Political Quotes

“Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Puerto Rico (Miss Gonzalez-Colon). Miss GONZALEZ-COLON of Puerto Rico. Madam Chairwoman, I thank the ranking member for yielding again. I think we have not understood the magnitude of this event. Yes, we do have $40 billion in approved funds for Puerto Rico, but of that, just $1.5 billion has been disbursed to the island. The rest of the funds go through a different process. Actually, in February of last year, there was the publication of the guidelines to access $8.7 billion. Of that, just 1.7 got a grant agreement in January of this year. So, again, in order to get the funds, it will be several months before we have it. {time} 1015 That is the reason one of the concerns is that FEMA is getting the emergency disaster individual assistance as we speak, the same thing as the other Federal agencies that are doing the job on the ground. But at the same time, we did have a power plant on the island that is completely shut down, so we lost the power for a few days. Right now, we don't have 500 megawatts reserved. Actually, if we do have another earthquake or any other replicas, we may run out, again, of power because our power plants were affected as well. I do believe that roads and pipelines were affected. Government buildings were affected as well. We haven't seen yet the amount of destruction. Again, you will see a lot of Puerto Ricans leaving the island. It is happening already. It happened with Hurricane Maria.…”