Democrats ask Biden for a Puerto Rico recovery task force

A bicameral group of Democrats is calling on the Biden administration to set up a specialized task force to guide Puerto Rico’s long-term recovery after five years of stunted efforts following Hurricane Maria in 2017.

In a letter to President Biden led by Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Nydia Velázquez (D-N.Y.), 18 Democrats called for more federal coordination in the wake of last month’s Hurricane Fiona.

“The aftermath of the storm has demonstrated that, five years after Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rico remains unacceptably vulnerable to natural disasters,” the lawmakers wrote.

“Considering this continued vulnerability, we urge you to focus resources on Puerto Rico’s long term recovery and ensure interagency coordination similar to what was seen in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy manifested in the creation of the Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force.”

Schumer and Velázquez were joined by Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), and Reps. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), Grace Meng (D-N.Y.), Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.), Raúl Grijalva (D-N.M.), Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.), Darren Soto (D-Fla.), Dwight Evans (D-Pa.) and Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.). 

The missive comes after years of complaints by Puerto Rican leaders that recovery efforts have often failed to reach the communities in greatest need and have generally failed to detonate the sort of structural change needed to make the island’s infrastructure resilient.

Chief among the obstacles in Puerto Rico’s recovery has been a lack of resources at the municipality level to navigate the often-complex federal fund disbursement process.

But, as noted by the lawmakers in the letter to Biden, Puerto Rico has also confronted some political obstacles.

“Though Congress has allocated $80 billion for the island’s recovery, persistent bottlenecks have complicated the disbursement of federal disaster funding. Many of the delays can be attributed to the Trump Administration’s inaction and delay in releasing recovery funding,” they wrote.

While the Biden administration rushed to aid Puerto Rico after Hurricane Fiona, hoping to draw a contrast with the Trump administration’s Hurricane Maria response, structural issues are still blunting the effectiveness of federal aid.

That’s why the lawmakers say a specialized task force is necessary.

“In this stage of the recovery, federal efforts must focus on addressing coordination challenges and facilitating the effective disbursement of funds rather than creating additional obstacles,” they wrote.

“To that end, we request the creation of a Recovery Task Force and at minimum the coordination of all relevant federal agencies as well as engagement with a broad coalition of local stakeholders in planning the recovery—including Puerto Rico’s central government, municipalities, non-profits, academic, and the private and civic sectors.”

The structural deficiencies in Puerto Rico’s infrastructure have had cascading effects affecting most services on the island, creating conditions where death tolls continue to climb months after natural disasters strike.

For instance, after Hurricane Maria, one estimate by George Washington University found that nearly 3,000 people had died as a consequence of the storm in the six months after it hit.

While the final toll was controversial — some groups said the storm’s aftermath claimed closer to 5,000 lives — most observers agreed that the slow reconstruction process contributed to those deaths.

At the center of controversy is Puerto Rico’s antiquated power grid, which since Maria has been privatized to be managed by LUMA, a private U.S.-Canadian joint venture.

Power generation on the island is still run by PREPA, the government-owned power company.

Slow repairs to the outdated power grid have contributed to reduced medical and emergency services, broken-down communications and other factors that dampen emergency response and reconstruction efforts.

After Fiona, Schumer called out the lack of coordination between PREPA and LUMA, a factor that’s aggravated power grid issues.

The legislators also took aim at the Fiscal Oversight and Management Board (FOMB), an entity created by Congress in 2016 to oversee Puerto Rico’s bankruptcy-like process.

The FOMB in January completed its main task, as a federal judge approved a debt restructuring plan that will allow the territory to pay off the bulk of its debt without breaking the bank.

The oversight board has never been a popular institution in Puerto Rico, but calls for its dissolution have grown with the FOMB’s primary task in the rearview mirror.

And the lawmakers say the extra bureaucratic steps imposed by the FOMB are now causing more harm than good.

“The Fiscal Oversight and Management Board’s (FOMB) ongoing austerity policies have also hobbled the ability of local governments to respond to crises and prepare for future climate impacts,” the lawmakers wrote.