No, Puerto Rico’s New Climate-Change Law Is Not a ‘Green New Deal’

On April 11, Puerto Rico’s Governor Ricardo Rosselló signed into law the Puerto Rico Energy Public Policy Act, which commits the island to powering itself exclusively from renewable-energy sources by the year 2050 and phasing out all coal plants by 2028. Under the law, the electric grid will be broken up into a quilt of mini- and microgrids to facilitate solar-power development at all scales, as will the monopoly currently held by the deeply troubled government-owned Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, or PREPA.

Puerto Rico has now joined the ranks of cities such as Atlanta, Washington, D.C., and Chicago, and the states of Hawaii and California, all of which have pledged or mandated 100-percent clean energy before the half-century mark. Upon the bill becoming law, several media outlets referred to Puerto Rico’s clean-energy package as the island’s own new version of the “Green New Deal”—a reference to the ambitious climate justice-focused legislation package championed by progressive congressional lawmakers such as Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.