Pablo José Hernández Rivera and nine members of Congress ask for an agricultural emergency in 29 municipalities

On August 21, 2026, El Nuevo Día reports a letter to U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins. The signers are Pablo José Hernández Rivera and nine Democratic members of Congress. They ask that an agricultural emergency for drought be declared in 29 municipalities and that USDA assistance be opened for the farm sector. There is no published reply in the note.

The territorial count the outlet reproduces is this: 28 municipalities in extreme drought and San Germán in severe drought. More than 300 fires in July. The piece does not list the 28 in the confirmed facts, nor convert the 300 fires into acres or into a death total. What was published stays.

Among the signers, El Nuevo Día names Representatives Ritchie Torres, Darren Soto, Jimmy Gomez, Maxwell Frost, Raul Ruiz, Jesús "Chuy" García, Rob Menendez, Linda Sánchez, and Raúl Grijalva. The outlet's list enters with those names. A tenth name is not added from memory.

This letter to USDA is not the same one Pablo José Hernández Rivera and 25 members of Congress sent on August 14 to the governor asking her to seek a major disaster from Donald J. Trump. On August 25, El Nuevo Día quoted Jenniffer González Colón on MS Now rejecting that threshold and speaking of $9,000 million in federal water funds. On the 24th, Pablo José Hernández Rivera appears on another letter, to Secretary Chris Wright, over blackouts. Three papers, three addressees. This note is Agriculture and 29 municipalities.

The Drought Monitor, in El Nuevo Día notes on August 6 and 13, had already declared extreme drought in the south and then a fifth of the island. Those pieces do not replace the request to USDA. Agriculture enters here because the signers ask for drought assistance, not because there is a coffee-loss or irrigation estimate here beyond what other notes, separately, did cite in snippet. The August 21 request stays at 29 municipalities, Brooke Rollins, and the absence of a published reply.

Source: El Nuevo Día. https://www.elnuevodia.com/corresponsalias/washington-dc/notas/pablo-jose-hernandez-y-nueve-congresistas-piden-a-agricultura-federal-declarar-emergencia-por-sequia-en-29-municipios/