Congressional report: $20.2B in recovery aid and the gap between allocated and spent

The CRS Report R46609 —The Status of Puerto Rico’s Recovery and Ongoing Challenges Following Hurricanes Irma and María: FEMA, SBA, and HUD Assistance— dated November 13, 2020, remains the most cited institutional blueprint when discussing why “billions are announced” and people do not see stable electricity. The date of this note is September 13, 2026; the byline is the CRS report hosted on EveryCRSReport. It is not a press release of the day: it is the analytical log of Congress on three agencies.

The CRS notes that three years after Irma and Maria, Puerto Rico was still in recovery while experiencing the 2019–2020 seismic swarm and COVID-19. Those consecutive disasters complicated the response and recovery of each incident. The focus of the report is FEMA, SBA, and HUD assistance —grants, loans, and other forms— to the Government, municipalities, certain PNP, businesses, and individuals and households. Other agencies (Army Corps of Engineers, USDA, DOT, Education) are deliberately outside the scope; the CRS states this so that no one reads the PDF as a complete inventory of Washington.

Regarding HUD, the CRS documents that three supplemental appropriations acts totaled $35.4 billion in CDBG-DR (BBA of 2018 and two more acts), of which the allocation to Puerto Rico was $20.2 billion. As of the date of the report, Puerto Rico had spent approximately $20.6 million in CDBG-DR — a brutal contrast between allocated and expended that should not be read as automatic “theft,” but rather as pace, HUD rules, training, and procurement bottlenecks. Allocated ≠ obligated under a grant agreement ≠ expended/disbursed to contractors. Residual without a trace is another category: the CRS does not use it as a euphemism for theft.

In the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program, the CRS notes about $3.5 billion available for Puerto Rico for Irma/María, with FEMA having obligated only ~1.1% by September 2020 and with no HMGP funds yet expended according to the text. In Public Assistance Alternative Procedures, obligations in late August 2020 reached $19.1 billion, but only $741 million had been obligated under Alternative Procedures in the near term as the report describes —again: the headline of “billions” is not cash in the municipality's account.

On September 18, 2020, according to CRS, the President announced FEMA's plans to award $11.6 billion: $9.6 billion in obligations to PREPA for repair/reconstruction of the electrical grid and $2 billion to the Department of Education for school facilities. The same report notes that the Government of Puerto Rico had estimated much greater needs—around $17.8 billion for a modernized grid and $8.4 billion for schools—and that FEMA had already put about $7.4 billion into response/recovery since September 2017. Award announced ≠ full disbursement executed. CRS adds that in 2020 the Government and FEMA reported an increase in the pace, number, and dollar amounts of PA project obligations, almost all for reconstruction/replacement of structures or permanent work, concentrated in September 2020.

SBA appears in the report as the channel for Physical Disaster Loans and EIDL for households, businesses, and PNP following the Stafford declarations. The CRS emphasizes the role of Congress in oversight: the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 required a recovery plan and periodic reports to Congress; committees held hearings and published reports; GAO, at the request of Congress, produced reports focused exclusively or substantially on Puerto Rico’s recovery. Members of Congress raised concerns about the pace, inequities in the deployment of federal personnel, delayed/partial/improper payments, and reimbursements.

Reading R46609 in 2026 is not nostalgia: it is the dictionary for not confusing verbs. When a politician says “Washington owes us X billion,” ask: appropriated? allocated? obligated? disbursed? expended? The CRS teaches that Puerto Rico can have huge CDBG-DR allocations and large PA obligations and still a minimal percent expended in a given window. That tension is political and economic at the same time — local capacitation, federal rules, grid transitions, stacking of earthquakes and pandemic — without inventing a single culprit or turning a 2020 report into a 2026 award.

Source: EveryCRSReport (CRS R46609) — https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/R46609.html