The political status legislation which emerged in Congress in 1990 and 1991 did not receive the support needed for enactment into law during my tenure as Attorney General.

After one hundred years of federal rule, the United States House of Representatives has moved to provide for the first meaningful route to self-determination for the Puerto Rican people under our federal system.

The need for a permanent status resolution approved by Congress is made even more clear to me because of my experience as a former Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations.

That is why, with optimism instead of fear, all those who want to see Puerto Rico's status resolved should seek the truth about each option, including the upside and the downside of each.

If U.S. national sovereignty continues, it is only as a state that Puerto Rico will have permanent 10th Amendment powers over its non-federal affairs, as well as voting power in Congress.

Yet, Puerto Ricos economic convergence and political integration with the rest of the nation is in a state of arrest - even though the island has been within the national borders, political system and customs territory of the U.S. for a century.

As the highest ranking American official in the United Nations organization, I came to understand thoroughly that the national constitutional processes of the member states define the status of territories under their sovereignty.