Transformando la recuperaciĂłn en crecimiento local: contrataciones federales en el periodo posdesastre

A raí­z de la devastación causada por el huracán Marí­a, el Gobierno federal de Estados Unidos puso en marcha iniciativas de ayuda de emergencia para Puerto Rico. El informe analiza los gastos posdesastres federales, y los sectores y empresas contratados. Nuestros hallazgos principales sugieren que el gasto federal de socorro y recuperación en Puerto Rico se está utilizando mayormente para contratar firmas estadounidenses.

ReestructuraciĂłn de la deuda de la AEE 2.0

El 31 de julio el gobierno de Puerto Rico, la Autoridad de Energía Eléctrica (“AEE”) y la Junta de Control Fiscal (“JCF”) anunciaron un acuerdo preliminar para apoyar la reestructuración de una parte de la deuda de la AEE con un grupo de bonistas no-asegurados de dicha entidad.

From Resilience to Resistance

Natural disasters mostly destroy, but they also generate new vocabularies that include an alphabet soup of acronyms and all sorts of technical concepts that we survivors have to quickly learn and assimilate—concepts, for instance, like “resilience.”

Puerto Rico: Black Start 2019

Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico’s energy system. After the storm, the island essentially has had to re-activate its energy system from the equivalent of a system-wide “blackstart”, which is the technical term for restarting an energy system from a complete shutdown.

The GAO Report

Recently, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) published a report on Puerto Rico’s debt. The report’s main findings should not be a surprise to anyone. The GAO finds that Puerto Rico’s fiscal crisis was caused by the government incurring significant annual deficits, especially after 2000, and that it used debt to finance them.

The Social Cost of the Fiscal Plan

On April 19, six members of the Fiscal Control Board (FCB) approved the Fiscal Plan for the government of Puerto Rico. In conceptual terms, the Plan consists of implementation of (1) a program of structural reforms; (2) a fiscal consolidation program; and (3) a reconstruction program financed by the federal government.

Steps Towards Energy Transformation in Puerto Rico

The business model for electrical generation companies, including PREPA, traditionally known as “build and grow,” is based on (1) the construction of ever larger and more efficient generating plants using cheap fossil fuels and (2) a constant increase in electrical consumption.