Washington, D.C. — Thursday, Congresswoman Uifa’atali Amata achieved major advancement for dedicated hospital funds in stimulus legislation marked up by the House Natural Resources Committee in a bipartisan agreement. American Samoa is expected to see a range of $120 million to $140 million over the next ten years specifically for “hospital and other critical health care infrastructure” if an additional stimulus bill is passed later this year.

A $3.5 trillion stimulus bill is currently working through both the House and Senate simultaneously over the coming weeks, with the House Natural Resources Committee including close to $1 billion ($993 million) for the Department of Interior Office of Insular Affairs for American Samoa and other three small territories managed by that office.

Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a key swing vote, has indicated a reluctance to spend the full $3.5 trillion and is seeking more data and a substantially reduced total spending amount before he will support and ensure passage of any further stimulus.

“Senator Manchin is the key for the whole bill and the key for the territories as Chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee with jurisdiction over the territories. Many others like myself in Congress have deep concerns about the appropriate size and scope of the next stimulus bill. So, my message to Senator Manchin going forward, has been and will be, two-fold – 1) don’t cut the stimulus bill’s cost on the backs of the territories hospital funding; and 2) allow the Governors of the States and Territories the flexibility to use already appropriated funds in the American Rescue Plan for hospital infrastructure.”

 “The stimulus provisions for the Department of Interior, before the Committee I sit on, the House Natural Resources Committee, includes what will amount to about $1,000,000 per month – every month – for the next ten years, so we achieved a major milestone from which to continue the fight for these funds,” noted Congresswoman Amata.

“I appreciate Chairman Raul Grijalva for his help on this important matter, and for the support I received from Ranking Member Bruce Westerman, and from the agreement achieved with other territories to make this happen as now we will have a united bipartisan agreement for this essential provision to remain in any stimulus bill that moves forward, which gives us a stronger position than most other provisions in much of the proposed stimulus bill that will continue to rapidly take shape between now and the end of the year, but getting a bipartisan agreement out of committee was an important and crucial step in the process.”

Congresswoman Amata worked with Committee leadership this week to ensure equity for all the territories and upon her suggested amendment the bipartisan Committee leadership adopted an improved funding mechanism within the bill that the Senate also concurs with but is still subject to conference agreement and final passage.

The funds would be divided annually with some discretion by the Secretary of the Interior with input from each of the Governors of the territories. Those administration decisions are customarily based on per capita population, merit and demonstrated need-based assessments all of which are favorable criteria for American Samoa to improve LBJ as we have already had both a congressional hearing and an Army Corps of Engineers study on LBJ. “So, we are ahead of the curve on merit and demonstrated need,” the Congresswoman indicated.

It is estimated American Samoa would receive in the range of $120-140 million over the next 10 years if the adopted provision is included as is in any further stimulus bill.

 “The Senate is aware of this item and had input on this funding proposal, and we are hopeful we can get the support of Senator Manchin and other Senators for its inclusion, as is, at these funding levels, even if the final bill is cut in half or otherwise,” she continued.

 “We will continue to make planning, engineering and construction improvements to LBJ a top priority. I also strongly support and will continue to fight for improvements to the bill that will give state and territory Governors more discretion to use already appropriated American Rescue Plan funds for hospital improvements of which some $200 million for American Samoa will be distributed in May 2022,” she concluded. “I will continue to update you in the coming weeks on these developments.”