Puerto Rico lawmakers approved a bill to establish a local fiscal adjustment board, a key measure in Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla’s plan to lighten the island’s $70 billion debt burden, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The bill now goes before the governor for approval. Details weren’t immediately available. Lawmakers haven’t acted yet on another bill to authorize a restructuring of the commonwealth’s main electric utility. Yesterday was the final day of the current legislative gathering, though Garcia Padilla can call a special session to require lawmakers to continue working on the measure. Read more.
In related news, Puerto Rico’s congressional representative yesterday blasted the idea of a federal board to oversee the territory’s troubled finances, saying it would amount to a “dictatorship,” The Hill reported today. Pedro Pierluisi (D), Puerto Rico’s nonvoting member of Congress, dismissed the idea floated in the Capitol as an unforgiveable breach on Puerto Rico’s autonomy, even as the territory turns to Congress for help steering through its unbearable debt load. Some Republicans, including Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), have suggested a federal board similar to the one used in the District of Columbia during the 1990s could help the territory reconcile its troubled finances. “That would be a blatant exercise in colonialism like I haven’t seen in recent history,” he said Tuesday. “Whoever proposes that is going to be facing me, and facing anybody that believes in democracy in the world.” Click here to watch a video of the event that Rep. Pierluisi participated in yesterday titled “Puerto Rico’s Fiscal Future: What’s Next for America’s Largest Territory?”
For further news and analysis of Puerto Rico’s debt crisis, be sure to visit ABI’s “Puerto Rico in Distress” webpage.
