A timeline of the Federal Government response.
May 2019
January 2020 February 2020 |
President Trump claimed that Puerto Rico has received $90 billion. However, while Puerto Rico has suffered from an estimated $90 billion in damages — the third-costliest hurricane in the United States — it has only received $11 billion (The Washington Post).
"The Trump administration imposed severe restrictions on Wednesday on billions of dollars in emergency relief to Puerto Rico, including blocking spending on the island’s electrical grid and suspending its $15-an-hour minimum wage for federally funded relief work. The nearly $16 billion in funding, released while Puerto Rico residents still sleep on the streets for fear of aftershocks from last week’s earthquake, is part of $20 billion that Congress allocated for disaster recovery and preparation more than a year ago, in response to the commonwealth being hit by back-to-back hurricanes in 2017" (The New York Times). House Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused the Trump administration of acting unlawfully in withholding the money and called on officials to “cease and desist that illegal activity.” The holdup has continued past a congressional mandated deadline last fall for more than $8 billion of the aid to be officially announced" (The Washington Post). Amid the Trump Administration's attempts to cut aid, 1.3 million Puerto Rico residents who rely on food stamps wait in hunger. Health clinic administrator Izquierdo said, "We just don't have the money right now. It's very hard. It is so unfair. That cut is going to kill us" (The Washington Post). The Trump Administration had released only $1.5 billion of the congressional relief, citing concerns about political corruption. Of that, only $5 million has been spent. The administration raised concerns about Puerto Rico's 'history of inadequate financial controls over regular government operations” and the “multiple high-profile cases of corruption” that have “marred distribution of aid'" (The New York Times). "The governor fired multiple cabinet officials and ordered an investigation after unused emergency supplies were discovered in a warehouse last month. By late afternoon, a spokesman for the National Guard said service members had delivered some of the unused warehouse supplies to 10 municipalities outside of the main quake zone that had not previously received much aid, despite being affected by the temblors. Each truck carried about 12 pallets of supplies, including cots, tarps, stoves and empty plastic water jugs. Since Hurricane Maria, trailers full of food, water and baby supplies that had been donated for hurricane victims were found left to rot at a government office nearly a year after the storm. By that time, they had become infested by rats. Thousands of unused cases of bottled water laid to waste for months on an unused runway. Donations compiled in Florida rotted away because the Puerto Rico government did not have money to ship them to the island" (The New York Times). The House of Representatives — including thirty-four Republicans like Rep. Steve King (R - Iowa) — approved sending $4.89 billion in emergency recovery aid and additional tax relief to Puerto Rico. The $4.89 billion funding package includes $3.3 billion in grant funding for disaster relief, $210 million for Puerto Rico's food stamp program, $18 million for technical assistance that would support the faltering electric grid in Puerto Rico and other territories, $600 for nutritional assistance. This disaster relief bill also includes a tax relief package that expand child tax credit benefits for residents of Puerto Rico and increases the amount of money collected from rum excise taxes diverted back to the governments of Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin Islands, among other things. This bill is unlikely to pass through the Senate because of partisan allegiances, since the White House has indicated that it will veto the legislation (The New York Times). |