LOCAL
Monday, January 18, 2010

Military buildup hearing receives mixed reaction

By Haidee V. Eugenio
Reporter
Residents weighed the pros and cons of the $15- to $20-billion military buildup in Guam and Tinian during Friday night’s public hearing on Saipan, with some individuals expressing support to the multi-year project due to economic benefits and national security issues, while others oppose the project altogether for its ill social, environmental, and cultural impacts.

“Our economy is drying up. The local people are leaving because of lack of jobs here. We need the military, but we need to work together,” said former Rep. Manny Tenorio.

Martin Manglona, for his part, said there’s no reason to be scared about military training ranges on Tinian.

“All plans on Tinian are for small ranges, nothing else. We have it in Kannat Tabla, so there’s no problem,” said Manglona, adding that local people could get jobs and could find other business opportunities such as supplying fresh produce to the military.

Victoria-Lola Leon Guerrero of the Guam-based We Are Guahan which is opposed to the military buildup, said the buildup intends tso carry out U.S. Department of Defense plans, and “does not intend to help residents.”

She said that CNMI residents should never forget the environmental problems caused by the U.S. military in Tanapag, referring to the polychlorinated biphenyl contamination of soil and land crabs on Saipan’s northern village.

Leon Guerrero also urged people to visit their website, http://www.WeAreGuahan.com, to know more about the group’s strong opposition to the buildup.

Among other things, the group said the majority of the 18,000 jobs coming through the buildup will go to off-island workers and not local residents, and the buildup’s draft Environmental Impact Statement does not mention military commitment to give Guam the money necessary to develop infrastructure to support a huge population influx.

They were among the estimated 30 members of the community, and another 30-plus Navy personnel and military contractors at the Pedro P. Tenorio Multi-Purpose Center in Susupe on Friday night for the Joint Guam Program Office’s public hearing on the buildup’s draft Environmental Impact Statement.

The number of people who showed up in both the public hearings on Tinian and Saipan were far below the numbers on Guam wherein the hearings drew 200 to 400 people.

Delegate Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan (D-MP) said there are issues not related to the military buildup that the people of Tinian also want to be addressed, including the needed repair of the outer seawall and piers.

“It would be great (if the military funds it) but they won’t because it’s not a military wharf. That has to be a Commonwealth project or funded from a separate funding because it’s not a military harbor; it’s commercial. And I’ve also been telling people that this is a military buildup in Guam. Tinian is only ancillary of the buildup and if people think that someone is going to get rich from the Tinian portion of the buildup, I would like to know how because I haven’t seen it,” Sablan told Saipan Tribune.

‘No more comment period extension’

Sixto Igisomar, speaking as a member of the public, asked for more time to review and comment on the draft environment impact statement on the military buildup.

There are some 11,000 pages of documents on the draft EIS/Overseas Environmental Impact Statement on the military buildup.

The draft EIS/OES can be accessed online at http://www.guambuildupeis.us.

Retired Maj. Gen. David Bice, executive director of the Joint Guam Program Office, said JGPO believes that the 90-day comment period ending on Feb. 17 is sufficient.

“We’ve had well over 1,600 people come out to our public hearings where they asked questions and got their questions answered by experts. We’ve also gotten a lot of comments online as well as during the hearings,” Bice told Saipan Tribune.

Bice said there had been enough public outreach programs on the project, including public scoping in 2007, as well as partnership sessions with the local government and the regulators like the Environmental Protection Agency.

“We believe that our effort has been really unprecedented because this is a pretty large realignment and we had an unprecedented approach in terms of reaching out to the public and the regulators to ensure that our document is complete,” he said.

Bice said “every comment is important,” and every comment will be evaluated. The comments will also be recorded in Volume 10 of the final EIS.

“I can tell you that we are going to make adjustments to the EIS. We’ve heard comments made by people as we go along. I would make a mental note (when I hear) a solid comment that we need to take a look at either the plan or the phraseology that’s in the EIS that may not be as clear as it should have been. So I can tell you that we are going to make adjustments to the EIS based upon the comments we received,” he added.

Townhall meetings

Despite the end of the six public hearings held in Guam, Tinian, and Saipan, there are still opportunities for residents to know more about the draft EIS/OES.

Tom Linden, coordinator for the CNMI Military Integration Management Committee, said MIMC, in partnership with the Office of Economic Adjustment and the Guam Advisory Consulting Team, will be hosting a public forum on Jan. 27, Wednesday, at the Multi-Purpose Center in Susupe.

He said representatives of the OEA and ACT will break down the 11,000-page EIS and be willing to answer any questions regarding the military buildup. The public is encouraged to submit questions ahead of time to the MIMC coordinator by sending e-mails to cnmi.mimc@commerce.gov.mp.

MIMC, created in June 2009, serves as the planning and policy making entity for all activities related to the expansion of military training and other defense transformation initiatives in the CNMI and Guam. It is the official entity through which the CNMI will interface with the U.S. Department of the Navy, the U.S. Marine Corps, JGPO, the Department of Defense, and all other military representatives regarding the military buildup.

The Tinian plan

Because Guam cannot accommodate all training for the relocating Marines, the military looks at Tinian to provide opportunities for training groups of 200 Marines or larger due to greater land availability.

Tinian is only about 100 miles or 160 kilometers away from Guam.

The northern two-thirds of Tinian are leased to the U.S. Department of Defense. Company and battalion level non-live fire training areas already exist and are used on these lease parcels.

“The land, however, could be developed to accommodate live fire ranges,” the draft EIS/OES stated.

The proposed actions on Tinian include firing ranges for rifle known distance, automated combat pistol, platoon battle course, and field firing; and airspace use.

Comments on the draft EIS/OES can be submitted online, or during the public hearings set by the U.S. Navy in Guam and the CNMI.
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We on Guam love an respect our military, but that doesn’t mean that we welcome everything that is done in their name.

Lea

“My commitment is to recover every single dime the American people are owed. And my determination to achieve this goal is only heightened when I see reports of massive profits and obscene bonuses at some of the very firms who owe their continued existence to the American people…We want our money back, and we’re going to get it.”

The fee would recover every penny loaned to Wall Street during the financial crisis and stop the reckless abuses and excesses that nearly caused the collapse of our financial system in the first place.

But the banking industry — among the most powerful lobbies in Washington — is already launching attacks to stop Congress from enacting the proposal.

Barack and I aren’t backing down. But to win, we’ll need the American people to add their voice right away.

Thankfully, OFA supporters are already signing on to a bold statement of support: “We want our money back — and we stand with President Obama to make sure we get it.” You can add your name by clicking here.

The proposal is expected to recoup billions from the big banks, most of it from the ten largest. As the President said, “If these companies are in good enough shape to afford massive bonuses, they are surely in good enough shape to afford paying back every penny to taxpayers.”

There is much more work to do to reform the financial system and create a new era of accountability. But the Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee is a crucial step. And with the banks already working to tear it down, I hope that I can count on you to speak out to show that Americans stand with us as we take them on.

Click here to add your name to the statement:

http://my.barackobama.com/Banks

Change isn’t easy, but it’s certainly worth fighting for. I’m glad you’re in this fight with us.

Thank you for making it possible,

Vice President Joe Biden

But when Americans donate to charity with their credit cards, the credit card companies get rich. In some cases they keep 3% of the donation as a “transaction fee,” even though that’s far more than it costs them to process the donation.

It’s outrageous and wrong—and it needs to stop.

Can you sign this petition to the CEOs of the major credit card companies demanding that they waive their processing fees for all charitable donations? Clicking here will add your name:

http://pol.moveon.org/nofees/o.pl?id=18607-7692656-Py8Ifix&t=3

The petition says: “Credit card companies shouldn’t be getting rich off of Americans’ generosity. They should waive all fees on charitable contributions from today on.”

The credit card companies are trying to get ahead of this story, announcing they will temporarily waive the fees they charge on some Haiti-related charitable contributions for the next 6 weeks. But that’s nowhere near enough. Many emergency donations to Haiti will still get hit with hefty bank fees. (To give a sense of how limited the exemption is, Doctors Without Borders isn’t on any of the publicly available lists of charities that won’t be charged fees.)2

All American credit card companies should announce that they will waive ALL fees on charitable contributions, starting today, and going forward for good. This isn’t about helping political organizations like MoveOn, just helping true charitable organizations.

It’s the right thing to do, and honestly, it’s the least they could do after the role they played in crashing the entire global economy last year.

But they won’t do it unless they know how angry Americans are that they’re profiting off of this terrible tragedy. Click here to sign the petition, which we’ll deliver to the heads of the major credit card companies:

http://pol.moveon.org/nofees/o.pl?id=18607-7692656-Py8Ifix&t=5
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I received this from MoveOn.Org. It enlightened me.

Shelia

Chamorros off the Island you need to write the state side representatives and to give Guam’s infrastructure some help.
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HAGATNA, Guam, Jan. 16 (UPI) — Guam’s governor says while he supports a U.S. military buildup on the island, needed infrastructure improvements have been slow coming.

Gov. Felix Camacho told the military niche newspaper Stars and Stripes that Guam has had a tough time securing money for transportation, water, sewage landfill projects.

He says the new infrastructure will be necessary if the U.S. territory is to cope with buildup plans that could temporarily bring nearly 80,000 people to the island of 178,000 people to build a new base for 8,000 Marines to be transferred from the Japanese island of Okinawa.

“It’s been very frustrating for the government,” Camacho told the newspaper. “It’s such a bureaucratic mess to secure funding. It’s been slow to come.”

Another issue is the land needed for the base. Opponents of the plans point out some of the land the U.S. military wants has been set aside by the government for a homesteading program for native Chamorro families, Stars and Stripes said.

Camacho told the newspaper a deal for the military to buy the land may put Guam in a better position to negotiate for money to improve its ailing infrastructure.
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This is the time to stand up for Guam

Peter

Wouldn’t it be ironic if something that’s supposed to help you lose weight actually causes weight gain? While most people believe that using low- or no-calorie sweeteners is a helpful strategy when trying to shed pounds, some researchers are saying don’t be so sure.
Susan Swithers, PhD, an associate professor of psychological sciences at Purdue University, led a study involving rats fed yogurt sweetened with either glucose, a natural sugar, or saccharin, a non-caloric artificial sweetener derived from – believe it or not – coal tar. The results turned conventional wisdom on its head: Based on a series of experiments, the animals fed the artificially sweetened food consumed more calories and gained more weight and more body fat than the animals in the glucose group. All of these differences were statistically significant.
The researchers believe Pavlovian conditioning, a form of learning that involves associating events with their outcomes, may explain the phenomenon. It seems a sweet taste primes the body for the arrival of calories, leading to physiological changes such as rise in body temperature and release of hormones like insulin. But when the animals who were fed the artificial sweetener didn’t receive as many calories as their bodies expected, they still gained weight. What’s more, their body temperature was low compared with the animals in the natural sugar group, meaning that they tended not to burn calories. Dr. Swithers said that if the same mechanism occurs in humans, then people who use low- or no-calorie sweeteners over time could gain weight.
The findings are important, given that obesity rates have risen to 30% today, compared with 15% in 1987. In 1987, the number of people consuming sugar-free sweetener products rose from less than 70 million to more than 160 million in 2000. Is a link probable? There has been an increase in the use of no- and low-calorie sweetened foods, but critics point out that portion sizes and overall calorie intake have also increased, while physical activity has decreased. Besides, they argue, findings in animal studies may not apply to people.
WHAT ELSE TO BLAME?
The Purdue researchers agree that artificial sweeteners (including saccharin and other substitutes) aren’t the sole cause of obesity, but contend they may be a contributing factor, saying that other studies corroborate their findings. (See Daily Health News, for more on this topic.)
But what about the belief that people who use artificial sweeteners lose weight? “Some people can lose weight by using a conscious process like counting calories. For them, artificial sweeteners used in moderation may be useful,” says Dr. Swithers. “But artificial sweeteners may derail the unconscious process in which sweet taste predicts the delivery of calories, and actually make it physiologically harder to lose weight.”

Source(s): ?
Susan Swithers, PhD, an associate professor of psychological sciences at Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana.