Commissioner Pablo José Hernández has sent a letter to HUD Secretary Scott Turner, inquiring about the department’s plan to disburse $1.76 billion allocated for the recovery of Puerto Rico’s electrical grid, which has not been disbursed nine years after Hurricane María. Hernández’s letter references a July report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), which found that only about $3.6 billion of the estimated $17.1 billion allocated for improving the energy system had been disbursed.
The commissioner asked about HUD’s timeline for total disbursement, its plan to address the GAO’s conclusions, and how it will protect the committed funds from rescission or reassignment. Hernández, a member of the House Natural Resources and Homeland Security committees, also cited a report by El Nuevo Día that over 50 electrical generation projects have been stalled due to financial, bureaucratic, and technical hurdles.
The commissioner warned that the electrical grid remains critically fragile nearly a decade after Hurricane María.