GOP chairman: Puerto Rico must be rebuilt better than before

[DonViejo]

Source: The Hill




BY SCOTT WONG - 10/13/17 03:02 PM EDT

House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop (R-Utah) said Friday his committee may consider legislation to help rebuild Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands to a higher standard than what had existed before hurricanes ravaged the islands.

For decades, debt-ridden Puerto Rico has struggled with poor roads, an unreliable electrical grid and other infrastructure problems — a point President Trump made earlier this week. If the island territory is to attract investment and tackle its financial crisis, Bishop said, the federal government can’t just rebuild Puerto Rico’s infrastructure to previous, subpar conditions.

“What my committee’s going to be looking at is the middle-range and the long-range ways of how we try to rebuild those two territories and make it better,” Bishop said during an appearance on C-SPAN’s “Newsmakers” set to air Sunday.

“See, that’s one of the problems by law: FEMA can only rebuild things to the way they were before the disaster hit," he said. "Unfortunately, the infrastructure, the grid in Puerto Rico we now realize is more fragile than we thought it was."



Read more: http://thehill.com/homenews/house/355359-gop-chairman-puerto-rico-must-be-rebuilt-better-than-before

[C Moon]

1. I'm sure it will involve private industries, and PR will be owned from here on out.

[NCjack]

2. For sure, Trump, Putin and buddies have that job lined up. The wrong buildings

in the wrong places, with material vendors and labors screwed, followed by Trump et al. exiting the projects via bankruptcy and huge personal profits.

[Not Ruth]

3. Whatever rebuilding is done, must be hurricane proof

Concrete buildings, no flood plains, etc

[alarimer]

4. Meaning this is yet another opportunity for corporations to pillage the island.

The way they pillaged New Orleans. Much of the poorer population never returned; schools were privatized; contractors took heaps of money then never built the houses. So, yeah, I guess they can do the same in PR.

So an opportunity for rich, white people to benefit at the expense of the poor and black/brown.

[procon]

5. Trump said the government is going to want "security" to help Puerto Rico.

Does he think he's the Godfather, a low class loan shark, or just a back alley extortionist?

[Igel]

6. One of the complaints from Czechs in '93 was similar.

The Czechoslovak government had poured gobs of money into infrastructure--roads, hospitals, factories. Slovakia had been more rural, more agrarian, and needed intensive industrialization, so most of the money was provided by the western half of the country. This went on for years. But since they were one country, the resentment from the west was kept in check. So to speak.

Then the Slovaks said, "We want independence. Bye." The Czechs were pissed--they had older infrastructure.

The only good thing was that the new Slovak infrastructure was built to Soviet standards, meaning it was built 10 or 20 years obsolete by West European standards. The Czechs knew they had to rebuild to suit Europe. (Oh, and the Czechs typically had a higher education level. And more propitious geographical positioning.)

[El Mimbreno]

7. Considering Bishop's record....

can I say I'm more that a little skeptical? Talk is cheap.