Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — “There is a lack of fairness as a Territory to compete with other states, tribes and local governments,” for federal grants, said Gov. Lemanu P. S. Mauga in his written testimony to the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, when he address the issue of “Equality in Grants”.

The governor explained that funding requirements, review and the approval process are the same across the board. And these scoring tools must be separated between territories, states, tribes and local governments.

“They should not be graded on the same criteria. There is a need to separate funding requirements for territories alone,” Lemanu points out.

He said this this is done for tribal communities where they have their own tribal federal grants separate from states, local and territorial governments.

“The bottom line is to provide flexibility to the insular areas — so it will only be fair and practical for territories to compete. The territories are underserved and unserved communities,” he said.

According to the governor, geographic location makes it even more challenging to ship recyclables off island due to shipping and freight costs.

“Unfortunately, this has hindered our ability to grow the recycling industry in American Samoa as there is very little return for recyclers to pay for labor and overhead cost,” he said.

American Samoa being a "containerized society, makes it almost entirely dependent on goods to be shipped to the islands, he said.

“Consequently, all these items at the end of their life cycle end up at either in the landfill, scrap metal yard or strewn about across the islands,” he said. “Only a few of these items end up being recycled based on their value as recycled items.”

Meanwhile, the governor informed the Congressional committee that the local Education Department is grateful for the funds it received under the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) and the Education Stabilization Fund.

“However, due to the long delivery times and shipping of materials, we will be unable to fully utilize all of the funds in the time limits imposed,” he said.

And he requested that that a “waiver be granted to permit us to spend all of the funds that are allotted to American Samoa.”

There’s no update on whether a waiver has been granted for the millions of dollars allocated to American Samoa from these two federal funding sources.