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Few people understand the role energy access plays in poverty alleviation better than Robert Freling, the long-time executive director of the Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF), who has spent his career expanding access to electricity across the world.

For Freling, bringing electricity to remote and impoverished communities is more than providing a pathway to modernity — it’s a matter of basic human rights.

Arturo Massol-Deyá believes solar panels will bring power to the people of Puerto Rico — in more ways than one.

Massol-Deyá is associate director of Casa Pueblo, a nonprofit that, since 1991, has installed close to 1,000 solar panels on homes and businesses throughout Adjuntas, a small mountainside town southwest of San Juan. Beyond providing cheap, renewable energy, Massol-Deyá hopes a growing network of microgrids will help Puerto Ricans break their dependence on an unreliable electrical system and a colonial governing structure that has plunged the island into debt, cut social services, and denied residents a voice in federal politics.

After Hurricane Maria decimated Puerto Rico’s infrastructure in September 2017, Tara Rodríguez Besosa got busy rebuilding the local food system. There was no shortage of work to be done. The storm destroyed the island’s power grid, leaving millions without electricity and causing extensive damage to hundreds of thousands of buildings. In the mountainous region around the city of Caguas, Besosa and other founders of El Departamento de la Comida, a restaurant and nonprofit produce store, joined one of the “solidarity brigades” that had sprung up to repair local farms. While Besosa and her fellow activists fixed roofs, built rainwater collection systems and installed solar energy systems, they engaged in a discussion about the future of food in Puerto Rico: what needed rebuilding, and what needed replacing.

Out of this conversation, says Besosa, emerged an “understanding that there isn’t going to be food sovereignty if we aren’t also achieving energy sovereignty.”

Like much of the island, she has gone without electricity since the storm hit on Sept. 20, making do with glowing lanterns, a gas barbecue grill, daily trips to the grocery store and wide open windows to stay cool. The Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority’s grid is working at less than 50 percent, leaving much of the island in the dark. For Ms. Gonzalez and other residents, the catastrophe of Hurricane Maria has been followed by an economic disaster with no end in sight.

Manuel A. Laboy Rivera, the secretary of Puerto Rico’s Department of Economic Development and Commerce estimated the economic losses at a minimum of $20 billion, although some economists and analysts put it as high as $40 billion, much of it from the drop in productivity. Puerto Rico’s economy is already $70 billion in debt and will be hard hit by the steep drop in tax revenue.

This is not a vision that Puerto Ricans are waiting for the wider world to bring to them. Ángel Figueroa Jaramillo, head of Utier, the electrical workers’ union in Puerto Rico, told reporters “solar power and wind power in Puerto Rico is really the key to the future of the island’s energy independence”, adding that “all the alternatives have to be owned by the community”.

The benefits of community ownership are clear when the evidence shows that some of the most resilient communities following the hurricane were cooperatives such as the Cooperativa de Vivienda Ciudad Universitaria. The co-op is a community of over 1000 people, who as the Orlando Sentinel reported, “learned to formalise the neighbour-to-neighbour mentality so well that in situations of crisis – such as this one – they don’t have to wait for the government to show up or feel the need to flee”.

In Adjuntas, Puerto Rico, thousands of local residents bearing flags and placards marched through the small town over the weekend, accompanied by whistles and drums. It was a joyful display—some marchers walked on stilts; others twirled glossy streamers—all to celebrate a new cooperatively-owned solar microgrid, which had just been installed in the town center. After Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico in 2017, some residents of the town in the island’s mountainous central region were left without power for 11 months before Puerto Rico’s utility brought service back online. Now, thanks to the new project, 14 local businesses will be able to produce their own electricity and run for about 10 days using batteries connected to solar power installed on their roofs, even if connections to the main grid fail again.

Puerto Rico has an ancient, rickety power system, with residents dealing with frequent power outages even when the weather is good. Hurricanes bring the prospect of weeks or months without electricity. After Hurricane Fiona hit the island last fall, for instance, some towns were left without power for weeks. And the threat to the island is only growing, with such storms becoming more severe due to climate change.

The termination of a critical federal incentive more than 20 years ago left a gaping hole in the island’s economic well-being resulting in a devastating downward spiral of lost jobs, lost income, lost population and lost dignity. {mosads}In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Puerto Rico was regarded as one of the world’s most attractive sites for manufacturing investments. Yet, less than a half a decade later that perception changed radically when the Congress in the mid 1990s took action ending a long-standing and remarkably effective tax incentive that had moved the island from its former “poorhouse of the Caribbean” status to “shining star of the Caribbean.” This was all part of the renowned “Operation Bootstrap” admired throughout the Western Hemisphere and the world. The so-called Section 936 tax incentive, adopted by Congress in the mid-1970s and phased-out over a 10-year period between 1996 and 2005, had turned the impoverished former agricultural-based economy into a manufacturing-based economy — and the envy of struggling nations around the globe. The federal incentive did not eliminate the island’s endemic poverty, but it did create over 160,000 direct highly paid manufacturing jobs in industries ranging from textiles to electronics to pharmaceuticals. And, in addition, the presence of these industries, their suppliers and the purchasing power generated by their highly-compensated employees created an estimated 400,000 to 600,000 additional jobs throughout the island economy. The incentive stabilized the economy and encouraged residents to stay on the island rather than migrate to the U.S mainland. What exactly was Section 936? Simply stated, it was a credit against federal taxes owed. A mainland corporation, by meeting certain criteria, could establish a “possessions corporation” in Puerto Rico. The income generated by that corporation could be brought back to the mainland free of federal tax. For example, the otherwise federal tax owed on active business income generated by the Puerto Rico corporation would be zeroed out by the application of a 100 percent tax credit when the profit was brought home. Passive income generated by the possessions corporations’ deposits in Puerto Rico banks or in other qualified investments, such as “twin plants” in Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI) countries were treated similarly. The favorable tax treatment of both active and passive income by Section 936 were powerful incentives for U.S. corporations to not only create well-paying manufacturing jobs but also to retain a substantial portion of their earnings in Puerto Rico banking institutions and other qualified investments. In fact, in the mid-1990s, 40 percent of the money deposited in Puerto Rico banks were Section 936 funds. Due to the tax-favored treatment of corporations’ local banking deposits, the loan rates of the island’s financial institutions were highly competitive stimulating much positive local consumer economic activity beyond the manufacturing sector. So, what happened to this prized tax incentive? In the early 1990s, a committee of the U.S. Senate undertook an investigation of pharmaceutical drug pricing — always a congressional target. Over the years numerous drug companies had responded to the possessions tax incentive by locating operations in Puerto Rico. The Senate study honed in on the fact that the “tax benefit per job” enjoyed by pharmaceuticals was “excessive,” amounting in some cases to as much as $70,000 per job. This occasioned a political outcry that Section 936 was “corporate welfare,” not a popular complaint in those — or these — days of federal budget deficits. It should be noted that, at the time, the federal government estimated the revenue “cost” of Section 936 at roughly $3.5 billion to $4 billion per year. This calculation was based on the static assumption that if the incentive were eliminated this amount would be annually “saved” by the federal government. Of course, this assumed that corporations that lost the federal incentive would take no action (such as re-locating or re-incorporating their operations) to avoid or minimize the imposition of federal taxes. The Section 936 tax incentive was finally fully terminated in 2005 after a 10-year “grandfathering” of companies operating on the island in 1996 when Congress officially voted to end the incentive. The end result: It is not known how much, if any, revenue the federal government “saved” from the repeal of Section 936. Most of the recipient companies either moved their operations off the island or re-incorporated them as so-called “controlled foreign corporations” deferring taxes and not contributing revenues to the federal Treasury. What we do know is that Congress’ unfortunate and precipitous action of outright repealing the Section 936 incentive rather than retaining it and making modifications to address its “excessive” benefits, undermined Puerto Rico’s economic development plans exacerbating many of the other problems confronting the local commonwealth government. Not just jobs and income were lost but the island’s population now has decreased by more than 500,000 residents leaving for a “better life” on the mainland. Then Puerto Rico was hit by Hurricane Maria last September. The island has a very large population below the federal poverty level. It needs substantial food and medical assistance. It has major electrical grid and other energy problems, as well as fiscal challenges that have brought the island to the brink of bankruptcy. Yet, its people are proud and industrious. They especially take great pride in their U.S citizenship and their willing participation in the U.S. military. Congress has taken some steps to address Puerto Rico’s many problems, but it needs to do much more. Providing ample hurricane relief and economic incentives at least equivalent to those of the former Section 936 would be major steps in the right direction.

Puerto Rico’s finances are strained, and the U.S. is too dependent on China for pharmaceuticals. These distinct issues may seem unrelated, but they are very much intertwined.

Puerto Rico was once America’s medicine cabinet, and it could be again. During the second half of the 20th century, it developed from one of the poorest places in the hemisphere into a manufacturing powerhouse. Through efforts to industrialize the island, U.S. manufacturers and the labor movement found common cause. Congress and Puerto Rico implemented several tax breaks for American manufacturers. One of them, enacted in 1976 and codified in Section 936 of the Internal Revenue Code, freed manufacturers from taxes on profits made in Puerto Rico and other U.S. territories. Drug companies flocked to Puerto Rico, transforming it into a hub of pharmaceutical production.

In the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, public health officials and policy experts have raised concerns that the U.S. is too dependent on China for critical active pharmaceutical ingredients—the compounds essential to manufacturing common medicines like penicillin, Advil, and Tylenol. The good news is that there are ways for Congress to jump-start American pharmaceutical ingredient manufacturing, by reforming the tax code of Puerto Rico.

Why Puerto Rican drug manufacturers moved to China

With the repealing of the 936 tax incentives Puerto Rico lost its market share in the pharmaceutical industry. Companies opted to move their operations abroad seeking the tax benefits Puerto Rico no longer offered. The state run economies in China and India benefit from the government pumping billions of dollars into the industry, thus effectively controlling the industry. Ireland’s economy, on the other hand, is free market-based, and it is its tax incentive policy –its corporate rate tax is almost zero– what has attracted the manufacturing companies. “That is why we need tax incentives –new tax incentives or maybe old tax incentives– back in place in the US to move Puerto Rico into its former position of leadership [in the industry],” said DePhillips. Nevertheless, the executive admitted that, while legislation to incentivize manufacturing can be replicated in other parts of the US, he is aware that many members of Congress do not want to do anything that could benefit Puerto Rico. But then again, why Puerto Rico and not some other state? “Puerto Rico still has the deepest pharmaceutical manufacturing infrastructure, when compared to any other state in the US. Puerto Rico is still dominant should it be compared to North Carolina, New Jersey or Massachusetts,” said DePhillips, who was quick to admit that even though the infrastructure is still here, “it needs to be modernize.” Hughes coincided and emphasized tax incentives are also needed. “In order to compete effectively with those low tax jurisdictions we need the incentives. The government has taken a good step towards that with the 15% global minimum tax, which would put everybody on a leveled playing field. The next step should be how to incentivize those pharmaceutical companies to abandon what they have already established [abroad] and come here,” Hughes said.

The past two years were not kind to those who hold dear one of our most cherished rights—the right to vote. After the Republican wave of 2010, which saw conservative majorities swept into governors’ mansions and state legislatures, more than a dozen states—including Wisconsin, Florida, and Texas—passed legislation making it more difficult for voters to cast a ballot. The conservative cause celebre became legislation enacting voter ID, shortening early voting, and requiring citizens to show a birth certificate or passport in order to register to vote. In the face of this assault on suffrage, voting-rights advocates fought back and were able to block or modify a number of the worst new laws, including voter ID laws in Wisconsin, Texas, and South Carolina, as well as laws in Ohio and elsewhere shortening early voting periods.

With the 2013 legislative session approaching, voting-rights advocates have an opportunity to shift their effort from simply stopping bad laws to proposing good ones. It’s time to stop playing defense and start going on offense.

In the 2022 midterms, American democracy rallied. But despite the widespread rejection of election denial at the polls, efforts to undermine electoral systems and push anti-voter policies continue to proliferate. These and other attacks on democracy have often primarily targeted communities of color. Congress has the legal and constitutional power to strengthen our democracy by passing the Freedom to Vote Act. This landmark legislation sets baseline national standards to protect the freedom to vote, counter election denial, end partisan gerrymandering, and help curb big money in politics. It builds off momentum in states across the country to put in place pro-voter policies. Together with the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which would restore and update the full protections of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Freedom to Vote Act would be the most comprehensive pro-democracy law enacted in decades. Congress came achingly close to passing this package in 2022. Our democracy can’t wait.

Few populations have experienced the meaning of being in debt as viscerally as Puerto Ricans did during the last decade. After decades of increasing prosperity led by a robust manufacturing sector, Puerto Rico’s economy began to lose steam in the early 2000s. The decline of manufacturing jobs and economic growth mirrored wider mainland U.S. trends. As noted in Anne Krueger’s influential report, the island experienced severe economic contraction and accumulated vast fiscal imbalances after the loss of special fiscal incentives, which was then compounded by the 2008 financial crisis, a housing crisis, and the rise in oil prices. Puerto Rico now faces an uncertain future. After announcing in 2016 that it would not be able to make current payments on over $70B of debt, the island took painful austerity measures imposed by a federal board in order to eventually return to fiscal and political normality. Yet some important voices - of which Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz is perhaps the most prominent - have pointed out that cutting public expenditures is not a sustainable solution; Puerto Rico risks falling back into a debt spiral and defaulting again if some key structural issues are not solved. Some of the major challenges facing Puerto Rico right now are: Entrenched poverty affecting 40% of the population Mass emigration resulting in a 11.8% population decrease in the last 10 years and projected to continue High energy costs inflating the cost of living and of doing business Vulnerability to extreme weather events In January of 2022, a plan of adjustment was finally approved and allows the Puerto Rican government to begin planning for its future instead of reacting to the recent past. To effectively turn the page on the debt crisis, it is important to look not only at the much-discussed causes of the crisis, but also at the less visible, underlying issues that affect Puerto Ricans’ most basic necessities today, and scale up to persistent systemic challenges. One such underlying problem is food security. Over one third of Puerto Ricans report feeling food insecurity. The number increased significantly after natural disasters, most recently seen with Hurricanes Maria and Irma, and had also increased during the coronavirus pandemic. Yet this precarious food supply wasn’t always a reality in Puerto Rico. In the last three decades, a declining share of local food production has led to an increased dependence on imported food, reaching up to 85% of food on the island today. Once an agricultural exporter, Puerto Rico’s agriculture accounts for only 0.62% of the island's GDP today. To put this in a regional perspective, agriculture accounts for about 6% of GDP in the neighboring Dominican Republic. Adding to these problems is the Jones Act, a 1920 law designed to protect the US Merchant Marine, which requires that all shipments to Puerto Rico be done with US-built ships run by American crews. This results in higher prices overall, and is especially concerning for the food supply given the island’s high level of dependency. Finally, though Puerto Ricans are US citizens, the Puerto Rican Supplemental Nutrition Assistance (SNAP) program equivalent is a federal block grant with limited funds that does not provide an adequate safety net to the most vulnerable Puerto Ricans, especially in times of emergencies such as natural disasters. Despite these multiple roadblocks, Puerto Rico can and should see food security not just as a basic right but also as a potential engine for growth on the island. The case of economic growth in East Asia comes to mind as the most prominent example of this, even if the agrarian development context is significantly different from Puerto Rico’s post-industrial reality. The underlying argument for stabilizing production to withstand shocks still stands as the basis for a more balanced and beneficial relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States. Pragmatically speaking, to move towards these goals in the near term requires action beyond reforming federal policies, as they are slow to change and easily reversed by a new administration. Recently, the importance of local production has been gaining traction as a number of success stories among Puerto Rico’s civil society and entrepreneurs demonstrate that weaknesses can be turned into strengths. Therefore, the island’s government should capitalize on this momentum to bring fresh investment, people, and ideas to take on the challenge. Making it possible to obtain affordable, sustainably grown food should be a rallying cry for Puerto Rico’s leaders and civil society alike because it is one of the basic tools necessary for long-term stability. Coffee farmer in Puerto Rico Coffee Farmer in Puerto Rico. Source: Unsplash. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. In order to make local production a reality, the government can incentivize certain types of agriculture by making it easier to access land ownership, expert advice, and public funding, both federal and local. As an island strongly dependent on mainland U.S. markets, supply chains, and federal policies determining terms of trade, the uses of local land and resources have a direct impact on the lives of Puerto Rico. That is why a revised land use plan that incorporates the complementary goals of food security and conservation is needed. In order to optimize productivity in an ecologically sustainable way, priority should be given to enterprises that grow locally adapted crops such as plantains, beans, yuca, papaya, vegetables, other hydroponic crops, and an acceptable amount of cash crops with high potential such as coffee. Some innovative practices such as agroforestry could be incorporated to provide improved ecosystem services and differentiate Puerto Rico from conventional markets. An example would be silvo-pastoral systems, the practice of raising livestock while strategically planting nitrogen-fixing shrubs and trees on grazing land. In other tropical climates, this has been shown to increase productivity while decreasing waste and chemical inputs. In addition, using trees in agriculture and grazing can significantly contribute to carbon capture, helping further local and national goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture. By aligning incentives for production and ecology, the government has an opportunity to turn Puerto Rico into a leader in this space, attracting further investment and ensuring that the local population has a reliable food system. Lastly, achieving food security through innovative methods would have positive spillover effects for other industries. Besides lowering the cost of living and of doing business, sectors such as tourism can benefit by offering eco-tourism and gastronomic tourism experiences targeting mainland markets. In a time of restricted or uncertain international travel, along with rising interest in the role of personal diets and food production on climate change, rebuilding Puerto Rico’s agricultural sector would generate interest from tourists looking for unique experiences, who are often willing to pay the premium. In addition to providing very real benefits to the wellbeing of Puerto Ricans, working towards food security is also a powerful narrative to show that the government can put the island on the path of economic growth while delivering basic services to its population. Internally, it takes the focus away from paralyzing debates on statehood versus sovereignty, which dominate much of Puerto Rican politics today. Unlike those intractable questions, there are clear indicators of success for food security that are likely to be accepted by a plurality of Puerto Ricans. This approach also brings the stark differences between Puerto Rico and even the poorest of US states to the fore, while shifting the focus away from disagreements about fiscal “responsibility” to more productive discourses on breaking the cycle of debt through increased agricultural autonomy. Despite multiple roadblocks, Puerto Rico can and should see food security not just as a basic right but also as a potential engine for growth on the island. Global food insecurity has recently surged due to the war in Ukraine, making the case of Puerto Rico yet more pertinent as an example of its deleterious consequences to the economy and social stability. As global markets brace for the coming months of instability in food supply chains, the federal government should review policies towards its territories and states, as well broader trade mechanisms to ensure that the most vulnerable populations have viable sources of food. But perhaps just as importantly, the case of Puerto Rico shows us that long-term strategy should incorporate strong sustainable agriculture incentives as a pillar for resilient economies in a context of climate change, financial crises, and conflict.

Puerto Rico's diminished autonomy and self-government create an increasingly dysfunctional intergovernmental relationship between the Island and the United States. For Puerto Rico and the United States Government, a change in intergovernmental relations poses a solution where everyone benefits. Increased autonomy and self-government could provide a new phase of institutional, fiscal, and political stability and economic growth to the Island while reducing dependency, poverty, and migration.

The limited institutional mechanisms available to Puerto Rico for strengthening its government capabilities are through the federal courts, which, so far, have deferred to the U.S. Congress on most issues. Puerto Rico is highly vulnerable to Federal decisions over which it has little agency. The most glaring example of this situation was the elimination of crucial tax benefits enjoyed by U.S corporations benefitting from Sect. 936 of the Internal Revenue Code. The rejection of this most effective tool of economic growth, without any contingency plan, is enormously relevant in creating the current fiscal crisis (Caraballo-Cueto & Lara, 2018). So far, there is a lack of a coherent policy from the U.S. government regarding the avenues of economic growth within the current territorial model.

WASHINGTON, DC – Puerto Rico is once again in crisis, both politically and economically. A United States territory with more than three million people, it has a larger population than many US states. But its population and real (inflation-adjusted) output have been falling since 2006. More than half of native-born Puerto Ricans alive today have left the island, most of them for the US mainland. The territory’s per capita income is around half that of the poorest US state, Mississippi.

While the Puerto Rican economy reached dire straits in 2016, its problems go back much further. For the past decade, successive governments promising balanced budgets have consistently been forced to borrow after their estimates proved overly optimistic. Eventually, Puerto Rico was unable to meet its debt-servicing obligations. By 2015, its per capita debt was more than $16,000, compared to the 50 states’ average of $1,473, and its government still had large unfunded obligations.

CHICAGO, Illinois — For more than 100 years, citizens of Puerto Rico have been subject to the taxes, military drafts and laws voted on by the representatives in the United States federal government. Over the same period of time, these citizens have had no ability to determine how much taxes they pay, the rules that govern their society or who the U.S. goes to war with. Democratic representation is not the only area where Puerto Rico differs from the country that governs it. While the U.S. sported an overall poverty rate of around 13.1% in 2018, impoverishment in Puerto Rico sat at a level of 43.1% in 2018. Beset by a number of crises in the past decade, citizens living in Puerto Rico continue to struggle to meet their basic needs.

Puerto Rico’s Political Status:

Congressional leaders have sidelined one of the more promising efforts to end U.S. colonialism in Puerto Rico. Following months of progress on a landmark bill that would enable the people of Puerto Rico to vote on a post-territorial status for their nation, the newly seated Congress has dropped the issue. At a Senate committee hearing last month, U.S. senators paid little attention to repeated calls by Puerto Rican Governor Pedro Pierluisi to move forward with the legislation and end Puerto Rico’s status as a territory of the United States. “For far too long, the U.S. Senate has looked the other way to avoid righting the colonial nature of Puerto Rico’s status,” Pierluisi said in a written statement to the committee. For nearly 125 years, Puerto Rico has been a colony of the United States. Under the Insular Cases, a series of Supreme Court cases from the early twentieth century, Puerto Rico and other U.S. island territories are classified as “unincorporated” territories of the United States. The Supreme Court’s framework enables the United States to rule the territories as colonies and deprive their residents of equal rights. The people of Puerto Rico, who were granted U.S. citizenship by Congress in the early twentieth century, lack many of the same rights as U.S. citizens living in the states. Islanders do not have full voting representation in Congress. They cannot vote in presidential elections, despite the fact that the president can send them into war. They pay taxes that fund social programs such as Medicaid and food stamps, but they receive fewer benefits. Essentially, the people of Puerto Rico are treated as second-class citizens. Last year, the Supreme Court ruled that Congress is not required to include Puerto Rico in the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program, which provides benefits to poor elderly Americans and poor Americans with disabilities. Although Congress has extended the program to some U.S. territories, it has excluded Puerto Rico and other territories. Consequently, Puerto Ricans can receive SSI benefits while they are living in the states but not while they are living in Puerto Rico. “If you believe in equality, you cannot expect the American citizens in Puerto Rico to consent to discrimination and unequal treatment,” Pierluisi said. Many Puerto Ricans view the island’s territorial status as a reason for their unequal treatment, but they disagree over what to do about it. Some islanders want Puerto Rico to declare its independence from the United States. Others hope that Puerto Rico will join the United States as the 51st state. Many desire some kind of middle ground that would preserve U.S. citizenship while establishing autonomy for a Puerto Rican nation. The Puerto Rican government has held several non-binding plebiscites on the nation’s status, but each one has been mired in controversy, making the results open to interpretation. The last plebiscite, held in November 2020, resulted in 52 percent of voters opting for statehood, but only a slight majority of registered voters cast ballots. Historically, Congress has shown little interest in decolonizing Puerto Rico. Some officials have strongly criticized U.S. colonial control of the island nation, but they have introduced opposing bills, with some geared toward independence and others focused on statehood. Over the past year, a growing number of Democratic politicians have grown increasingly convinced of the need to change the colonial status quo. Starting from this common ground, they have created a compromise bill, the Puerto Rico Status Act, that would enable the people of Puerto Rico to choose among three options: independence, statehood, or a compact of free association with the United States. “Our agreement will allow our fellow Americans in Puerto Rico to determine their own future,” Representative Steny Hoyer (D-MD) said in May 2022, when he and several of his colleagues introduced their plans. Over the next several months, many Democrats came to support the bill. During a debate on the House floor in December, several representatives made unusually strong statements against U.S. colonialism and called for passage of the legislation. Representative Nydia Velázquez (D-NY) criticized U.S. colonialism for destroying the Puerto Rican economy, dividing the Puerto Rican people, undermining the dignity of the Puerto Rican people, and making Puerto Rico dependent on the United States. “Colonialism is not only humiliating for Puerto Rico, but it is an embarrassment to the United States,” Velázquez said. The United States “stands up to imperialist tyrants abroad while keeping colonies in the Caribbean and the Pacific.” “The time has come to fully decolonize Puerto Rico,” she said. Representative Darren Soto (D-FL), who expressed similar concerns, declared that “it is time to set our people free.” The U.S. government, Soto insisted, must provide the people of Puerto Rico with the opportunity to choose their own form of government. “The Puerto Rico Status Act will finally allow Puerto Ricans to throw off their colonial bonds, finally end their territorial status, and choose for themselves,” he said. Following additional discussion, including some pushback from Republicans who called for more time to consider the issue, the House voted on the bill, which passed 232 to 191, largely along party lines. All Democrats voted in favor of the bill, and 16 Republicans joined them. On the day of the vote, the Biden administration acknowledged in a statement that the people of Puerto Rico “have not received the full rights and benefits of their citizenship.” President Biden called on Congress to “act swiftly to put the future of Puerto Rico’s political status in the hands of Puerto Ricans, where it belongs.” Since then, however, there has been little movement in Washington. Now that the Republicans have acquired a majority in the House, Democratic leaders have seen few options for moving forward with the legislation. Representative Bruce Westerman (R-AR), who has dismissed the bill as “a partisan play,” now chairs the House Committee on Natural Resources, which would have to restart the legislative process in the House for the bill to be considered by the current Congress. At last month’s Senate hearing on the U.S. territories, no representatives of either party raised the issue. They ignored Pierluisi’s statements in support of the Puerto Rico Status Act, including his insistence that the Senate “not allow this important opportunity to pass by.” “Puerto Rico will remain hindered until our century-long status question is resolved,” Pierluisi said. Unmoved by such concerns, the current congressional leadership has shown little interest in moving forward with the plebiscite. Despite the strong anti-colonial sentiment that many House leaders expressed on the House floor just a few months ago, the momentum for change has come to a halt. By opting for inaction, congressional leaders are preserving an oppressive colonial system that denies the people of Puerto Rico their most fundamental human rights.

The Jones Act, passed by Congress in 1920, says that only U.S.-flagged ships can move cargo from one point in the United States to another. The ships must have been built in the U.S. and be crewed by Americans. The offshore wind industry uses big, specialized ships to assemble the turbines miles out at sea, but there is not a single U.S.-flagged ship right now that can do that work.

“If you bring a part, say you bring in a cell, which is where the generator is housed for an offshore wind turbine — those are only manufactured in other parts of the world right now, primarily in the EU or southeast Asia,” explained Katharine Kollins, with the Southeast Wind Coalition, which promotes wind energy.

As with most protectionist measures, the Jones Act harms the very people it purports to help. Because oceangoing Jones Act-compliant ships are more expensive, and there aren’t that many of them, the law leads to higher prices for goods, more congested roadways and pipelines, and additional pollution from greater reliance on carbon-intensive transportation.

Its market-bending distortions could scarcely be exaggerated. As a direct result of the law, refineries on both coasts can find it cheaper to import foreign oil than to use domestic sources. Refineries in the Gulf Coast choose to send their products to Latin America instead of the East Coast. The U.S. may be a natural gas powerhouse, but it has no Jones Act-compliant liquefied natural gas carriers, which would cost two to three times as much as equivalent ships from South Korea. So Puerto Rico and Hawaii source their LNG from overseas, northeast ports look to Trinidad and Tobago, and U.S. natural gas goes abroad.

Offshore wind energy refers to the process of generating electricity from wind turbines located in bodies of water, usually in the ocean or sea. Offshore wind turbines are typically larger and more powerful than their onshore counterparts, and they can take advantage of stronger and more consistent winds that are available over the water.

Offshore wind energy is becoming increasingly popular because it has the potential to generate large amounts of electricity while also minimizing the visual impact on the land. Offshore wind farms can be located far from the shore, and their turbines can be placed in deeper water, which makes them less visible from the coast. Offshore wind energy is a clean and renewable source of energy that does not produce greenhouse gas emissions or other pollutants, making it an important part of the global effort to address climate change. However, the construction and maintenance of offshore wind farms can be expensive, and there are also concerns about the impact of these structures on marine life and ecosystems. Offshore wind energy is a rapidly growing sector of the renewable energy market. In recent years, advances in technology and increasing demand for clean energy have made offshore wind a competitive and viable source of energy generation. In this blog, we will explore the current state of the offshore wind energy market, its potential for growth, and the benefits it offers. The global offshore wind energy market size was valued at USD 27.33 billion in 2021 and is expected to hit USD 129 billion by 2030, poised to grow at a CAGR of 18.82% during the forecast period 2022 to 2030. Europe currently dominates the market, with the UK, Germany, and Denmark leading the way in terms of installed capacity. However, other regions are catching up, with the US, China, and Taiwan investing heavily in offshore wind development. Surging investment by the government to develop clean energy is expected to propel the growth of the market. The rising need to reduce carbon emissions also triggers potential growth in the market. The growing demand for renewable energy and the declining costs of offshore wind technology are key drivers behind this growth. Offshore wind energy has enormous potential for growth, as it provides several benefits over traditional forms of energy generation. For one, offshore wind farms can generate much larger amounts of energy than onshore wind farms, due to the stronger and more consistent winds at sea. Additionally, offshore wind turbines are less visible and less noisy than onshore turbines, which can help to reduce opposition to wind farm development. The growing investment by the government of various economies to deploy wind energy will likely propel the industry demand. Offshore wind energy can also help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and combat climate change. According to the International Energy Agency, offshore wind could provide 18 times the global electricity demand by 2040, which would help to significantly reduce carbon emissions.