How Trump can fix Puerto Rico's broken infrastructure

Puerto Rico is facing its worst drought in nearly 100 years this summer. The majority of San Juan, Puerto Rico’s capital, is now under severe water rationing due to aging and poorly maintained water infrastructure that is incapable of handling the severe drought conditions. The current water crisis is only the latest manifestation of Puerto Rico’s infrastructure deficiencies. Unfortunately, Puerto Rico has been dealing with an electricity infrastructure failure for decades. Examining why electricity reliability hasn’t improved over the past 10 years despite immense federal supervision from the Federal Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico holds the key to solving Puerto Rico’s infrastructure challenges. In 2016, Congress created the oversight panel to oversee Puerto Rico’s economic recovery. For the last 10 years, it has kept the territory’s sole provider of electricity, with the Puerto Rico Electric Power Company, known as PREPA, in a perpetual state of bankruptcy. This decision impairs both reliable power for Puerto Rico’s residents and the island’s future economic growth. How could this happen? The short answer is that the current members of the federal oversight board charged with getting PREPA out of bankruptcy do not live in Puerto Rico. They do not experience firsthand the consequences of decisions that delay much-needed investment in the power grid to improve reliability upon PREPA’s exit from bankruptcy. Last August, President Trump dismissed six of the seve…