Elon Musk and the President-elect sink bill making territories eligible for Wagner-Peyser Act grant funds

Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — The Saipan Tribune newspaper is reporting that the Delegate from CNMI, Gregorio Kilili C. Sablan (D) said over the weekend that his multi-year effort to make the CNMI and American Samoa eligible for Wagner-Peyser Act grant funds was killed by Elon Musk and President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday.

Sablan said in his e-kilili newsletter that the Wagner-Peyser funds help train job-seekers and connect them with employers, supporting his long-standing goal to put more CNMI workers in Marianas jobs.

Sablan’s legislation, H.R. 3193, or the Employment Services Act and Jobs Parity Act, seeks to include the Marianas and American Samoa in the Federal Employment Service by amending the Wagner-Peyser Act.

The CNMI and American Samoa are the only two remaining U.S. jurisdictions ineligible to participate in the critical programs under Wagner-Peyser Act.

The Wager-Peyser Act establishes a nationwide system of public employment offices, known as the Employment Service.

The delegate said his language including the two territories in the Wagner-Peyser Act, introduced earlier in the U.S. Congress as H.R. 3193, was piggybacked into the Further Continuing Appropriations and Disaster Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act 2025 that House Speaker Mike Johnson had agreed on Tuesday with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.

Sablan said, however, Musk jumped in at the last minute opposing the appropriation legislation and then Trump followed Musk’s lead.

He said Musk and Trump’s opposition caused Johnson to renege on the deal he had negotiated. The delegate said that, last Friday, the House passed a stripped-down Continuing Resolution without the Wagner-Peyser language.

H.R. 3193 is included in H.R. 6655, which is also known as A Stronger Workforce For America Act. In December 2023, Sablan said they have a bipartisan agreement and that now is the time to upgrade America’s economic competitiveness by making sure job seekers and employers in the Marianas or throughout the United States get the same high-quality services as other Americans everywhere in the United States does.

Sablan said it has been his long-standing priority, along with the “gentle lady from American Samoa” [referring to Congresswoman Uifa’atali Amata] and include the NMI and the American Samoa under the Wagner-Peyser Act.

He said for the CNMI, his bill fills a critical gap in the workforce development services as it will able to provide employees by adding the NMI to the fundamental Federal Employment Service, the Work Opportunity Tax Credit under Jobs for Veterans State Grants Program, “strengthening available services for workers and businesses needed now more than ever before.”

He said the Marianas and American Samoa have a reliance on non-U.S. workers that has contributed to ongoing disruptions for workforce.