Senate Republicans Work on Puerto Rico Bill as Default Looms
- Legislation may include federal control board, Hatch says
- Republicans will want the island to help itself first
This article is for subscribers only.
Top Senate Republicans with jurisdiction over Puerto Rico are working on a legislative proposal to help the commonwealth as it struggles with more than $70 billion of debt, countering a plan by the Obama administration.
The proposed bill will be finished “soon,” Robert Dillon, spokesman for the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said by phone Thursday. Republicans would prefer that Puerto Ricans solve the crisis on their own, but if they can’t, lawmakers will probably seek to impose “something like” a federal control board, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch said in an interview Thursday.