The Department of the Interior has announced the annual Compact Impact Aid distribution. Guam will get a little over $14 million of the $35 million in total funding. But that’s far short of the more than $160 million a year that GovGuam is claiming. But there may be a golden opportunity for a major change in how funding is determined.

Guam has been arguing for years that the Compact impact aid represents just a fraction of what it actually costs to host migrants from the Freely Associated States. The Compacts terminate at the end of next year, but negotiations are underway between the Federated States of Micronesia and Washington for renewal. Governor’s chief advisor for regional affairs Carlotta Leon Guerrero says certain states are also feeling the impacts of Compact migration, which could work in Guam’s favor.

"Even though we’re complaining that we only get $14 million of this $30 million they get zero. There’s nothing in the Compact act for them," Leon Guerrero told KUAM News.

"So if you think we want an adequate funding source. They want a funding source period," she added, grinning slightly. She says the momentum is building from states like Arkansas, Oklahoma, Oregon and Washington, all of whom can leverage their voting representation in Congress.

Guam, on the other hand, can offer the benefit of experience. "We know more than anybody. Guam is the leader of the pack. The impact to us is greater than Hawaii or to any place else. So I expect that going forward we’re going to have a huge impact and a leadership role in working with the other congressional delegations in moving on to the Hill and trying to make our case," she said.

She says Governor Lou Leon Guerrero, among other things, has been seeking a specific funding source for Compact impact, and a debt swap using past unreimbursed expenses to offset any debt GovGuam owes the federal government.

Meanwhile, global politics, China’s emergence, and the Western Pacific’s strategic location to national defense all work in the favor of the FSM and the Marshall Islands. And with that, the FAS negotiators are moving fast, as Leon Guerrero explained, "Their timeline is to conclude talks in June, and to have a document by September of 2022 that they can turn over to Congress, so that Congress can begin its work. And once it goes to Congress, it’ll probably go to five different committees so we want to be geared up and ready and prepared to go there and support and go to all these different public hearings."

Again, the Compacts of Free Association expire in December 2023.