Governor-elect to chair energy committee’s first meeting Thursday

Governor-elect Jenniffer González Colón, at lectern

By The Star Staff

Governor-elect Jenniffer González Colón said Monday that the first meeting of the energy committee will be this Thursday and she will be the one to chair it.

“We will have our first meeting this Thursday at the Convention Center at 3 p.m.Each of them will present specific ideas,” the governor-elect said at a press conference. “This will be the first meeting, but we plan to do the next one next week, dividing the issues of generation, transmission, distribution, and the operational part.”

“I will direct that work, so this is not a delegated committee, because I will be directing that work,” she added. “And although the functions of this committee will be given by executive order so that they can have the most important elements, we will start working now. I will not wait until January 2 to form a committee, I will start now.”

González Colón said she will include the Financial Oversight and Management Board and the Legislative Assembly in the meetings.

“I have also called the executive director of the Fiscal Board [sic], Mr. Robert Mujica, to send, to be part of this committee, the board’s representative or coordinator of energy matters, who also has to be at the table, since all this affects what the board is and has agreed to do so,” she said. “I have also asked the [leaders] of the incoming legislative bodies that those committees, those committee chairs who will be in charge of energy policies in both legislative bodies can participate so that they know, right?”

“[So that they will] receive the same input that I will receive on what the existing energy situation is in terms of generation, in terms of distribution, and receive the same data that I receive,” González Colón added. “In this way we will be able to fulfill our promise of the first bills that I will advance and that we will be filing.”

The objectives, among others, are to amend public policy to allow the use of natural gas and to find a substitute for LUMA Energy, which manages the island’s electric power transmission and distribution system.

“It is a dry subject, it is a broad subject, right?,” the governor-elect said. “I have had multiple meetings on the energy issue and each time I receive a presentation on the energy situation it is completely different from the previous one. That is why I am forming this committee, of people who have different ‘expertise,’ who have had, who have worked directly with the issue, so that each one can give us their presentation of what they understand.”