Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — In his verbal remarks before a U.S. Senate committee Gov. Lemanu P. S. Mauga explained three components of American Samoa’s infrastructure needs, totaling $1.7 billion in cost and requested financial support from the U.S. Congress.

Lemanu joined governors from the other insular areas testifying yesterday morning before the U.S. Senate committee on Energy and Natural Resources discussing the state of the U.S territories.

(The hearing, starting at 10a.m. Washington D.C time was live-streamed on the committee’s website and it was during the early morning hours in American Samoa. Congresswoman Uifa’atali Amata was in the gallery during the hearing.)

Infrastructure was one of the issues covered by Lemanu in his verbal remarks to the committee, saying that “American Samoa is in a quest and request for funding to build and maintain” hard-infrastructure, soft infrastructure and critical infrastructure.

Hard-infrastructure, according to the governor, are seawalls, roads, bridges, 8 wharves, four airports, and the shipyard. Soft infrastructure covers the health care system, hospital, education system, food and physical security, power generation, water system, communication, and financial system.

For critical infrastructure, it includes buildings and structures and “components to house and provide service to our people,” he said, and pointed out: “And of course security of surrounding parameters because of the Chinese presence in the Pacific”

(See additional story in today’s edition on the governor’s separate statement on China.)

The governor informed the committee that, “all three components of our infrastructure must be built simultaneously, because one, compliments the other.”

“So what is the U.S territory of American Samoa asking for?” he said and explained that for hard-infrastructure, $700 million; soft infrastructure is $500 million; critical infrastructure is $500 million.

And he emphasized to the committee that these infrastructure needs compliment each other and must be built at the same time. He reminded the committee that American Samoa, like other territories are “by ourselves in the middle of the vast deep blue-sea.”

“Our need to build infrastructure, economy, security, health care system, education system, power generation system, air-sea-land transportation, protection of land-air-ocean and food-security is, [from the need to protect] … the lives of our people,” he said.

At the outset of the his remarks, Lemanu thanked Committee Chairman, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia), Ranking Member John Barrasso (R-Wyoming) and distinguished members of this Committee for the opportunity to “share with you some of the challenges facing our territory and the needs of the people of American Samoa.”

“I first want to commend you on your role in passing the American Rescue Plan Act, the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill,” the governor told the committee. “Funding provided by these laws helped to address many of our issues in American Samoa and the other U.S. Territories.”

As with all of the United States, the governor said American Samoa’s economy is recovering slowly from COVID-19.

“We’re struggling through COVID-19, natural disaster with global warming, climate change, hurricanes, monsoons, droughts, sea-level changes and so forth to its damaging tunes,” he said.

And this is “now the most dangerous catastrophe that American Samoa is facing — now and into the future,” he said, and quoted a study by the U.S Geological Survey (USGS) that: “American Samoa is vulnerable to sea level rise, in part due, to steep terrain on its islands.”

“Land is life for the seven islands of American Samoa and I seek your immediate attention and full support on saving American Samoa,” the governor asked the committee.

The USGS study referred to by the governor was released in December 2019 by Climate Adaptation Science Centers. It states in part that: “This terrain requires the majority of the islands’ villages and infrastructure to be located along thin strips of coastal land.”

USGS online (https://www.usgs.gov/programs/climate-adaptation-science-centers/science...)

The subject of “Climate Change” is one of several issues included in the governor’s written testimony presented in advance of the hearing and released by the committee and posted on its website.

“Natural disasters continue to impact American Samoa at an alarming rate,” the governor declared in the statement. “It is clearly evident that we live in a period of rapidly changing climate conditions.”

“The ripple effects of climate change to American Samoa’s economy and overall quality of life due to weather and climate related phenomena calls for immediate action and emergency response,” he said and noted that, “American Samoa is in a climate crisis.”

According to the statement, this past year, sea level rise and stronger wave action created more coastal erosion and flooding when compared to 20 years ago.

These severe weather events create conditions that threaten life and property and cause millions of dollars in damages. “Our infrastructure is at risk due to extreme weather events that are exacerbated by sea level rise and American Samoa’s subsidence rate of 6-9mm/year,” the governor said.

And he cited a recently published report in the Geophysics Research Letters, which reported that Pago Pago International Airport and Pago Pago Harbor were identified as critical infrastructure most affected by the subsidence.

“In American Samoa we do not yet know to what extent the other major consequences of climate change will affect us. What we do know is that extreme changes in precipitation patterns will impact our food security through agriculture and drinking water resources,” the governor pointed out.

Furthermore, ocean acidification and rise in water temperature will impact fish stocks and the productivity of coral reefs. And these impacts are known to occur in other tropical areas of the world and American Samoa must face that they will eventually happen.

“Today, the impacts of climate change in American Samoa is real. The effects are visible today and will continue to increase in the future,” he said.

He informed the Congressional committee that local efforts to protect life, property and critical infrastructures are often hindered and stalled by lengthy federal permitting processes, funding restraints – local match, life of funding, and the federal National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process — to name a few.

“These are obstacles that further delays time sensitive projects such as shoreline protection and stabilization to protect life and property and our critical infrastructures,” the governor said.

He also says that the federal government’s “Justice40 Initiative” “will help us tackle the climate crisis and develop solutions to clean energy and energy efficiency, training and workforce development, clean water, and wastewater infrastructure.”

Samoa News notes that this is a Biden Administration initiative, through a Presidential Executive Order, signed days after taking office in which the federal government made it a goal that 40 percent of the overall benefits of certain federal investments flow to disadvantaged communities that are marginalized, underserved, and overburdened by pollution. More details can be found on the White House website (www.whitehouse.gov)