--proposals
to establish
a
congressionally authorized
commission for all the territories;
--a Department of
late 1981;
Interior review of
federal
laws
laws
begun
in
-~-a study by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS)
on the impact of federal fishing laws on the Pacific
territories; and
--passage of the 1983 and 1984 Omnibus Territories Acts
provided
some
legislative
remedies
to particular law
problems, such as a temporary exemption to Guam of provi-
Sions of the Clean Air Act.
Many
territorial
officials
acknowledge
these
efforts
to
remedy the problems and indicated that greater awareness of the
territories’
the
unique
constraints
should
order
be
given
to avoid
to
circumstances
development.
greater
the
voice
in
can
help
to overcome many of
These officials
formulating
believe
federal
types of problems experienced
in
they
laws
in
the past.
They also believe
the
federal
government must
continue
to
address federal constraints to the territories' quest to become
more economically self-reliant. —
NMI
laws commission
In 1980 the Northern Mariana Islands Laws Commission was
established, pursuant to the 1976 covenant agreement between the
NMI and the United States, to survey all U.S. laws and. determine '
whether they should apply to the NMI.
The. Commission has recommended several changes to existing laws, including exemptions
from some provisions of the Clean Air Act, extending certain
rights and privileges of citizenship to NMI residents,
and
clarifying the applicability of federal torts claims to NMI
residents.
The Commission is continuing to review laws and has
been positively received by both the NMI and the Congress.
Proposal for congressionally
authorized laws commission
In February
establish
a
1980,
federal
President Carter proposed
commission
to
survey
the
legislation
to
applicability of
all federal laws to Guam,
the Virgin Islands,
and American
Samoa.
The President believed a broad-based review was necesSary to "make sense out of the somewhat confused pattern of fed-
eral
laws that now apply or fail to apply to the territories."
The proposed commission failed to receive sufficient congresSional support.
Other attempts have been made to create such a
commission, including legislation introduced in 1982 and 1983.
According to a 1983 House Committee on Interior and Insular
9000240
33