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Congresswoman Jenniffer Gonzalez's Full Statement on OMB Comments

January 17, 2019

Soon after the devastating Hurricanes Maria and Irma, I successfully worked with others to have $1.27 billion appropriated to ensure that low-income Americans in Puerto Rico did not suffer from not having enough food due to the disaster through this coming September 30th. The assistance is being provided through the Nutrition Assistance Program for Puerto Rico (NAP), a second-class version of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP or "Food Stamps") that applies in the States.

The legislation was required because funding for NAP, unlike SNAP, is limited as to total amount and does not increase due to expanded need due to a disaster.

The $1.27 billion, however, is expected to be used up by March under the plan of assistance approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

So, Governor Rossello and I asked congressional and Administration leaders for another $600 million to ensure that food needs are met in Puerto Rico through the end of this September, as intended.

The House Appropriations Committee included the $600 million in a supplemental disaster relief appropriations bill, although it made the money available through September 30th, 2020.

Yesterday the Office of Management and Budget to the President, (OMB)-formally opposed the bill. High on its list of objections was the $600 million. The Administration statement rejected it as "excessive and unnecessary."

Later yesterday, the House's Committee of the Whole (in which amendments to bills are considered on the Floor of the House before final consideration of bills by the House itself) passed the bill with the $600 million included, with my vote in favor. The House itself then passed the bill — without my vote because the sole representative of the 3.15 million people of Puerto Rico in the Federal government cannot vote in the House itself.

The Administration's opposition ignored the fact that NAP is a prime example of discrimination against the Americans of Puerto Rico. It provides less in benefits to hundreds of thousands less people than SNAP would. A 2014 U.S. Government Accountability Office report said that the second-class NAP could have denied nutrition assistance to as many as 457,000 Americans in Puerto Rico in Federal Fiscal Year 2011 in comparison with the assistance than SNAP would have provided.

The up to $700 million lower cost of NAP that year doesn't represent a real savings for the U.S. Government. Hundreds of thousands of SNAP recipients in the States are Americans who abandoned the territory for a State for the greater opportunity and equal treatment available to them in a State.

The history of NAP vividly demonstrates the second-class status of Puerto Rico's current political status, misleadingly called "commonwealth" by some but really unincorporated territory, although Puerto Ricans are Americans by birth. Puerto Rico wasn't included in the Food Stamps program at first and had to be added. Then, in 1982, when there was an effort to limit the amount of assistance to a strict dollar amount in every State and territory, the limit was only placed on Puerto Rico because it didn't have votes in Congress to prevent the limit from being imposed as States did.

The only permanent solution to the discrimination in NAP — and the Administration's opposition to additional NAP funding after Puerto Rico's disaster of a century — is statehood. Without votes and equality within the U.S., Puerto Rico will always be vulnerable to discrimination and second-class treatment — and receive it in many areas. This is a main reason for the economic underdevelopment of the islands and the bankruptcy of the territorial government.

Puerto Ricans have voted for statehood in fair plebiscites that included all of the possible statuses during the past half a dozen years.

Federal law provides a means for an indisputable choice, a plebiscite with fairness ensured by prior U.S. Justice Department approval and congressional review. Following the process of that law is urgent.