Puerto Rico's House of Representatives committee is rewording Senate-passed energy bills to bar private companies from selling electricity to retail customers.
On March 20 Puerto Rico's Senate passed a series of bills for reforming the commonwealth's electrical system. Senate President Eduardo Bhatia led the advocacy for the bills which would give thecommonwealth public electrical corporation, the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, 60 days to present a plan for cheaper and cleaner electricity to a commission. If the commission rejected the plan, the bill would allow private electrical companies to sell electricity to customers, according to newspaper and government sources.
Lilliam Maldonado, chief of press relations for House Representative Jesús Santa Rodríguez, said the Senate bills do not explicitly mention the possibility of privatizing electricity sales. Santa Rodríguez is the chairman of a New Energy Policy Special Committee that the House has created to consider the bills.
Currently, private companies sell electricity to PREPA, which maintains a monopoly on selling power to commercial, governmental and residential customers. PREPA gets about 30% of its power from private companies.
The committee has reached a preliminary consensus to approve certain changes to the bills.
One of the changes will make it clear that the energy reform will bar private companies from selling electricity.
The Senate bills required that PREPA get 60% of its electricity from highly efficient generators within two years. The committee is working to relax this requirement since it is not realistic, Maldonodo said.
The Senate bills specified the creation of a new regulatory body just for telecommunications. The House committee now expects Puerto Rico's new regulatory body for electricity to also cover telecommunications, Maldonado said.
The committee has nine members, six of whom vote and three of whom are ex officio. Of the six, four are from the majority Popular Democratic Party and two are from the minority New Progressive Party.
Maldonado said she expected the special committee to complete its work by the end of April. The House will vote on its proposal. After the House passes it version of the bills, the Senate and, if it approves, then the governor will have the right to approve or reject them.
