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H.R. 573: To amend Public Law 93-435 with respect to the Northern Mariana Islands, providing parity with Guam, the Virgin Islands, and American Samoa.
- Introduced:
- Feb 06, 2013 (113th Congress, 2013–2015)
- Sponsor:
- Del. Gregorio Sablan [D-MP0]
- Status:
- Passed House
The bill’s title was written by the bill’s sponsor. H.R. stands for House of Representatives bill.
- Summary
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No summaries available.
- Text
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Last updated May 16, 2013.
2 pages
- Primary Source
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View on THOMAS (The Library of Congress)
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- Citation
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Library of Congress Summary
The summary below was written by the Congressional Research Service, which is a nonpartisan division of the Library of Congress.
2/6/2013--Introduced.
Conveys to the government of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands submerged lands surrounding such Islands and extending three geographical miles outward from their coastlines. Includes the Northern Mariana Islands among the islands where the President may establish naval defensive sea areas and airspace reservations when necessary for national defense.
House Republican Conference Summary
The summary below was written by the House Republican Conference, which is the caucus of Republicans in the House of Representatives.
This summary can be found at http://www.gop.gov/bill/113/1/hr573.
Background
The federal government shares maritime jurisdiction with coastal states and U.S. territories. In most cases, U.S. law gives coastal states and territories title to submerged lands up to three nautical miles from the coast; any lands outside this coastal area belong to the U.S. federal government. The territories of Guam, the Virgin Islands and American Samoa were given title over these submerged lands in 1974 when Congress passed the Territorial Submerged Lands Act. However, the Act was enacted before the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) was granted territory status. H.R. 573 would give CNMI the same possession of submerged land as these other U.S. territories.
The House passed similar legislation (H.R. 670) in the 112th Congress on October 3, 2011 by a vote of 397-0 (Roll no. 744).
Summary
H. R. 573 amends section one and two of Public Law 93‐435 (48 U.S.C. 1705) to provide CNMI with the same benefits in its submerged lands as Guam, the Virgin Islands, and American Samoa. The amendment to section two of the public law retains federal defense and navigational rights.
Cost
CBO estimates that H.R. 573 “would have no significant cost to the federal government.”
House Democratic Caucus Summary
The House Democratic Caucus does not provide summaries of bills.
So, yes, we display the House Republican Conference’s summaries when available even if we do not have a Democratic summary available. That’s because we feel it is better to give you as much information as possible, even if we cannot provide every viewpoint.
We’ll be looking for a source of summaries from the other side in the meanwhile.
The bill contains the following citations to other parts of U.S. law:
Slip Laws
Slip laws refer to enacted bills and joint resolutions in their original form as enacted by Congress, that is, before other laws amend them. Slip laws are cited as “Public Law XXX-YYY”, where XXX is the number of the Congress in which the bill or resolution was introduced.
United States Code
The United States Code is the compilation of permanent laws enacted by Congress. Temporary and other non-permanent laws do not appear in the United States Code. (About half of the United States Code is the law itself, called positive law. The other half is merely a compilation of the laws but has no legal significance.)
- Title 48: TERRITORIES AND INSULAR POSSESSIONS
- Chapter 15: CONVEYANCE OF SUBMERGED LANDS TO TERRITORIES
- Section 1705: Tidelands, submerged lands, or filled lands
- Section 1706: Reserved rights