• 62% of homes that have filed claims with FEMA for repairs have been denied.
• FEMA should not deny claims due to lack of property titles.
• The federal government should ensure accountability in federal contracts and expenditures. 
• We support the creation of a 9/11 style independent commission to investigate the government’s slow and inadequate response to Maria.
• The federal government also needs to continue and expand waivers for matching funds from Puerto Rico, since the government is bankrupt and critical services need to be delivered without delay.
• FEMA must use the authority granted to it by Congress to rebuild Puerto Rico using the industry standard rather than the “pre-disaster condition” standard.

The only way to have a sustainable reconstruction and recovery in Puerto Rico is to provide economic development tools for the Island. Some of those tools include:

• Expand the Child Tax Credit (CTC) and Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) to all eligible families in Puerto Rico.
• Include Puerto Rico in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
• Exempt Puerto Rico from harmful new taxes on U.S. companies in Puerto Rico under the new federal tax reform law, and instead provide new incentives for American companies to invest and create jobs in the Island.
• Permanently end inequities in how Puerto Rico is treated under Medicaid, Medicare and all other federal healthcare programs.
• Congress should permanently exempt Puerto Rico from the harmful Jones Act and air cabotage laws that make consumers pay artificially higher prices and increase costs for businesses, therefore harming the economy. While Congress works on this issue, the President should issue a full Jones Act waiver for Puerto Rico, for at least the duration of this recovery.
• Undoing the fiscal control board: The undemocratic and unelected fiscal control board created under the legislation known as PROMESA has not protected essential services, failed to comprehensively audit Puerto Rico’s debt and failed to implement a pathway to economic growth. Instead, it has pushed a brutal austerity program that has set the Island up for a downward spiral as it tries to recover.

• Most independent observers agree that the devastation caused by Hurricane Maria, that came on top of 12 years of economic and fiscal crises, make it impossible for Puerto Rico to fully pay its supposed $70 billion public debt. Our federal government must either allow Puerto Rico to discharge most of its debts, or pressure creditors to write it off.
• Congress should make clear that federal disaster relief funding will not be used to pay bondholders or to free up non-disaster money to pay creditors.
• Disaster aid funds should not be a factor in any calculations on Puerto Rico’s ability to repay creditors.
• Even the Fiscal Management and Oversight Board (FOMB) has stated that at least $6.2 billion of the current debt was acquired illegally. Naturally then, and in agreement with more than 150,000 citizens on the island who have signed petitions, the debt must be first fully and independently audited before any further payments are made to creditors.
• Essential Public Services must be defined and protected to avoid accelerating the downward spiral of the island’s economy, caused by austerity measures that guarantee debt payment over the public good.
• Debt repayment must be conditioned on the growth of the island’s economy.

• Countless businesses were forced to close after the storm and the federal government needs to provide urgent assistance to get this important economic engine for the Island back on track.

• A recent report by the Center for the New Economy (CNE) revealed that 90% of federal disaster relief contracts after Hurricane María have gone to firms in the continental U.S. instead of Puerto Rico-based firms. This needs to change immediately.

• The Small Business Administration (SBA) and other agencies involved in the recovery process in Puerto Rico should endeavor to include Puerto Rican-owned small businesses in any procurement involving disaster aid.

• Hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans were forced to move to the states and most have not been able to return.

• Congress and federal agencies should provide resources to individual evacuees, as well as state and local governments, for help finding jobs, housing, schools, health care – including mental health – and other basic services.

Critical public health initiatives include:

• Vieques & Culebra cleanup
• AES cleanup
• Superfund sites cleanup
• Zero Waste programs
• Caño Martín Peña dredging project

• Puerto Rico has been under the U.S. flag since 1898 and Puerto Ricans were made U.S. citizens in 1917.
• For too long, U.S. politicians of both parties have dodged the issue with empty platitudes and no meaningful commitments.
• After 5 non-binding plebiscite votes have been held in Puerto Rico, the lack of concrete action or direction by the federal government is untenable.
• The next President needs to support a binding process that offers full participation to all sides of this debate and commits the federal government to abide by its outcome.
• The 5 million Puerto Ricans who live in the diaspora, many of whom were displaced by economic downturns and misguided U.S. policies in Puerto Rico, should have a say in the type of relationship their Island home should have with the federal government.