SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Jenniffer González Colón was sworn in Thursday as Puerto Rico’s new governor during a normally ebullient ceremony held amid widespread anger over a blackout that hit the U.S. territory days ago.
González, a Republican who backs President-elect Donald Trump and whose pro-statehood New Progressive Party secured a historic third consecutive term after she won the Nov. 5 election, has pledged to stabilize the Caribbean island’s crumbling power grid.
“There are many challenges facing our island,” she said in her first public address as governor as she acknowledged the blackout in a speech to a crowd gathered in front of the seaside Capitol. “That is precisely what moves me to address that first challenge with a sense of urgency.”
She pledged to improve Puerto Rico’s infrastructure, hospitals and schools, adding that she intends to boost bilingual education.
“I’m going to fulfill my promises to you,” she said. “I am not going to govern only for those who voted for me. I am going to be the governor of all Puerto Ricans.”
González has promised to appoint an energy “czar” to review potential contractual breaches while another operator is found to possibly replace Luma Energy, a private company that oversees the transmission and distribution of power in Puerto Rico.
However, no contract can be canceled without prior approval from Puerto Rico’s Energy Bureau and a federal control board that oversees the island’s finances.
Outages were still being reported on Thursday as crews tried to stabilize the grid following the blackout that hit early Tuesday, leaving 1.3 million customers in the dark as Puerto Ricans prepared for New Year’s Eve.
While electricity had been restored to 99% of the utility’s 1.47 million total customers, more than 600,000 were temporarily left without power on New Year’s Day when part of the system collapsed again, according to Luma.
González, 48, had beat former Gov. Pedro Pierluisi during their party’s primary in June.
While González’s immediate challenge is Puerto Rico’s fragile power grid, she also inherits a feeble economy that has slowly been strengthening since the U.S. territory’s government declared in 2015 that it was unable to pay its more than $70 billion public debt load.
In 2017, it filed for the biggest U.S. municipal bankruptcy in history.
González also will have to work alongside a federal control board that the U.S. Congress created in 2016 to oversee Puerto Rico’s finances and supervise the ongoing reconstruction after Hurricane María slammed into the island in September 2017 as a powerful Category 4 storm, razing the electrical grid.
She also faces pressure to create affordable housing, lower power bills and the general cost of living, reduce violent crime, boost Puerto Rico’s economy, with the island locked out of capital markets since 2015, and improve a limping health care system as thousands of doctors flock to the U.S. mainland.