[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 179 (Thursday, December 10, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8593-S8594]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              PUERTO RICO

  Ms. CANTWELL. Mr. President, I come to the floor tonight to discuss 
Puerto Rico, a territory of the United States since 1898. Millions of 
residents have been citizens since 1917, nearly 100 years. This 
community of 3.5 million people is facing economic, fiscal, and 
liquidity problems. What are we doing about it here in Congress? We are 
not doing anything. That needs to change, and it needs to change now.
  We spent 10 years watching Puerto Rico suffer through a recession. We 
spent months here in Congress discussing what to do. There have been a 
lot of ideas--some popular, some controversial. I can say that, as the 
ranking member on the Energy Committee, I have heard many ideas, but 
now is the time to act.
  We need to allow Puerto Rico to restructure. That is, we need to give 
them the same opportunities that we gave to average American citizens 
and municipalities to restructure their debt--the same that we gave to 
Wall Street when they were in a financial crisis, the same brink that 
we were almost on when we had our own economic problems. Yet there are 
some here in the halls of Congress who would rather listen to hedge 
funds and make sure they are prioritized in a debt restructuring than 
actually putting in place debt restructuring.
  I propose a two-part, no-cost approach that will be most effective 
and least controversial to help us out of this situation.
  The Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which has jurisdiction 
over territories, has heard from experts from the Department of 
Treasury and other government officials about how dire this situation 
is now. Just yesterday, a group of six CEOs sent a letter to 
congressional leaders urging swift legislative action on the Puerto 
Rico situation.
  I can tell my colleagues the whole issue of what to do about Puerto 
Rico in the long term has many divergent views, but all those divergent 
views in Puerto Rico are singing the same tune right now: Restructure 
before January 1 or they will face serious issues of default. Why do we 
care? We care because the U.S. Government will have an impact of 
between $1 billion and $2 billion of more service demands if we do not 
allow them to restructure.
  This year, the government and electric utilities failed to make their 
payments. Government workers are being cut to three days a week. 
Patients are now waiting months for medical care. Hospitals are going 
bankrupt. And the health care industry is threatened by a complete 
collapse. Forty-five percent of the population is living in poverty--
including 58 percent of them who are children--and the unemployment 
rate is stuck at 12.2 percent, more than double the highest State's 
unemployment rate.
  So what does it cost us to act here in the United States? It costs 
the U.S. taxpayers zero. It costs us zero because if we think about it, 
this is about debt restructuring. This about setting up a process which 
they are denied just because Puerto Rico is a territory; they cannot 
get the relief of restructuring. They tried. They tried to pass their 
own bankruptcy law. They tried, and then basically were told that it 
didn't meet a Federal standard.
  They are not like a municipality that has this authority. They are a 
territory. They are our territory. If we want them to restructure 
successfully and keep more debt from coming to the shores of the United 
States because of--I would say that we have had a huge increase in 
population. So the cost of inaction is this acceleration of the Puerto 
Rico population coming to the United States. In 2014, we see that the 
number jumped to almost 70,000 people in one year. The net migration 
has been more than 500 percent in the last 10 years.
  If we do nothing in the next week and don't act on this problem, more 
migration of Puerto Ricans is going to come to the United States. When 
they come, what will happen? They will be demanding more services, such 
as Head Start, SNAP, unemployment insurance, and Pell Grants. So 
default equals more Federal spending.
  The notion that my colleagues think that somehow this inaction is the 
way out of this equation--they are just adding more responsibility to 
the U.S. taxpayer. Why? Is it because they want to protect hedge funds 
in a bankruptcy process? Do they want to decide in the Halls of the 
U.S. Congress who gets in line first and who gets paid?
  I will remind my colleagues, particularly since the Presiding Officer 
knows the Deepwater Horizon issue very well, we did not make decisions 
here in the U.S. Congress--in the Senate and in the House of 
Representatives--as to who would get paid in the Deepwater accident 
implosion. We appointed a receiver. They made the tough decisions. When 
it came to Detroit's bankruptcy, we did not make the decision.
  I guarantee my colleagues that of 100 Members of the U.S. Senate, 
there are probably 100 opinions in both of those cases as to how we 
thought each of those payments or restructurings should be done. But we 
are not the experts, and just because we have an opinion about what we 
would like to see Puerto Rico do doesn't mean we should be writing that 
into legislation and prejudging what should be an official, legal 
process of restructuring debt that we need to give Puerto Rico the 
authority to have.
  This is what newspapers across the United States are saying, 
including the Los Angeles Times, the Miami Herald, the Boston Globe, 
the New York Times, and others: Give Puerto Rico the ability to 
restructure their debt.
  So why are people here failing to take up this mantle? People have 
been arguing for months about different ideas. Some of our colleagues 
want to increase the Medicaid reimbursement rate. Some of our 
colleagues want to have an EITC increase. Some of our colleagues want 
Puerto Rico to do away with their pensions before they go into a 
bankruptcy structure. Those are all political opinions by individuals 
that one could say are worth debate.
  Now we are at the point of default. Just as we need to make decisions 
before January 1, our colleagues are now trying to say that we can 
continue to discuss this issue. We don't have time to continue to 
discuss this issue. We have next week, and, as a member of the Energy 
and Natural Resources Committee that oversees territories, I feel it is 
our responsibility to propose a policy and get it in place so that we 
can find some resolution of this issue.
  I think this two-part fix about making sure there is the ability to 
restructure and a council to oversee it in coordination with Treasury 
is the best we can do at this point in time to save the U.S. Government 
from further costs and to give relief to Puerto Rico.
  The notion that people here in the U.S. House of Representatives or 
the U.S. Senate are trying to protect hedge funds so that they can 
maximize their return is despicable. It is despicable. The notion that 
somebody is trying to protect these fundamental questions that need to 
be decided in a formal process of bankruptcy or reform, as we are 
calling it within the territory, is the fair and even process that 
should take place without prejudice.
  We are going to, as a body, have a very robust discussion, I 
guarantee my colleagues, for years and years and years to come about 
what the United States is going to do about the territory of Puerto 
Rico. Let's at least give

[[Page S8594]]

ourselves the luxury of having that discussion when the territory is 
not in default. Let's come together and pass some legislation for them 
to restructure their debt. Let a professional organization take the 
politics out of this and make the best financial decisions that can be 
made now to save the U.S. taxpayer from further expense.
  I thank the Chair, and I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nebraska.

                          ____________________