Puerto Rico could rebuild its power grid with renewables, but FEMA plans to fund fossil fuels. (Fast Company article by Patrick Parenteau and Rachel Stevens, 10/9/21)

FEMA has allocated $9.4 billion for rebuilding Puerto Rico’s electricity system after Hurricane Maria. The proposed plan would build new natural gas-fired power plants. Puerto Rico adopted laws that called for generating 15% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020, 40% by 2025, 60% by 2040, and 100% by 2050. But the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which controls relief funding for the island, appears ready to underwrite a rebuild of the old fossil fuel system — on a path that runs directly counter to the White House’s energy and climate policy.

The organizations making decisions in Puerto Rico are the Commonwealth’s Electric Power Authority, known as PREPA, and Luma Energy, a private company that received a 15-year contract in 2021 to manage power transmission and distribution on the island.

A 2015 study by the nonprofit Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis found that investing in solar and wind power and energy efficiency could transform Puerto Rico’s electrical system into a resilient grid. And in 2020, the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimated that rooftop solar power in Puerto Rico could generate roughly four times as much electricity as residents currently use. 

Spending almost $10 billion to rewire an island with 3 million residents is clearly a major federal action with significant environmental impacts. Under the National Environmental Policy Act, agencies undertaking such actions must prepare an environmental impact statement that takes a hard look at alternatives and invites meaningful public input. Beyond a pro forma invitation for public comment, FEMA made no effort to engage with overburdened communities of color that have disproportionately suffered from pollution and climate change under Puerto Rico’s energy system. This directly contradicts Biden’s order to place environmental justice at the center of federal energy and climate policy.

Jonathan Cloud, Possible Planet