Borinquen Made2026-08-13 · Economy and politics
Permits, taxes, water, and inventory mark the session
On August 13, 2026, Metro previews what floor leaders say will occupy the session: permits, tax reform, the water crisis, and the inventory tax. It is not a voted calendar. It is the map of priorities the newspaper puts in the caucuses' mouths, with an environmental clash over permits reform and oversight of the Aqueduct and Sewer Authority.
The PPD, according to Metro, goes after Doriel Pagán Crespo with a phrase the clip keeps: she should not remain one more minute. In the PNP Senate, investigative resolutions are announced. The PIP calls the permits draft very bad and very dangerous. On the inventory there is support, but there is no revenue substitute. Héctor Hernández Ortiz continues the Francisco Domenech inquiry. Those phrases are not turned into votes or into a bill text Metro does not reproduce in full.
Four days later, on August 17, the same Metro dates the start of the ordinary session and again puts inventory at the center: municipalities depend on that revenue and an alternate source is needed. The permits knot, in that later note, is the Maritime Terrestrial Zone. On August 18, NotiCel covers the Senate asking for contract papers and papers from La Fortaleza, with a request to Norma Burgos on Francisco Domenech's dealings. The inquiry Héctor Hernández Ortiz follows on August 13 is not born that day; it reappears in that week's Senate oversight.
The water of that session is not climate decoration. On August 6, El Nuevo Día recounted the resignation of the AAA board chair, Héctor Del Río Jiménez, over the rationing. On August 11, El Vocero covered the UIA's 24-hour stoppage. On August 13, the same day as this Metro note, El Nuevo Día publishes that extreme drought already covers almost a fifth of Puerto Rico. The caucuses talk of overseeing the AAA while the Monitor and Carraízo occupy another page.
Metro names priorities. It does not publish here a substitute revenue for the inventory or a page count of the permits draft. On August 25, Caribbean Business would say the Planning and Permits Code is a 793-page Senate substitute still without a floor vote: that figure lives in that note, not in this one. Here what Metro dated August 13 is left.