(Washington, DC, June 30, 2005)— The Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Dennis Hastert pledged Thursday to help the Virgin Islands in its quest to ease restrictive regulations placed on its Economic Development Commission Tax Program (EDC) with last fall’s passage of the USAJobs Act.

“The Speaker invited me to meet with him today to discuss the fine points of the EDC program, why it was important to our economy and the initiatives being pushed by the territory to lessen the restrictions imposed by the Treasury Department,” Christensen said.

“Having been apprised about our issue by EDC beneficiaries, Speaker Hastert asked me to meet with him today,” the Delegate said. “The Speaker said that he would not do anything without first speaking with me, and getting my input and opinion on what needed to be done to fix it, ” the Delegate continued.

“In particular, we discussed our attempts to allow current EDC beneficiaries to be “grandfathered” and allowed to operate under the old rules, and to make changes to lessen the residency requirements and to allow some U.S. income to qualify under the program.”

“The Speaker pledged to work with the Treasury Department and to be helpful as we offer technical amendments that could provide a fix to the problem,” Christensen said. “I am hopeful that with his involvement, we can see positive movement on the EDC issue in the very near future,” the Delegate concluded.