Del. Kimberlyn King-Hinds on Monday introduced H.R. 10074, the Affordable Power for the Northern Marianas Act, legislation that would redirect a greater share of existing Covenant financial assistance to the CNMI to help reduce electricity costs and rebuild the Commonwealth’s aging power system.
The bill would allocate $15 million annually from the Covenant funding stream back to the CNMI beginning in fiscal year 2027, with most of the resources dedicated to modernizing the islands’ power infrastructure, lowering fuel and operating costs, improving efficiency, and reducing the frequency and expense of outages. The measure would remain within the existing federal funding level and would not increase total mandatory spending.
“For too long, our families and businesses have been asked to absorb the cost of an electric system that is too expensive, too old, too fragile, and increasingly difficult to maintain,” King-Hinds said. “We cannot build a stronger economy while power costs continue to take such a large share of every household budget and every business expense.”
King-Hinds said high electricity costs touch nearly every part of life in the Commonwealth — from household finances to business growth, school operations, hospital budgets and the ability of families to remain in the islands.
“Affordable power affects everything,” she said. “It affects whether a small business can stay open, whether a hotel can hire, whether our hospital and schools can operate within their budgets, and whether families can afford to remain here. Addressing energy costs is part of rebuilding the entire Commonwealth economy.”
The bill would also remove local matching requirements for energy projects, a change King-Hinds said is necessary to ensure that limited local resources do not prevent critical infrastructure investments from moving forward.
“We have spent too long managing one power crisis after another,” she said. “This legislation is about putting real resources behind a long-term solution and making affordable, reliable electricity a central part of rebuilding the CNMI economy.”
The Covenant funding addressed by the bill originated as financial assistance for the Northern Mariana Islands under section 702 of the Covenant. Congress later allowed the funding to be distributed among other U.S. territories, and the Department of the Interior now divides the account through an administrative allocation process.
Under the bill, up to $3 million of the CNMI’s annual allocation could continue to be used for immigration, labor or law enforcement needs, with the remaining amount directed toward the Commonwealth’s energy system. The new allocation would continue until a successor multi-year financial assistance agreement under the Covenant takes effect.
