A Different Kind of Storm: U.S. Congress Crippled Puerto Rico’s Autonomy to Turn on the Switch and Live
By: 2022 National CT/ET Fellow Carlos Claussell
On September 19, 2022, just 5 years after Hurricane Maria ravaged Puerto Rico, Hurricane Fiona hit the southwest of Puerto Rico, causing record-breaking rainfall, devastating flooding, and leaving the entire country without power. A few days after Fiona made landfall, the National Weather Service issued an extreme heat warning for Puerto Rico, with temperatures climbing up to 114 degrees. Once again, Puerto Ricans faced life-threatening extreme heat and lost power for weeks, only this time, it was due to a different kind of storm, a storm caused by a series of failures and undemocratic actions imposed on the people of Puerto Rico by the U.S. Congress.
In 2017, Puerto Rico’s power infrastructure collapsed during Hurricane Maria, a category 4 hurricane that caused a major blackout that lasted for several months. Many Puerto Ricans lost their lives through a set of unfortunate, yet preventable, circumstances caused by the loss of power. A study by Harvard University estimated that 4,645 people died because of Hurricane Maria. The Center for Investigative Journalism in Puerto Rico highlighted that most of these deaths were associated with people in need of medical care because they suffered an accident or were dealing with chronic illnesses like diabetes or heart conditions. Most of these deaths could’ve been prevented if Puerto Rico had power.
In 2016, Congress enacted Puerto Rico’s Fiscal Oversight & Management Board under the PROMESA Act to steer the archipelago’s bankruptcy process. Locally known as La Junta de Control Fiscal (the Fiscal Control Board), it is an unelected entity that makes financial policy decisions on behalf of local elected officials without being accountable to the people of Puerto Rico. In 2020, the Federal Emergency Management Agency allocated over $9 billion dollars to repair Puerto Rico’s power grid. In 2021, the Fiscal Control Board chose to privatize a key portion of PREPA, the public electric utility company, giving control of power transmission and distribution to LUMA Energy, a subsidiary of Canadian company ATCO and Houston-based Quanta Services. By mid-June 2022, $12.8 billion had been earmarked for PREPA in collaboration with LUMA Energy. Since LUMA Energy took over, Puerto Rico’s power grid and services to consumers have been disastrous, recording multiple blackouts over a very short period of time and an obscene spike in utility fees for consumers. It doesn’t have to be this way.
Puerto Ricans need a just, clean energy transition that shifts away from fossil fuels because their lives and livelihoods depend on it. As climate change brings hurricane after hurricane across the Caribbean, communities across Puerto Rico are fighting for their very existence while unjust energy policies leave many dead, sick, and without the autonomy to enact change. However, Puerto Rico’s geographic location makes it ideal for solar and wind energy generation. CAMBIO, a not-for-profit organization committed to promoting sustainable and responsible actions for Puerto Rico, is co-leading the Queremos Sol (We Want Sun) proposal that promotes a dramatic transformation of PREPA by integrating energy efficiency, rooftop solar and battery storage in homes and buildings to achieve 100% renewable generation by 2050.
Such an approach is geared towards improving PREPA’s transparency and accountability, reducing the vulnerability of Puerto Rico’s power grid, maximizing the use of local renewable resources, ensuring a fair transition for workers, and promoting active participation from communities and citizens. A just, clean energy transition for Puerto Rico, like the one Queremos Sol advocates for, is not possible under the Fiscal Control Board and PROMESA.
The Biden administration has enacted the largest federal climate policy strategy in history. With the signing of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill in 2021 and the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, the federal government has allocated historic investments in the trillions to drive economic prosperity through climate action. President Biden also signed Executive Order 14008 to tackle the climate crisis and establish the Justice40 Initiative. This sweeping initiative centers equity in the fight against climate change, ensuring that disinvested communities receive at least 40 percent of the overall benefits from federal investments in climate, clean energy, and reduction of legacy pollution. The purpose of this initiative is to support and fund authentic and meaningful engagement from communities that have experienced disproportionate effects of climate change.
Although these policies account for big wins for the climate movement and their efforts to center on equity-driven, community-centered goals are notable, the job is not done. There’s a strong need for accountability in the face of climate change — let’s call it climate accountability — that removes legislation like PROMESA and eliminates entities like the Fiscal Control Board from calling the shots in Puerto Rico.
Climate accountability is key to bringing a just response to the 3.25 million people living in Puerto Rico whose entire livelihoods, culture, way of life, and pure existence are threatened by this climate crisis. The Biden administration and Congress must end the Fiscal Control Board and follow with a robust use of the Justice40 framework to guide federal investments into Puerto Rico, to ensure that communities most at risk are truly protected. We owe it to the most vulnerable, historically-excluded communities to end this storm.
About the Author
Carlos Claussell is a Clean Energy Leadership Institute National Fellow and a Climate Justice Design Fellow at Harvard University. He currently serves as a Commissioner for the City of Philadelphia’s Environmental Justice Advisory Commission.
