"We will not stay quiet or still. This next year is a congressional election year and I will be visiting all those jurisdictions to let them know what some of these members of Congress did, saying one thing and doing another." Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló
People have been leaving the ravaged American territory of Puerto Rico for the mainland, particularly Florida, since early October. Low end estimates of 500,000 to 750,000 PR residents will have relocated to the sunshine state within five years. Well over 200,000 have already done so, settling primarily in the Orlando area.
Rosselló's government led a push to change Puerto Rico's status as a foreign fiscal entity in the Republican tax bill, which is expected to be passed and signed this week. But its requested reforms were not accepted by Republicans who wrote the final bill in the House-Senate conference last week.
The island government insists that the tax bill as currently written would mean economic doom for the already struggling territory.
Puerto Rican officials made a last-ditch effort last week to convince Republicans to change provisions in the tax bill affecting Puerto Rico.
Puerto Rico Secretary of State Luis Rivera Marin told Reuters the effects of the bill, which considers Puerto Rico foreign territory for tax purposes, would be "worse than Maria."
In a press conference Sunday, Rosselló panned Republicans for supporting the tax bill, taking special aim at those who pushed through the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability (PROMESA) Act in 2016.
Under PROMESA, a fiscal control board under control of Congress was named to oversee finances for the island, which was about $72 billion in debt before hurricanes Irma and Maria.
Rosselló said he would campaign against "those who said they would support Puerto Rico in its most difficult moment, who came here, who established it in the public record, who were part of the project of PROMESA, a public policy to stabilize the economy and find fiscal sustainability."
Rosselló added that "in the main moment when they had to keep things the same or give additional aid, they did the exact opposite."
Besides Florida, New York, New Jersey and Illinois, Puerto Rican migrants are expected to settle in the State of Texas in large numbers. The GOP and Donald Trump have been vicious towards the island ever since hurricanes Irma and Maria made landfall back in September and October. Electricity has not been fully restored and water safety is suspect in many areas of the island.
Buzzfeed reports that power may not be fully restored until May. Hurricane season will start once again in June. That is a scary thought.
Power restoration in Puerto Rico has faced intense scrutiny after the territory's electric power authority, PREPA, signed a $300 million contract with Whitefish Energy, a tiny, obscure firm from Montana without a competitive bidding process. After several federal and territorial investigations were launched into the deal, PREPA canceled the contract and its director resigned.
In a Facebook Live video Wednesday, officials described a "logistical nightmare" of rugged, mountainous terrain wrought more inaccessible by debris and damaged roads. Thousands of power poles and other vital equipment are still needed to repair and restore electricity to about 35% of the island still living in the dark.
"We need over 50,000 poles and only 12,000 have been delivered," said Jose Sanchez, who is leading the Army Corps' power grid restoration efforts. "Sometimes one crew will only get six to seven poles in in a day. We have hundreds of crews working but it's not easy."
In an interview with the Associated Press, Sanchez noted that supplies have been slow to arrive.
"Unfortunately, I don't think anybody was prepared here in Puerto Rico to address that magnitude of destruction and be able to administer the logistics associated with that," he said. "We are restoring power as quickly as possible."
Nine of Puerto Rico's 78 municipalities are still without power three months after the powerful Category 4 hurricane slammed the island, with frustrated residents still forced to boil water and live without a refrigerator or electricity. The Army Corps expects that a majority of the remaining areas of the territory still without power will be out of the dark by late February or early March.