Puerto Rico's Grid Fix Is Funded. It Isn't Staffed.
Summary
Nine years after Hurricane Maria, federal agencies have obligated $14.3 billion to rebuild Puerto Rico's electric grid — but only $3.6 billion, about a quarter, has actually reached the island. The reviewers who clear each project are 14 people, all of them temporary, and their turnover rate has tripled since 2021.
Obligated is not disbursed
An obligation is a legal commitment to pay, not a payment. In federal grant accounting, money has to be allotted, then obligated, then actually disbursed to the recipient before it does anything for a downed power line. Of the $14.3 billion , , and have obligated for Puerto Rico's grid since 2017, found that 75% — $10.7 billion — still hasn't been disbursed.
View data as table
| FEMA — obligated | $11.1B | $2.7B disbursed, $8.4B undisbursed |
|---|---|---|
| HUD — obligated | $2.3B | $0.6B disbursed, $1.7B undisbursed |
| DOE — obligated | $0.9B | $255M disbursed, $682M undisbursed |
| Total obligated | $14.3B | $3.6B disbursed (25%), $10.7B undisbursed (75%) |
carries most of the money and most of the backlog: $11.1 billion obligated, only $2.7 billion disbursed. and are proportionally no better — 74% and 73% of their obligations, respectively, are sitting unspent. has already given up on some of its share: in January 2026 the department canceled or reallotted about $715 million that had been set aside for solar projects for low-income households, redirecting it toward undetermined reliability needs instead. On the ground, the backlog shows up as unfinished work: as of December 2025, only 9 of 258 large -funded projects were fully complete, found — 116 were more than 75% done, and 133 were earlier-stage. Vegetation clearing, which stakeholders called an urgent priority after overgrowth-related outages, had reached 400 of the 16,000 miles planned.
Fourteen people gate $14 billion
's report points to a specific chokepoint: every large recovery project needs an environmental and historic-preservation review before construction money can be released, and as of July 2025, all 14 staff doing those reviews nationwide for Puerto Rico's grid work were temporary employees — hired for terms of two to four years, subject to renewal only if funding and disaster work continue. Turnover among them climbed from 3% in 2021 to 19% in 2024.
View data as table
| Current FEMA environmental/historic review staff | 14 | 100% temporary, July 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Additional staff requested | 16 | not approved as of Feb. 2026, DHS hiring freeze |
| Reviewer turnover, 2021 | 3% | GAO-26-107772 |
| Reviewer turnover, 2024 | 19% | GAO-26-107772 |
Region 2 asked for an exemption to a federal hiring freeze to bring on 16 more reviewers — nearly doubling headcount — because the specialized positions take about a year to train. As of February 2026, the Department of Homeland Security still hadn't approved it. 's Puerto Rico operation lost people the same way: five staff who worked on Puerto Rico issues left the department in April 2025, forcing a reorganization that, per , is still working through. None of this is a funding problem — Congress and three agencies already put $14.3 billion behind the grid. It is a headcount problem, and headcount is frozen.
The takeaway
- $14.3 billion obligated, $3.6 billion disbursed. Three-quarters of the money federal agencies have committed to Puerto Rico's grid since Hurricane Maria hasn't reached the island.
- The review staff is 14 people, all temporary. A doubling of that team has been requested and, as of 's report, sat blocked by a hiring freeze for a year.
- Turnover among reviewers tripled, 2021 to 2024 — from 3% to 19% — compounding delays on projects that already take years to clear environmental and historic-preservation review.
- Progress on the ground lags the money further still: 9 of 258 large -funded projects finished, and 400 of 16,000 miles of vegetation cleared, as of the most recent count.
This piece covers federal grant funding and staffing for Puerto Rico's electric grid recovery as reported by in June 2026; it does not cover 's separate $9 billion pre-Maria debt restructuring or the ongoing dispute over LUMA Energy's operating contract.
Sources
- U.S. Government Accountability Office, Puerto Rico Grid Recovery: Limited Progress Toward Stability and Opportunities Exist to Improve Federal Assistance, -26-107772 — published June 2, 2026, publicly released July 2, 2026. The source for every obligated/disbursed dollar figure, the // funding table, the 14-person review-staff count, the 3%-to-19% turnover figure, the 16-reviewer hiring-freeze request, the 9-of-258 project completion count, and the 400-of-16,000-mile vegetation-clearing figure. gao.gov/products/gao-26-107772
- Same report, full text (mirror), used to verify the exact figures above against the primary document. democrats-naturalresources.house.gov
- U.S. , El Apagón — The Blackout: Puerto Rico's Continuing Struggle for Stable Electricity — companion blog summarizing the report's findings, including the report's release timeline. gao.gov/blog/el-apagon-blackout
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Hurricane Maria knocked out Puerto Rico's electric grid in September 2017 and kept it dark for 11 months — the longest blackout in U.S. history, according to a June 2026 report from the Government Accountability Office. The utility it hit, , was already about $9 billion in debt from decades of underinvestment. Congress responded with money: , , and the Department of Energy have since obligated $14.3 billion to rebuild and modernize the grid. Nine years later, residents still lose power more often than in any state, and a total blackout in April 2025 knocked out the island for almost two days. The 's answer for why the money hasn't fixed it: most of the money hasn't moved, and the federal staff who have to approve it before it can move numbers 14 people.