Trump Attaches Severe Restrictions to Puerto Rico’s Long-Delayed Disaster Aid

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/15/us/politics/trump-puerto-rico-disaster-aid.html?action=click&module=News&pgtype=Homepage

By Lola Fadulu and Mark Walker
Jan. 15, 2020 Updated 9:24 p.m. ET

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 Ricans 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.

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Puerto Rico will be barred from paying its $15-an-hour minimum wage to workers on federally funded projects. And none of the funds can be used on the electrical grid, although the Department of Housing and Urban Development has yet to release nearly $2 billion that was allocated for Puerto Rico’s electrical system.

White House officials acknowledged that rolling blackouts continue in Puerto Rico but insisted there was no need for new money.

The requirements were first reported by The Washington Post.

A congressional aide involved in the issue said the White House and its budget office appeared to have chosen restrictions that would be politically difficult for Puerto Rican officials to carry out. That way, the aide suggested, the federal government would not appear responsible for withholding the aid.

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The administration’s disparate treatment of Puerto Rico is not new. In August, the Department of Housing and Urban Development announced that it would release billions of dollars in federal disaster mitigation funds in two funds: one for nine states on the mainland, and the other for nonstates like Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin Islands.

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