CPI: Section 428 becomes the biggest brake on permanent work

On September 23, 2019, the Centro de Periodismo Investigativo detailed how the government accepted — and celebrated — using Stafford Act Section 428 at large scale for “resilient” permanent work after Irma and María, and how that frame became, two years after the hurricane, the biggest obstacle to obligating funds and building.

Section 428 allows Public Assistance grants with fixed-cost estimates and, in some cases, replacing structures. FEMA suggested it in 2017; José Iván Marrero (GAR) requested it in writing on October 30, 2017; Trump recognized it in the fifth amendment to the disaster declaration (November 2, 2017), conditioning the 90% federal share for large permanent work on 428. Rosselló announced it as an achievement; later he and COR3 treated it as an imposition. FEMA insists participation is voluntary, though it recommended it.

An April 2018 FEMA guide set October 11, 2019 as the deadline to agree estimates. With less than a month left, only 139 estimates were agreed — about 3% — of some 4,000 expected large projects. COR3 asked for an extension; FEMA denied and said it would evaluate case by case. Omar Marrero warned that without agreed estimates there is no access to those permanent-work funds.

In February 2019 before Congress, Rosselló said Puerto Rico still did not have even one permanent-work project with money obligated under 428, versus thousands of projects obligated a year after Katrina and Harvey. As of the report, FEMA had obligated about $487 million and disbursed $39 million in permanent work under Public Assistance. Obligating is not disbursing; bureaucratic delay is not theft.

Wanda Vázquez called the procedure an imposition; FEMA and Brock Long said it was Rosselló’s choice. The island-wide 428 experiment — versus 259 projects in 28 states for $10.8 billion after Sandy — remains the frame conditioning permanent reconstruction.