Hi!

I am Tamia Rivera, an 8th Grader at CFI 70. I invite you to sign my petition to the Governor of Puerto Rico to annul the contract with LUMA Energy. I'd really appreciate your signature. If you agree with the letter, please also consider sharing this petition with others. Thank you! 

Find a copy of my letter below:

 

February 28th, 2022

 

Pedro Pierluisi, Governor

Commonwealth of Puerto Rico

PO Box 9020082

San Juan PR 00902-0082

Dear Governor Pierluisi,

I am a Puerto Rican native student living in Indianapolis, Indiana. I am deeply concerned with issues, being the electric service of the island, one of crucial importance to the wellbeing of our people there.

On June 1st, 2021, the government of Puerto Rico entered into a contract with LUMA Energy (LUMA), a private company, that replaced the public entity Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA). The reason why the government incorporated and contracted LUMA was because both PREPA and the government were bankrupt. You went through with LUMA’s 15 year contract, under the existing policy in the island where private and public investments should combine for the provision of goods and services to the people of Puerto Rico. That kind of agreement is supposed to benefit the island, by saving funds from the public budget, to redirect them to other areas of service (like education or health). In addition, allegedly, private investments should bring efficiency and accountability into the public sector.

Reality has proven otherwise. Since the very first day of the contract, LUMA has drained hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars. You consented to keep a contract with a company that is not bringing anything to the table. LUMA has not spent a single penny in this contract, but has reaped all the profits. You are allowing LUMA to spend necessary taxpayer dollars on extravagant expenses. The basic fee for this contract was 100 million dollars, but in the first seven months, the people of Puerto Rico paid them more than 116 million dollars. LUMA wants the citizens of the island to pay for their taxis, their luxurious hotel bills, their alcoholic beverages, and more. According to estimates done by experts on energy costs, this contract will sink 2 billion dollars into LUMA, all of this so that LUMA can do something PREPA was already doing before. 

LUMA supposedly offered former PREPA workers a job at their company, but the benefits were not the same in the new jobs that were offered. The conditions were so rough that workers didn’t know if they would have their jobs at the end of the year. People didn’t want to have such instability, so they opted out of working for the company, and were instead transferred to other government agencies, departments that had recently thrown away thousands of workers because they didn’t have the money to pay for them. So you are allowing the people of Puerto Rico to pay both the employees of LUMA, and also thousands of workers who were transferred to other agencies where they didn’t have any work to do. 

LUMA lost a lot of professionals and talented people in the electric industry during this transition, so LUMA does not have the expertise to deal with Puerto Rico’s electric grid. Our electrical system is very unique. It was adapted based on the geographical characteristics of the island, and was built bit by bit, which is why you need a talented workforce that has experience with it, to properly maintain it. PREPA developed strategies to overcome these challenges, and evolved to meet the island's requirements over decades of experience. LUMA does not have the expertise that PREPA had with the island. They do not meet the qualifications of our system, and as a result of that, the state of our electric grid has declined ever since June 2021. It is no secret that LUMA has done an exceptionally poor job at maintaining the system, which is ironic because they were incorporated for this very purpose. Power fluctuations are frequent, and harmful to home appliances for the million households in Puerto Rico. Blackouts and power outages have become ever more common, and last an average of 5 hours now, which is more than double what they used to last under PREPA.

LUMA has constantly dodged accountability from the public. Its president, Wayne Stensby, has been found in contempt by legislative and judicial bodies as to disclosing information regarding its operations, top executive salaries, and splurge of Puerto Rican public funds. Not only have they avoided public scrutiny, they’ve also avoided accountability to their clients by using automated customer help hotlines, withheld information from citizens, and have avoided taking care of the electric grid altogether. Worst of all, the contract does not oblige LUMA to fix the power grid in case of a force majeure event. In public hearings, government officials admitted that it could include the destruction caused by a hurricane. If we do encounter another hurricane, the damages will be devastating to our island. Puerto Rico already suffered from lack of electric service after the destruction caused by Hurricane Maria in 2017. An estimated 4645 people died, a major part of casualties being from the lack of power to operate electric medical equipment. 

LUMA’s actions have gone against the very purpose the government contracted them for. They have not made a single investment out of their own budget to improve the electric system, and have left our grid vulnerable for the hurricane season to come. LUMA has proven to be irresponsible time and time again, and you must not allow this to continue.  You must declare the contract null and void.

Cordially,

Tamia Isabel Rivera Figueroa

8th Grade Student

Center For Inquiry #70 School

Indianapolis Public Schools

 

Photo Credit: Alejandro Granadillo, https://www.workers.org/2021/06/56923/