Maritza Maymí, legislative coordinator for the Sierra Club of Puerto Rico
By THE STAR STAFF
The Sierra Club of Puerto Rico (SCPR) charged Wednesday that the energy privatization contract recently approved by the government is unnecessary and that instead it is necessary to adopt energy practices that confront the climate crisis.
The SCPR demanded that the Public-Private Partnerships Authority (P3A) disclose details related to the processes for the privatization of the island’s electric power generation operations.
Maritza Maymí, the SCPR’s legislative coordinator, charged that “the recently announced contract will already be leaving the system as of this year.”
“In fact, PREPA has plants that should have already left the system,” she said.
At the same time, Maymí questioned how it was possible for the P3A, the Legislative Assembly of Puerto Rico, the PREPA governing board and the Puerto Rico Energy Bureau to repeat “the same practices of negotiation in dark rooms as happened with the LUMA contract.” She emphasized that “when negotiating with the country’s assets, the people have the right to know what the deal is. … People have the right to participate in the processes and that requires the government and public agencies to provide truthful and timely information.”
The SCPR official stressed that “at this moment we still do not know for sure what is the expertise, the trajectory and the terms under which a contract will be given for the operation of generating plants that are already supposed to be in the process of withdrawal from the energy system.”
SCPR Base Organizer Adriana González added that “[o]nce the governor made the announcement that the P3A Board was preparing to approve -- unanimously -- the contract for the privatization of energy generation, we sent a communication to Mr. Fermín Fontanés, director of the P3A, requesting information on the matter.”
The P3A refused to disclose the information to the SCPR on the grounds that it was “confidential.”
Francisco Vargas, a member of the SCPR executive board, said “the determination of the P3A not to disclose the documents related to the privatization of the generation of our electricity system directly violates the constitutional right of access to public information that every citizen in this country has.”
The attorney said the people have the right to know the details of the proposed agreement and the identity of who will be managing Puerto Rico’s generation plants for the next decade. He also pointed out that “the P3A has been characterized by negotiating leonine contracts with entities of dubious reputation and expertise, in an outrageous way and behind the backs of the people.”
González warned that “it is time for the people who lead the country to adopt solutions that are tempered to our climate reality.”
She pointed out that a proposal by the sustainable energy advocacy organization I Want the Sun (Quiero Sol) “provides a clear path to create a distributed electricity grid based on solar energy.”
“Puerto Rico can reach 75% renewable energy in 15 years and reduce fuel costs to $430 million,” she said.
Currently the island has fuel costs that exceed $1.4 billion.