We gather once a year with the elected representatives of the insular areas in order to address the
issues of concern, and try to coordinate the federal response to the needs of the American
citizens who are in those territories.
It's interesting that they are coming now, in the midst of the sequester coming down
potentially, and in all likelihood at the end of the week.
These are territories that rely very heavily on the relationship with the federal government.
The governors and delegates from the territories are extraordinarily concerned about the impact
that the non-discretionary cuts are going to have on their people.
What's unique about this forum is that we bring together key representatives of all
the affected agencies, and in essence, provide one-stop shopping for the top delegates of
the territories.
It's been a very good trip -- unfortunately, a very long trip -- coming from Guam, where
we have basically a time zone comparison to Tokyo, Japan.
It's a long trip, but it's important to be here in Washington, D.C.
This is an opportunity, under one roof, to discuss the issues that are important to Guam
and the other territories, not only to a representative of the President, but also the agencies that
have major impacts in the territory.
There are the issues of sequestration, and what those impacts are to the territories.
There's an old analogy that, "if there's a sneeze in the States, it'll be pneumonia in
the territories."
That fact is also relevant for sequestration.
The territory of American Samoa has had a very unique political relationship with the
United States, that in my opinion, probably 99 percent of the American people have no
idea that this is how the relationship has existed for the last 113 years.
We've evolved in terms of our political development and reasons that we have to understand how
the United States got involved in these insular areas in the Pacific as well as in the Caribbean.
I think it's important we have to understand that sense of history.
But when you have the President himself reestablishing this IGIA council as well as Ken Salazar,
Secretary Ken Salazar, for the last four years has been very attentive.
He's been very helpful and making sure that the Office of Insular Affairs plays an active
role, as it is part of his responsibility to see that the problems and the needs of
the territories are met just like it would other states.
Energy is a big issue for us.
Our cost of energy is five times the national average per kilowatt and we're looking at
another increase.
That is one of the major, major issues and concerns of my territory, the U.S. Virgin
Islands, and how we would address it.
The Interior and the White House did hold a special meeting yesterday just to talk about
how we can create ways, initiatives to lower the cost as we move towards reducing our reliance
on fossil fuel which our utility is doing.
We're all working on this in very challenging circumstances here right now when all of the
agencies are facing cuts.
But, I feel that they're listening, and we will continue to work with them, following
up on yesterday's meeting and today's meeting.
As far as I was concerned, that was our opening part of our discussion, But we really have
to find solutions, and that's going to take continuing to work with the agencies.
They seem willing to do that with us.
We have a challenge, where you can't apply one solution or one program to every island,
to every insular area, because they're all facing different challenges.
It's a matter of fine tuning and tweaking our programs, our grant programs, our policies,
to making sure that they can work with each unique set of challenges that each island,
and each governor or delegate is dealing with.
I think that they're going to go home with a message of collaboration and leveraging
the resources that we have out there.
I think we showed that there are a lot of resources in the federal family.
If we use them intelligently, if we think outside the box, if we look at grant programs
that weren't necessarily in the forefront in the past, if we look at grant programs,
loan programs, technical assistance, economic drivers all around the federal government,
that we can address the problems that are common to the insular areas and make the most
of the resources that there are out there.