Notching her first trip to the U.S. territory since entering the White House, Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday touched down in Puerto Rico to make the case that the Biden administration is helping the island recover from deadly disasters.
“I see we are making a difference. There is still more work to do,” Harris said outside of a new home in Canovanas that was previously destroyed during Hurricane Maria.
The powerful Category 4 storm devastated the island in 2017, leaving an estimated 2,975 people dead in its aftermath.
“I was here shortly after Maria and I saw the devastation,” Harris, who visited in 2017 during her tenure in the Senate, said on Friday.
The vice president praised Puerto Rico as home to “some of the most talented and innovative people in our nation.” The island, she said, is a “growing leader on biotechnology,” but Hurricane Maria “had the impact of slowing some of that down.”
“A community and a society that is on an upward trajectory when these types of climate disasters occur, they don’t lose their grit, they don’t lose the ammunition, they don’t lose the momentum,” Harris said. “What we all need to do then is just supply the community and the talent here with the capacity and the resources.”
The Biden administration, Harris said, has invested $140 billion in Puerto Rico, including to help upgrade homes and facilities.
More than 6,000 homes on the island have been repaired or reconstructed as of March 2024 with the aid of federal funds, according to the White House.
Harris said one of the ongoing challenges Puerto Rico faces is intermittent energy sources, with outages still occurring daily since Maria razed the power grid. She noted that the federal government has provided some $3 billion in reliable energy sources, including rooftop solar panels. It also shipped mega generators last year to minimize outages.
The vice president was joined on Friday in the U.S. territory by Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and Department of Housing and Urban Development Deputy Secretary Adrianne Todman.
The vice president on Friday also visited an updated home outside San Juan as well as a community center before heading to a campaign fundraiser on the island.
Those in Puerto Rico cannot vote in U.S. presidential elections despite being U.S. citizens. More than 5 million Puerto Ricans live in the mainland United States.
