Ahead of the ninth anniversary of Hurricane María (commemorated Sunday, September 20), Puerto Rico's Resident Commissioner Pablo José Hernández introduced a congressional bill that would extend the deadline to 2035 for completing recovery projects funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The measure, filed Friday, aims to prevent federal deadlines from becoming another obstacle to finishing reconstruction, since current funding for certain projects expires and requires individual extension requests, adding bureaucratic burden.
Hernández was joined by Bennie Thompson (D-MS-02), ranking Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee, and Representative Nellie Pou (D-NJ-09). Thompson criticized the Trump administration's handling of the disaster from the start and said Puerto Rico's recovery should not be hindered by deadlines or red tape.
Hernández cited data from the Central Office for Recovery, Reconstruction and Resiliency (COR3), which reported that, as of September 30, 2025, there were 19,202 active María-related recovery projects with obligated funds that had not yet reached closeout, illustrating the scale of work remaining nearly a decade after the storm.