[ad_1]
The Trump administration says the grant is intended to help rebuild infrastructure in U.S. territory hard hit by natural disasters.
The Trump administration announced Tuesday that it will provide a $ 3.7 billion grant to help Puerto Rico rebuild water and wastewater treatment plants, pumping stations and reservoirs damaged by the Hurricane Maria over three years ago.
The funds will be provided by the Federal Emergency Management Administration to help rebuild Puerto Rico’s water and wastewater treatment plants, pumping stations, dams and reservoirs, the White House said on Tuesday. .
the bankrupt US territory, a Caribbean island of 3.2 million people, was hit by severe earthquakes a year ago as it struggled to recover from the devastating hurricanes of 2017.
The administration was slow to release the $ 44 billion that was approved for Puerto Rico in the wake of the devastating hurricane.
But the White House has said that once water funding is allocated, the Trump administration will have committed more than $ 40 billion to the island’s recovery.
Trump spent much of his administration calling Puerto Rican officials corrupt and incompetent, and he had objected to spending federal dollars to rebuild an electricity grid and other infrastructure that had been wiped out by Maria in September. 2017.
But in September, he put aside his past bitter treatment of the island and its rulers, with his administration approving a $ 13 billion infusion that was mainly used to rebuild a power grid that was destroyed by the storm and which caused the longest blackout in US history. .
This announcement came like Trump courted voters of Puerto Rico, more specifically in the swing state of Florida.
The grant announced on Tuesday covers 90 percent of the estimated costs of water and wastewater improvement projects.
Even now, three years after the storm, thousands of homes are still damaged in Puerto Rico. The island has also been hit by a series of destructive earthquakes and remains mired in a deep economic crisis, made worse by the coronavirus pandemic.
[ad_2]
