New Mexico Dems urge use of national labs in Puerto Rico response

As Puerto Rico continues to struggle in its recovery from a pair of devastating storms, New Mexico Democrats are pressing the administration to get the country’s national labs involved.

In a Wednesday letter to Energy Secretary Rick Perry and acting Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke, the Democrats maintain the labs — particularly Sandia and Los Alamos, both stationed in New Mexico — have “unique expertise and resources” capable of expediting the recovery from the devastation left behind by hurricanes Irma and Maria.

The labs would be a particular asset, they argue, in rebuilding Puerto Rico’s power grid, which essentially collapsed when Maria battered the island last month.

{mosads}“There are a variety of programs under DOE, DHS, and [the National Nuclear Security Administration] that can be used to evaluate Puerto Rico’s electrical grid needs, develop a more resilient and modern power grid, and examine its other critical infrastructure for better disaster planning,” the Democrats wrote.

The letter was signed by all four Democrats representing New Mexico: Sens. Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich and Reps. Ben Ray Luján and Michelle Lujan Grisham.

The lawmakers specified three lab-based programs they say are singularly suited to aid Puerto Rico’s recovery.

First, the Energy Department’s Grid Modernization Laboratory Consortium, which provided help to New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, “has funded a range of disaster resilience projects to help resolve a variety of electrical grid issues,” they argued.

Second, the National Infrastructure Simulation and Analysis Center, a joint operation of Sandia and Los Alamos, can “provide invaluable insight on how Puerto Rico can strengthen its critical infrastructure, including transportation, communications, food and fuel, water, and other systems,” they wrote.

And third, the Minority Serving Institution Partnership, an education-based initiative run by the National Nuclear Security Administration, should be tapped to “train the next generation of engineers and scientists to study and ultimately strengthen the grid in Puerto Rico and elsewhere.” 

“As climate change continues to threaten our nation’s critical electrical infrastructure for years to come, it is important to establish a pipeline for educating young leaders to respond to those challenges,” the Democrats wrote. 

The letter arrives as President Trump is under fire for the pace of the recovery effort in Puerto Rico, which critics maintain lacks the urgency of the relief operations following Hurricane Harvey, which battered Texas and the Gulf Coast in August, and Hurricane Irma, which hit Florida last month.

Maria knocked out virtually all electricity in the U.S. territory, home to more than 3.5 million U.S. citizens. A month later, more than 80 percent of Puerto Ricans are still without power — a situation many Democrats attribute to a lackluster response.  

“The manpower, the experts that needed to be on the ground, are still not there,” Rep. Nydia Velazquez, a New York Democrat who was born in Puerto Rico, told MSNBC Tuesday.

Trump and White House officials have defended the response, emphasizing the unique difficulties in getting aid to an island territory where supplies can’t be trucked in and noting that many interior roads were knocked out of commission. Yet the president has also repeatedly blamed Puerto Ricans for exacerbating their own plight, saying the native islanders are simply not doing enough to help themselves. 

“Their electrical grid was destroyed before the hurricanes got there. It was in very bad shape, was not working, [and the government] was in bankruptcy,” Trump said Monday from the Rose Garden. 

“We have massive amounts of water. We have massive amounts of food, but they have to distribute the food,” he added. “So what we’ve done is we now actually have military distributing food, something that’s, really, they shouldn’t have to be doing.” 

Puerto Rico’s lone representative in Congress, Republican Del. Jenniffer González-Colón, has called Trump’s tendency to shift blame to Puerto Rico “shocking.”

“Saying that Puerto Rico is in bankruptcy as a way or excuse just to not to help is not wise. It’s not American, and it’s not rightful,” she told Politico. “If we were a state, we already would have a lot of the help that Florida did.”