Puerto Rico Doesn’t Want Reform - WSJ:"It has been 10 weeks since Hurricane Maria slammed into Puerto Rico.
The devastation was fierce.
Yet it cannot explain why almost half the generating capacity of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (Prepa) is still down.
Credit for that goes to Congress, which in June 2016 passed the Puerto Rico Oversight Management and Economic Stability Act, a k a Promesa.
It opened the door to debt defaults that violate the Puerto Rican constitution and U.S. law.
As is always the case when the rule of law takes a back seat to politics, it has fueled chaos.
Prepa blames its disastrous post-hurricane decisions on a shortage of cash.
Yet in the immediate aftermath of the storm, a group of Prepa bondholders offered the company fresh debtor-in-possession financing that included a swap of $1 billion in existing debt for $850 million in new bonds and $1 billion in new cash.
Puerto Rico rejected the offer...
...Now Mr. Rosselló is asking for $94 billion in aid from Washington for reconstruction costs.
But he’s refused to implement furloughs and pension cuts mandated by the Promesa board. "
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