GREGORIO KILILI CAMACHO SABLAN

                    of the northern mariana islands

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, August 15, 2017

  Mr. SABLAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues for understanding that 
my bill, H.R. 339, as amended by the Senate, was time-critical and for 
acting swiftly upon this measure on Friday, August 11.
  H.R. 339, the Northern Mariana Islands Economic Expansion Act, was 
intended to provide one-time relief to the economic disruption that 
occurred in my district, when a surge of Chinese construction workers 
used up one-third of the available Commonwealth-only Transitional 
Worker permits for fiscal year 2017. This left many of our local 
businesses, small and large, in the lurch. These businesses have 
foreign workers on their staff, who know the business and upon whom 
employers rely, for whom fiscal year 2017 permits became unavailable as 
a result of the Chinese surge. There is an annual limit on the number 
of these Commonwealth-only Transitional Worker, or CW-1, permits, which 
are specific and unique to the Marianas. For fiscal 2017, 12,998 were 
available. H.R. 339 provides 350 more to help out the businesses caught 
in this bind.
  Had the Senate acted more quickly and had the Senate not decided to 
reduce the number of additional permits to 350, more local businesses 
could have been assisted. But the legislative process is collaborative 
and deliberative; and I respect that.
  I can say that there are 306 permits that were scheduled to expire in 
August and September. So by providing an additional 350 permits, H.R. 
339, as amended, matches up against that remaining need.
  I also note that the Senate amendment takes the current permit system 
in a new direction by designating that at least 60 of the additional 
permits for fiscal 2017 must be used for workers in healthcare and at 
least 10 for power plant operators. These occupational categories are 
critical to public health and safety. It well may be that in the future 
any foreign worker permits, specific to the Marianas, will also have to 
begin to be prioritized to ensure that the most value is added to the 
Marianas economy by the permitted workers.
  Although H.R. 339 provides one-time relief to an immediate shortage 
of permits, there is further intent. The bill contains two provisions 
that will make the problem we are fixing now less likely to recur in 
future.
  First, and most importantly, the bill increases the fee that 
employers pay, as part of the permit process, that goes to training 
U.S. workers to fill the jobs currently held by foreign workers in the 
Marianas. Had the Marianas been less dependent on foreign workers, this 
year's crisis would have been proportionally less intense. So, we must 
continue to focus on adding U.S. workers to the economy.
  The fee increase is from $150 per annual permit to $200. And the 
increase is permanent. It does not apply solely to fiscal 2017, as is 
the case with the extra permits. It is the intention of the legislation 
that the fee increase apply to petitions filed on or after the date of 
enactment, not to petitions previously filed.
  Since the beginning of the transitional worker program, these fees 
have provided about $10 million to the Commonwealth of the Northern 
Mariana Islands government and been distributed to educational 
institutions. Over the same period of time, about 1,200 U.S. workers 
have been added to the local labor force. I understand from testimony 
of the Government Accountability Office to the Senate Energy and 
Natural Resources Committee in April of this year, that some $3 million 
of the collected fees remain unused.
  Effective and prompt use of the U.S. worker training funds are goals 
I believe should be part of the consideration for future legislation. I 
introduced in the 113th Congress, H.R. 2200, a bill that would have 
required the Commonwealth provide to the Secretary of Homeland Security 
a plan for the expenditure of these funds with a specific, numerical 
goal for job placement of U.S. workers. My legislation also required a 
biennial report by the Comptroller General on whether this goal had 
been met. That legislation did not make it to the finish line here in 
Congress; however, along with the allocation of permits for specific, 
high-value occupations, setting performance goals for the U.S. worker 
training fund is a policy I believe should be a part of our future 
considerations.
  The second provision intended to prevent a recurrence of the current 
crisis bars the use of the CW-1 permit for new workers in construction 
occupations. Existing construction companies with foreign workers, who 
have been in their employ prior to fiscal year 2016, will be able to 
continue renewing the CW-1 permits of those specific individual 
workers. There are between 1,000 and 1,500 such individuals, I 
understand. Approval for a CW-1 permit for an individual in a 
construction occupation may not be granted, if the individual was not 
previously approved for a CW-1 permit before October 1, 2015. And no 
approvals for initial grant of CW-1 status to individuals in 
construction occupations, as defined in H.R. 339, may be issued, 
regardless of whether the employer previously petitioned for an 
employee in such occupation or whether that petition had been approved. 
This provision, too, is to be

[[Page 12733]]

continuously effective beyond fiscal year 2017. To avoid unnecessary 
economic disruption, implementation of the provision barring use of CW-
1 permits for construction occupations is intended to apply to pending 
petitions and to petitions filed on or after the date of enactment.
  This division created by H.R. 339 between legacy and new workers will 
allow our existing construction companies to continue meeting the 
demand for housing and other buildings that still remains because of 
the destruction caused by Typhoon Soudelor in 2015 and, also, results 
from the overall improvement in the Marianas economy.
  Enactment of H.R. 339 does not mean, however, that the Marianas 
economy will not have access to construction workers to supplement the 
local labor force. New hires for construction of developments such as 
the hotels and resorts now on the drawing boards in the Marianas will 
be--preferably--local, U.S. workers. Alternatively, however, these 
developments may use visa categories other than the CW-1 to supply 
foreign workers. In U.S. Public Law 113-235 Congress provided the 
Marianas with access to an unlimited number of H-2B visas, which are 
specifically intended to address any temporary need for workers, such 
as occurs when a new hotel is built.
  In fact, in order to be eligible to apply for the CW-1 permit, 
applicant businesses must attest that no other visa category is 
available. In light of the unlimited number of H-2B visas available and 
because the current problem stems from the use of CW-1 permits for 
temporary construction workers, I have on numerous occasions requested 
that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services confirm that these 
attestations are accurate. Enactment of H.R. 339 makes matters simpler: 
construction occupations are no longer eligible for CW-1 permits with 
the exception of renewals of permits first issued prior to fiscal 2016.
  Mr. Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to provide this statement 
of legislative intent today to the record on H.R. 339. And thanks, 
again, to all my colleagues who made it possible to move forward with 
the Northern Mariana Islands Economic Expansion Act.

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