The Guam Congress building became a crossroads of competing priorities: Speed, legality, and trust.

Lawmakers and local leaders gathered to debate Bill 1-S, the “Governor’s Emergency Powers Act,” which would allow the Governor to mobilize personnel, waive licensing rules, and act across critical systems like power, water, and healthcare during emergencies.

Governor Lou Leon Guerrero says the bill is necessary to respond quickly to crises. 

But critics warn it could give the governor sweeping powers with few checks, as well as put the island’s only public hospital, Guam Memorial Hospital, in the middle of the debate.

Bill 1S would broaden the Governor’s authority during declared emergencies, extending it to natural disasters, critical personnel shortages, structural deterioration in public buildings, and other threats to public safety. 

The Governor says these powers are essential to protect the health and safety of the community and ensure “the proper sustainment of life.”

But local doctors raised alarms about the bill’s reach. 

Dr. Thomas Shieh, Founder of the Shieh Clinic, criticized the legislation as a potential power grab, pointing to COVID-19 emergency powers.

“She’s asking for emergency powers. Now, the emergency powers she’s asking for is what we’ve already experienced during COVID and she’s asking for those powers again, maybe even further than that,” said Shieh. 

He also noted the measure’s broad definition of emergencies – including personnel shortages and structural problems.

“Page three is actually another excuse for a power grab. It states that we have a national shortage, we need to recruit, and this is why we need to give emergency powers to the Governor, so she can license, waive fees, etc., etc., etc,” added Shieh. “There is a national shortage, but I don’t see any governors across the country – even in Hawai’i – asking for powers like this.”

Dr. Hoa Nguyen, founding member of the American Medical Center, warned the bill could lead to “Pandemic 2.0,” allowing the government to move private medical staff to other facilities as it sees fit. 

He recalled the Governor’s request during COVID to send clinic staff to assist Public Health.

“The governor called and she said, ‘Can we move some of your physicians and nursing staff to Public Health to help them?’ I said, ‘No, we cannot. We have our practice. We’d rather serve the people of Guam and stay in our clinic to do that,’” said Nguyen. “If this bill happened to pass, personally, I would give up my license.”

Meanwhile, some lawmakers argued the emergency powers may be necessary to prevent 

Some lawmakers argue the emergency powers may be necessary to prevent further collapse at GMH.

On the measure, Senator William Parkinson said, “So if we do not give the Governor these emergency powers, what do we do? Do we do a suite of powers lesser than this so that we give her the tools that she needs, but not as many tools to make us uncomfortable?”

“Our only public hospital is – I wouldn’t even say dying. I would say that the hospital is dead and we are living off the corpse of what was once our public hospital,” added Parkinson. 

Parkinson said that while it has been the mission of many administrations before this one to repair GMH and build a new hospital.

“The thing that has stopped them is we did not have the seed money to do something like that. The conditions were not there to be able to fund something like this, but now we do,” said Parkinson. 

Other concerns focused on the bill’s lack of expiration or independent oversight, raising questions about the balance between executive power and legislative authority.

Attorney General Doug Moylan and Senator Jesse Lujan encouraged collaboration over confrontation, suggesting a roundtable discussion between the governor, legislature, and the AG’s office to establish collective priorities.

For lawmakers, the debate is about how much authority one branch should hold during a crisis. For Guam Memorial Hospital, it’s about survival, whether relief comes now, or waits years for a new facility.