By Eric Rosario
Sen. Jim Moylan, again asking Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero for an economic recovery plan out of the pandemic, wants her to use her executive powers to implement some of the policy proposals he introduced as legislation.
"On March 12, 2021, I was joined by Senators Tony Ada and Chris Duenas in introducing a series of measures to help jumpstart the economy by investing some of the federal funds in areas where we would create new private sector jobs, establish new small businesses, inject monies into the local economy through a debit card program, and increase the payments of the Rise Act (which is another issue we are still awaiting an update on)," Mr. Moylan wrote to the governor today. "Legislation was also proposed to support home rental and utility payments. Governor, the legislative process is certainly a tedious one, thus you can implement some, if not all, of these initiatives through an Executive Order, thus allowing the measures to manifest its unique benefits into our economy in a more expeditious manner once the funds are indeed deposited into the government’s accounts. I would like to work with you and participate in not only the creation of an Economic Recovery Plan, but the implementation of one. We have six proposals ready to start the discussions with."
The senator introduced a series of bills to designate federal funds for local relief efforts to the people of Guam. The funding source - the $661 million in federal direct aid to the government of Guam - however, is at the discretion of the governor, solely.
"While I understand that the $661 million which was committed for Guam’s relief efforts has yet to reach the governments account, nothing should prevent the local government from presenting a short- and long-term plan of action on how these funds would be invested," Mr. Moylan wrote. "Other than a general announcement of committing $300 million to construct a new hospital, nothing more has been expressed."
