Rossello. thank you so much for being with us. i want to start off by asking you about the jones act, that cargo between ports needs to be carried on u.s. vessels. it was waived in the wake of texas and florida, so aid could get to those states more quickly and efficiently. it hasn t been waived yet for puerto rico. do you want to see it waived for puerto rico, sir? of course, that way to help us to bring more help from other countriy ies outside of the uni states. of course that relief would help puerto rico right now. is it frustrating that the administration has not granted that waiver yet? we are glad of the help that they already have deployed in puerto rico, but, of course, we need a lot of help more. we are asking to the federal government, the governor of puerto rico talked to president trump yesterday, and we are asking for more help. this is a chaotic situation. we need food, we need water, we have communities without those basic elements that we need to live. and we re
Are often judged on how well you respond to disaster. if he bombs this, it doesn t matter how well he responded to the previous hurricanes. because this is what is going to let people know what he can do when people and countries and territories aren t on his side, how he responds to that community event. it is my understanding that the administration has said, we talk about the ships, the ports, they are destroyed. you have to rebuild before you can get some of this stuff in. i think that is absolutely right. i do think that the white house breathes something of a sigh of relief after the president got through the first two hurricanes and this one, which was worse than the first two, came and they have been a little flat-foot in response to the white house. not dhs, which has continued to do tremendous work, fema as well, but that doesn t quite make headlines. what has gotten my attention, which is just as eugene said the conservatives have come out in full force to slam the jones
And manned mostly by american crews. but even maritime groups admit that the u.s. merchant marine industry is shrinking. so what about foreign ships? they ve got two options. first, dock at a puerto rican port and pay tariffs, fees, and taxes. or stop at a mainland port like jacksonville, florida, and transfer to an american flagged ship. costs of goods passed on to the puerto rican customer. it cost the puerto rico economy $537 million in 2010. university of puerto rico economists found that over the proceeding 20 years, the island lost over $17 billion from its economy as a result. in case you re wondering about the areas of texas and florida affected by harvey and irma, the jones act was waived in those situations. like for new orleans after katrina. the department of homeland security has not received a formal waiver request and has not decided if it will give puerto rico the waiver. the reasoning, the island s
Event he said, i m not claiming that is where we re heading. i want to avoid that from even being a possibility. well, if you remember, katrina was a lot about the optics in terms of the white house, which is that the president was photographed above the disaster zone. looking like he didn t care all that much. and i think that really is the risk from the white house as well. when the president s tweeting about the nfl and simply not appearing as though he s paying as much attention to the disaster in puerto rico. that has certainly been the case. you saw him announce yesterday or the day before that he is visiting the island next week. and i think if the jones act is waived, some of that will be taken care of. i m asking you to hang out after the break. because we want to talk about james mattis landing in afghanistan for the unannounced visit welcomed just a few hours ago by rocket fire from the taliban. it s part of america s longest war with the latest strategy to end it in the
Reentry. listen to your local officials about evacuation and how it went to set your reentry. it s for reason. it s a life safety reason. a public safety reason. there is our priority set. eventually, we ll move into the issues of recovering and so forth. what are you doing on the fuel front? the federal government at this stage in the three or four days building up, we waited regulation, waived rules, waived the jones act restrictions. florida is unique state and how it receives refined fuel. it is not part of the national pipeline. it receives by ship takers. those ship tankers link to enter mobile sites, where they fill up trucks and trucks distribute. will clear those pathways, assess those three ports were those tankers dock. make sure they re not damage, will get them back up and running. florida power & light, the