[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 9]
[House]
[Pages 11920-11921]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     THE PUERTO RICO CONTROL BOARD

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Gutierrez) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GUTIERREZ. Mr. Speaker, I want to talk about the beautiful, 
enchanted island of Puerto Rico, the birthplace of my father and mother 
and my wife.
  Yes, the colony of the United States in the Caribbean Sea where, in 
case you forgot, everyone is born a citizen and now even more of a 
colony of the United States now that Washington has appointed a 
Financial Oversight and Management Board or, as most people call it, 
the Control Board, la Junta de Control.
  Seven members--four put forward by Republicans, three put forward by 
Democrats--were announced last week, and I was not pleasantly 
surprised. I have made it clear in this Congress and elsewhere that I 
oppose the PROMESA legislation that created the board that Congress 
passed before we left.
  Now I look at the board, and I see a mix of people, some with ties to 
the former Tea Party Governor's regime, some with close ties to Wall 
Street, and most with experience examining the legal and administrative 
aspects of bankruptcy, not in governing an island of 3.5 million actual 
living, breathing human beings.
  I was not surprised to see political insiders or those who are close 
to the bondholders. I assumed as much and still assume, until proven 
otherwise, that most everyone on the Control Board or who lobbies and 
influences or helps the Control Board is doing the bidding of the 
bondholders who profit from Puerto Rico's debt and economic hard times.
  The fact that four of the seven members are Puerto Rican doesn't make 
me feel any more optimistic. If you look at recent history in Puerto 
Rico, just having a majority of Puerto Ricans shouldn't give you much 
comfort. Wasn't it Puerto Ricans who beat and pepper-sprayed 
demonstrators at the university and at the legislature, who have gone 
after journalists and unions and lawyers in politically motivated 
attacks, who have put the needs of investors, big Wall Street fat cats, 
and political insiders ahead of the people, the environment, and the 
future of the island?
  The Control Board and its members, no matter who they are, start with 
a deep ocean of mistrust from the Puerto Rican people who question why 
a new layer of opaque, undemocratic, colonial oversight and control is 
being imposed in secrecy.
  That is why I challenged the appointees to the board to go the extra 
mile to make their deliberations and meetings and decisions as 
transparent as possible. Do not meet in secret just because Congress 
allowed you to. When they are governing the people of Puerto Rico, will 
they do so in Spanish, the language of the Puerto Rican people? Will 
they even meet on the island of Puerto Rico? Will they make available 
the logs of who they meet with, who tries to exert influence over them, 
what Wall Street executives are spinning them or treating them to 
expensive meals and giving them gifts, as authorized under PROMESA? 
Yes, they can take gifts.
  When this Control Board is making decisions that close schools or 
hospitals, that threaten the environment, public institutions, and 
every aspect of society in Puerto Rico, will the Puerto Rican people 
even be given a minimum amount of information in their own language 
about who is influencing the seven members of the Control Board?
  The Junta de Control must take the extra effort to tell the Puerto 
Rican people what their decisions mean, why they are being made, and 
how decisions were determined.
  As Members of Congress who have essentially grabbed the reins of 
self-determination from the Puerto Rican people and handed them to this 
Control Board, are we going to be afforded the level of transparency 
that we need to determine if what is happening is what we want to 
happen?
  I understand, Mr. Speaker, that some of our colleagues do not like to 
be reminded of policy issues that were already voted on, especially 
complicated policy issues that don't seem to impact them directly or 
people in their district. They just want to vote on them and forget. 
Well, I am not going to let Congress forget about Puerto Rico or the 
board that we have appointed to rule in secrecy over the people of 
Puerto Rico.
  We cannot just set it and forget it like one of those super-duper 
wonder machines they sell on infomercials. Puerto Rico is ours. Its 
people are ours. Its land is ours. Its bays are ours. Its toxic 
landfills and lush forests, its schools and hospitals and health care 
clinics--these are all ours in the sense that we have been given a 
sacred duty to govern over Puerto Rico responsibly.
  An unelected, unaccountable Control Board with no mechanism for 
oversight, with no commitment to transparency, with no promise of 
bilingualism or inclusion, stocked with insiders and people with 
questionable links to the very problems the board is supposed to 
resolve, this does not give me great confidence that this Congress will 
be alert when the people of Puerto Rico, our fellow citizens and, more 
importantly, our fellow human beings, are in need of help.
  Tell the board, do not meet in secret, do not take the free gifts and 
dinners just because Congress allowed you to; serve the people of 
Puerto Rico.

[[Page 11921]]



                          ____________________