The House Natural Resources Committee will be holding an oversight hearing titled, “Examining GAO’s Findings to Address Data Gaps and Improve Data Collection in the Territories.” 

This comes after the Government Accountability Office’s recently released report indicating that there are challenges in securing sufficient data from the territories, and these gaps may result in a shortage of federal assistance.

Delegate James Moylan discussed the issue with HNRC staff, and submitted the name of Ms. Lola Leon Guerrero, Director of Guam’s Bureau of Planning and Statistics, as a qualified witness from Guam for this hearing.

“The objective of this hearing is to understand from the territories what challenges they face in providing the data, and more importantly, secure the commitments from federal entities, such as the Office of Insular Affairs, to provide Guam and other jurisdictions some Support,” said Moylan. 

“Whether it is improving communications, providing grants to procure certain software, or essentially delivering certain data. This is a two-way conversation, and I thank the committee for facilitating this hearing,” he added. 

“When the report was released, we were provided an assurance from federal entities that Ms. Lola Leon Guerrero and others were working with them to address these gaps. We were also assured that these entities have established formulas to ensure that these gaps don’t greatly affect the assistance the territorial governments receive. However, we still need to fix these gaps, and to do so in a realistic and serious legislating manner,” said Moylan.