>>Good morning and welcome to Global Perspectives.

I'm David Dumke.

Today, I'm joined by guest co-host Zoe Colon, who is an expert on Puerto Rico issues.

We'll do - be doing a three part series on Puerto Rico five years after Hurricane Maria devastated the island.

Zoe, thank you for joining us.

>>Thank you for having me.

I'm pleased to share that we're being joined by Federico de Jesus.

He is the principal of FDJ Solutions.

Welcome, Federico.

>>Thank you for having me David and Zoe, great to see you.

>>If you could start by telling us some of your work through your consulting firm, but also on Puerto Rico issues of Puerto Rico in general.

>>So our consulting firm is FDJ Solutions, a social impact oriented firm.

We mostly advise Puerto Rican diaspora groups, progressive candidates, and we're really concentrated on trying to get the word out through-through direct lobbying, through advocacy and the media on social causes that are dear to our hearts.

My experience in Puerto Rico comes from working these eight years in Capitol Hill, also worked in President Obama's administration, and I was also the deputy director of the governor of Puerto Rico's office in D.C. back in 2013 and 2014, in the inception of the financial crisis.

And after that, I formed my consultancy firm to advise clients on Puerto Rico issues, and I'm currently working with Power for Puerto Rico and other diaspora groups.

But you're familiar with Zoe and that some of our listeners in Florida, for example, where we answer for progress and others so that we can get the Puerto Rican diaspora message out, get our folks empowered, and help our family and loved ones on the island.

>>Federico, I wanted wanted to talk to you today about Hurricane Maria.

And recently, obviously, Puerto Rico was hit by another devastating hurricane.

I want to talk to you a little about how do you view the response to Hurricane Maria?

What was done in the last five years?

And how does that compare to how both the Puerto Rican government and the federal government, Washington, are responding to Fiona?

>>Sure.

So five years after the most devastating storm in 100 years in Puerto Rico, definitely the deadliest in 100 years in US history, the longest blackout in U.S. history.

This Category five storm wreaked havoc in Puerto Rico literally a week right after Hurricane Irma had devastated Puerto Rico.

Five years later, unfortunately, we have an electric system that is worse than after Maria.

We have a situation where now flooding is a phenomenon that's being compounded by Hurricane Fiona.

And we've had a federal response that was initially hampered by both the Trump administration's unwillingness to help Puerto Rico, both explicitly, implicitly and through policy placing onerous conditions on aid, but also through because of incompetence and, frankly, corruption in Puerto Rico.

So that combination and five years of, I would say, infighting among federal, commonwealth and even local agencies and mayors has really resulted in a very slow response to the point where just focusing on the electricity grid.

Congressional hearings revealed that out of $13 billion that Congress appropriated to rebuild a new grid in Puerto Rico, only 180 million with an “m ” has been used.

That's a failure.

It's a failure of the private company, LUMA that was created to privatize the distribution of transmission system of the electricity system.

It's a failure by the local government and frankly, by the federal government that can just put its hands off and oversee, but it has to implement.

And the President Biden went to Puerto Rico, made a promise that Energy Secretary Granholm would oversee a group, expedite the rebuilding of the grid.

But much of the infrastructure, roads, hospitals has not been rebuilt.

Many of these critical installations that depend on diesel or or gas or electricity and power plants and the distribution system was just not there after the recent storm.

And people that have been really not just because of Hurricane Maria, but earthquakes that happened in 2020 have not seen their homes rebuilt or their neighborhoods restored.

And that's just a failure on all counts.

And Puerto Ricans, after Donald Trump disrespected us, concentrated on that failure.

But I think that locally, Puerto Ricans also demonstrate to the local community, knows best centralized government responses in Puerto Rico have failed.

And the mayors actually are taking matters into their own hands.

And while the private company wasn't storing electricity in a timely fashion, the mayors hired retired linesmen that were doing the job for them, despite the fact that they're receiving billions of dollars from the federal and the local governments.

So that's the state of play right now.

We hope that President Biden's actions and promises will improve the situation.

But right now, the day to day life in Puerto Rico is still pretty hard and unstable.

Thank you.

Thanks to these disasters of natural and manmade.

>>Federico, do you do you think that these these crises or natural disasters, earthquakes, right, right after Hurricane Maria, a few years back.

Now Hurricane Fiona and the issues that we've seen around infrastructure and inadequate response from federal government, do you think that these events have brought to light or brought to the forefront the political status of Puerto Rico or the status of Puerto Ricos commonwealth status?

>>Sure.

So I think that although there's some correlation, just bringing up the issue of Puerto Rico brings up the issue of why are we talking about this Latin American Caribbean island?

Why are they even getting U.S. air?

Are they U.S. citizens?

All of that brings up the discussion.

I think that people tend to make the mistake that disparate treatment in Puerto Rico is just due to the colonial status of the island, given the the the lack of federal response after Katrina in Mississippi and New Orleans, given the water situation in Jackson, Mississippi, the call for equal treatment, to quote Yarimar Bonilla in The New York Times, doesn't necessarily do justice to the issue.

So I think more people are looking towards justice and tailoring a response to Puerto Rico's reality, as opposed to using a cookie cutter approach that has failed in Puerto Rico to apply the model that is used in the States by the Stafford Act that creates FEMA, creates bottlenecks and just does not compare to Puerto Rico's tropical reality.

>>So from what you were just describing about the situation, how Washington has responded, how San Juan has responded.

It sounds like you have a system where a lot is promised, not a lot is delivered, but there isn't really accountability to either side.

So you're talking about the basic mechanism of governance in Puerto Rico as to the root problem here.

Why can't we get get a solution?

>>So governance in Puerto Rico is a part of an essential but an incomplete part of the problem.

Part of the bigger problem is, again, you apply a system basically designed for U.S. states to a Latin American country that is full of U.S. citizens by birth, but has a really different reality, especially when it comes to the electric system, which has never been completely private in Puerto Rico since the 1940s, and is based on diesel and, you know, mountainous terrain and other realities that just simply don't comport to how these disasters are responded to.

Let me give you a very practical example.

After Hurricane Maria, telecommunications broke down, roads were closed, and the truckers that are supposed to deliver aid were victims themselves and were trapped many in their homes.

FEMA usually just coordinates with with the state government, and it's the local governments that have to actually deliver aid and do the response.

But there was no local or, frankly, state government to talk about in Puerto Rico after Maria and FEMA was complaining, well, it's not our job to deliver food or water to people.

Well, you know what?

In a total breakdown of the government like we had in Puerto Rico, that should be FEMA's job.

And so, again, the way the Stafford Act, which is a law that creates FEMA and how it applies to Puerto Rico with a lot of burdens and red tape, with not enough capacity of Spanish language speakers, which has been actually denounced by the U.S. Civil Rights Commission as a violation of civil rights and other requirements by the federal government from the Trump era and also the Biden era have just created the situation where the money isnt being spent.

Now, part of that is because of the system, part of that is lack of governance.

But part of that is also the outmigration of Puerto Ricans has caused a labor shortage and a lack of construction workers.

And because of Puerto Ricos status, we cant bring in guest workers from the Dominican Republic or even emergency workers for a short term response from neighboring countries.

Remember, Florida was a victim right after our Hurricane, so we couldn't expect Florida first responders to come to our aid at least as quickly as people from neighboring countries would.

So all of these limitations affect the direct response that, again, it's about saving lives shouldn't be about politics.

If we have rescue workers from France, Dominican Republic, New York, they should all be welcome.

And if we need the workers to work, as you know, in Florida, we have a lot of guest workers, but not enough.

Another limitation imposed by this colonial system is a law called the Jones Act that requires all interstate commerce between Puerto Rico and U.S. ports be conducted by U.S. built, owned, and crewed ships.

This makes things in Puerto Rico more expensive to the tune of one and a half billion dollars a year more expensive.

And it delayed aid in Puerto Rico right after Fiona.

There was a ship docked for days that wasn't allowed in that had 500,000 tons of diesel.

The hospitals needed to power their power plants and other critical infrastructure.

Finally, President Biden did the right thing and waived it.

But this should not be a regular occurrence, especially after an emergency.

And so these are all the factors that affect data in Puerto Rico.

And again, I think what the solution is, is for Congress to reprogram aid that's already been allotted for Maria while we have a needs assessment for Fiona, so we can use that money today to rebuild basically the same infrastructure that was damaged after Maria.

And so that we can give the money to mayors, the local NGOs and to people that can actually spend the money because the central government of Puerto Rico has been incapable of doing it.

Frankly, the federal government hasn't provided enough help for them to do it.

>>I do have a question about the political climate in D.C. around bills that have been introduced, for example, whether it be pro statehood or self-determination.

Do you have any thoughts on what's being introduced and the feasibility of those actually moving forward?

>>Sure.

So there was a basically two and a half year long battle regarding legislation in terms of the status of Puerto Rico in Congress.

Two competing bills, one that would be statehood, yes or no.

The other would do a constitutional assembly in Puerto Rico among all the Constitution options.

They both garnered a lot of support, but in the end, there was a negotiation for a compromise bill for a federal plebiscite among statehood association and independence.

Unfortunately, Steny Hoyer, the House Democratic leader, decided to block public hearings and amendments by Democrats and AOC, which was an original sponsor of the bill Backed out, and other progressive members actually voted against the bill committee, which was finally approved because of the lack of transparency in the process.

I think that after the elections, there will be opportunities to bring this stuff back, and I hope that they do public hearings and a robust amendment process so we can finally have the House floor vote this year decolonize Puerto Rico.

Unfortunately, the process that has led to it has been opaque and some say that it favors statehood because of the lack of clarity in its definition.

>>You work for the Obama administration.

You also worked for Senator Reid and then the Senate.

So you have a good a lot of experience in Washington, have a good sense of where everyone is.

You're mentioning AOC.

You're mentioning Steny Hoyer and progressives.

These are Democrats who all at least profess to want to help Puerto Rico but can't get on the same page.

Is there any any way to bridge their two positions?

That's one question.

The other question is where Republicans are in Puerto Rico, statehood and independence issue?

>>Sure.

So so let's start with the Republicans, because one of the parts of the political will of this deal was that it included the House Republican congressional delegation.

It's called the resident commission or really like an elected ambassador, according 40 USC, which is the law that authorizes the rest of the commissioner.

So she's a Republican and she's only been able to get seven Republicans in the House to sponsor that that agreement.

And so that lack of Republican support has made things difficult for Democrats.

They need every single vote and they don't have it every single vote.

And literally the only thing that can be done.

If you take a look at the statements by progressives like Chuy Garcia from Chicago, again, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez that's from New York, Puerto Rican herself.

And even Rashida Tlaib is not Puerto Rican but has a large constituency in Michigan.

They're all saying allow for public hearings in Spanish and for a robust amendment process so that everyone can participate.

I think if they do that, they won't have any democratic opposition, even if you don't like the final language, at least everybody have the opportunity to participate.

And I think that should be a key principle for self-determination.

But also in such a critical process in Congress and unfortunately, the rest of the commission of Puerto Rico hasn't been able to get that Republican or maybe if they do hearings and Republicans realize that maybe Puerto Rico wouldn't be a blue state after all.

Maybe things wouldn't be as people think.

I think that's why Congress needs to provide full details and transparency so we can finally decolonize our island.

>>I guess one last question from me.

You know, so many of us in the diaspora want to do as much as possible to help.

Do you have any suggestions for how we might get involved?

You know, I've been part of civic engagement campaigns, obviously getting out the vote.

I mean, are there any concrete asks of folks that really care about the status of Puerto Rico?

I don't mean the status in terms of commonwealth, but just in general, how to help Puerto Rico.

>>Sure.

I think that right now we have a very we have three critical issues, the recovery of Puerto Rico.

Again, let local, local mayors or organizations spend the money now.

I think that we need a permanent waiver for the Jones Act, the Puerto Rican people, should call their members of Congress or senators, if they're in the island and their family in the states.

I'm going to call and ask the president to exert more leadership on that.

And in terms of Puerto Rico, let's do a reverse.

The diaspora should call their family in Puerto Rico and ask the government to cancel the LUMA contract.

This private company has been a failure.

Statistically, there are worse and more frequent blackouts after the privatization was completed, which is contrary to what we were expecting again after so many taxpayer dollars invested.

And so I think there are a lot of opportunities for both the diaspora folks on the island and allies to get involved.

So if you log on to power4puertorico.com which is one of the key organizations and coalitions around these issues, we'll have more and they'll look us up in the Internet and on our social media.

I think that there's a lot of opportunities for people locally to engage and help their family members back home.

So I really appreciate the time that you're dedicated to these issues in the show.

>>Federico de Jesus, thank you so much for joining us today.

We really appreciate it.

>>Thank you.

>>Thank you very much.

>>And now we are joined in the studio by Dr. Fernando Rivera, who is the director of UCF's, Puerto Rico Research Hub.

Thank you for joining us, Fernando.

>>Thank you for having me.

>>So we'd like to get your reactions to what was just said by Federico de Jesus.

>>Well, I think, you know, it encompasses what a lot of people have been saying in terms of the failure, it seems, of not only the federal government, but also the central local government in Puerto Rico in terms of the response.

And unfortunately, it seems that Hurricane Fiona was sort of a the answer to the question that people had, how the reconstruction was going and all the issues and challenges that were back after Hurricane Maria sort of resurface again for the recovery from and then - and the answer to Hurricane Fiona as well.

>>I love to hear the grassroots organizations, NGOs, people, local governments are proactive and in rebuilding Puerto Rico.

But I can't help but feel that as US citizens, there should be more assistance, there should be more justice for, you know, US citizens on the island.

What what do you think we could do as a federal government to help Puerto Rico?

>>Well, like Federico is saying, right?

One of the things is that usually we have the discussion, you know, oh, if we become a state, this things are going to get resolved.

Right.

And he talked about, you know, it's not as simple as, you know, the colonial status and it's an issue of equity.

Right?

It's not fair for the people of Puerto Rico to have to be always a first, second, third responders for every emergency.

And just drawing back, it's not only Hurricane Maria, but it's the earthquakes.

Its the financial crisis, its COVID response is all those type of things.

I mean, at the end of the day, governments do have a responsibility.

And if there's a failure in the at the level of government, both federal and kind of like the local government in Puerto Rico, I think the solution is how do we empower those communities but not leaving it at just strictly up to them and continue to make promises and really have no action because people do feel it, sense it, live it every single day when they see that bridge that it's not built, when they have that electricity bill that keeps going up and the service getting worse, when you see that a lot of your neighbors are leaving and moving to the continental United States, when you see that schools are closing because there's not enough kids, when you see a lot of the austerity measures that are starting to create really, really hard circumstance for people living in the island of Puerto Rico.

>>One of the things I was asking Federico was about the assistance going to Puerto Rico and you recently wrote in the Orlando Sentinel about only about a third of the assistance has actually been delivered, if you call it that.

Whether it's been delivered well is another question.

But where is the rest of this money?

Why isn't it getting distributed?

Why isn't it being utilized?

It's been five years since Maria.

Now you need more.

More assistance needed for Puerto Rico because of Fiona.

So what is the problem here?

>>Well, there's a lot to the problems.

You know, one of the things that Federico was pointing out that we have a federal system, a FEMA system, that is designated to the reality of of the continental United States, which is very different for the system that Puerto Rico has, which resembles more of a Latin American type of system.

So in that sense, in terms of getting to the red tape, of getting applications, getting reimbursement, all those type of things, you know, one of the big things that we're hearing is, you know, Puerto Rico, again, is in a financial crisis.

So it's very hard.

Sometimes the money is on a reimbursement basis.

So how do you put up from that capital to complete this projects out here when there's not enough capital, startup capital to to start those projects?

The second is, is the loss of human capital.

At the end of the day, Puerto Rico has lost a significant number of people in the last decade or so.

So it's just it's just a matter of numbers in a sense, that you have a lot of projects that need to be done, but you don't have enough capacity to actually do those.

And this is where we get into the issues of the special relationship with the United States.

Puerto Rico is not in a position to say like “hey, lets hire people from the Dominican Republic ” or they hire some people from Latin America.

They have to go through the US immigration process to establish those visas.

And you know how, you know, fracture that system is so that it pays for Rico to really come up with solutions to really accelerate the funding and the construction of this projects?

>>I know I'm not sure if this is a correct term, you know, but it's been used to speak of Puerto Rico, the brain drain, you know, young people leaving the island.

You know, who who has the capacity on the island to get these contracts and manage them when you have so many people leaving.

Can you tell us more about those outmigration of Puerto Rico into the US, the continental U.S.?

>>Well, there's you know, if you look at the numbers between the 2010 to 20 census, it shows around 400 to 500,000 Puerto Ricans left the island, not exclusively to the state of Florida, but somewhere else.

Obviously, that brings about, you know, how how do you do that capacity in terms of, you know, one of the things that are.

>>Those younger people or older people?

>>Probably younger people in their productive years.

Right now, Puerto Rico has a large percentage of their population, 20% or more, that are 65 or older.

That brings about a key stress to the health care system out here.

And I think one of the things also with the special relationship we have in terms of the Medicaid, the Medicare type of formulas that we have every year, Puerto Rico seems to be running out of money at the end of the year.

And with the financial situation out here, who's with who's going to make up for that money out here?

Because the necessity is there for a lot of the health care issues that are going on.

You know, sometimes it's just a matter of, you know, just basic structural capacity in terms of you don't have enough engineering firms, you don't have enough construction sites to really put on this massive projects that are put into place.

And then if you seek outside help, then you have kind of like the issues of, you know, how do you bring that to the island?

You know, you have to negotiate with US firms.

So it makes it really, really expensive for Puerto Rico to come up first with a very fast process.

And second, with a very recently on fiscal responsible product to put out there.

So there's a lot of challenges.

And again, it's sort of, you know, a lot of people leaving the island.

That brings about another level of of of challenges for the island.

>>You know, we've mentioned today in the show about the electricity power company and the shortcomings there.

And, you know, looking at the island even before, Fiona, obviously a lot of things hadn't been reconstructed or put together.

But it seems to me and I wonder if you agree or disagree that there's been more of an attempt to put a Band-Aid on antiquated systems rather than actually putting systems that are more resilient, that would actually deliver better for the people of Puerto Rico than pouring good money after bad on old systems that aren't going to stand up anyway.

>>Yeah.

And this is a sort of the accumulation of the processes that been going on in Puerto Rico.

You know, a lot of the financial crisis, a lot of the maintenance money went away.

You know, there was a restructuring of the government that left a lot of people without jobs.

And now we have this governmental agency and now PREPA, which is the governmental entity which is in charge of the generation, you know, doesn't have the capacity sometimes to address that.

And then we have a private company that came in and really reduced the the the capacity in terms of employment.

And now you have this this big, big, big problem.

I think what happened after Hurricane Maria, they were anxiously trying to patch up together.

So it was, you know, issue of quality versus efficiency.

And even with that, it took almost a year for some people to get power back after Hurricane Maria.

So, again, this is a very antiquated, complicated system.

And again, you know, we saw that beset by President Biden sort of putting some accountability there to make sure of, you know, if you cannot do it.

And even Representative Nydia Velazquez from New York, she was saying, okay, whatever we have is not functioning.

We need to change it.

Whether it's going to be up to the federal government to take that responsibility, is it going to be the local Puerto Rican government?

We'll see.

But something has to be addressed because the system is it's going to be very difficult to have some type of reconstruction or economic success if we don't have access to a service so essential as electricity.

>>I've been intrigued by movements led by young people.

Right.

In Puerto Rico, artists like Bad Bunny who brought light to issues, perhaps not to Puerto Ricans because Puerto Ricans feel it every day when they don't have light or water.

But to the world, right?

The concert with Luma, you know, the fact that this is unacceptable and they've been some there've been some demonstrations and I think they're modeled after demonstrations to remove the government governor, which which was successful.

So where are we with it, with ending our relationship with LUMA?

I'm saying Puerto Rico's relationship with LUMA.

>>That is complicated, right?

And this is where we get you know, somebody has to be benefiting from this arrangement regardless of the protests, regardless of what politicians and decision makers say publicly.

I think privately a lot of people are really benefiting from this arrangement.

I think there's no plan B and that's the harsh reality out there, right?

And it's not like, you know, there were, you know, 20,000 companies trying, “Hey, let's take on this antiquated system and try to bring it up.

” This company, which just made up for Puerto Rico to bid for that contract.

And that tells you something, because LUMA energy is a new energy firm that was made from from people from Texas and Canada that was specifically made for this call for proposals, if you want to call it.

So there's really no plan B.

So that is even that and another challenge, right?

>>I have a question about this.

>>Sure.

>>So it's my understanding that they refused to keep a lot of the workers who really understood the existing electrical grid system.

I think they were laid off or asked not to come back to work with LUMA.

So do you know much about that issue?

>>Well, when the process was going on, there was a reassignment of employees because the majority were from PREPA.

PREPA had the biggest labor union in the country.

So a lot of the employees got reassigned to other sectors of government.

They were asked, Are you going to stay with LUMA, or are you going to stay in the government?

So that ended up reducing that capacity.

That now is showing that perhaps LUMA doesn't have the necessary personnel to take on this great challenge of the electric grid in Puerto Rico.

>>We're out of time, unfortunately, but thank you for joining us again.

Fernando Rivera, always a pleasure.

>>Thank you.

>>And thank you for joining us.

We'll see you again next week on another episode of Global Perspectives.