The energy crisis in Puerto Rico

by Hon. Ricardo Llerandi Cruz - 04/30/15 5:30 PM ET

Puerto Rico is in the middle of one of the worse economic recessions in its history. At the heart of it lays the high cost of energy and the lack of a viable infrastructure to switch from fossil fuels to clean energy sources in the near future.

Currently, the Puerto Rico Electrical Power Authority (PREPA), the only company that can provide electrical power on the Island, is in shambles. Its finances are ruined due to decades of over borrowing. In fact, PREPA, which has a monopoly on the market, currently carries a massive structural debt surpassing the $9 billion figure. The public corporation can’t keep up with the interest payments for such debt and there are indicators that it will be defaulting in its obligations in the not so distance future.

{mosads}To make matters worse, because of its incompetence, the Environmental Protection Agency recently placed PREPA on its penalty list for its failure to comply with the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS), something that could have been avoided if the corporation’s board of governors would have submitted a detailed plan to achieve the goals set forth in the MATS by 2016. As it stands right now, this unnecessary act of administrative irresponsibility would cost the Puerto Rican people around $265,000 a day in fines alone!

Unfortunately, that’s not the only ‘bad’ news regarding this failed experiment called PREPA. Unlike the last term, when the administration of former governor Luis Fortuño tried everything possible to get out of our dependence on petrol as the main source of burning fuel, the current administration shut the door to all green energy projects, in essence condemning the almost 3.6 million American citizens living on the Island to pay a higher price for electricity. This decision will have a catastrophic effect on our economic development for the next 10 years.

It’s worth pointing out that because of the economic stagnation, thousands residents leave the Island every month.

Cruz has been a member of the Puerto Rico House of Representatives since 2012.