The organization The Puerto Rico Bridge on Wednesday presented a judicial appeal with the objective that the Court orders the joint commission of the Legislature in charge of evaluating the draft Mitigation, adaptation and resilience to climate change Submit, “immediately”, your report on the document.
The demand for the bridge directly addresses the controversy around the deadlines under which the Joint Commission on Mitigation, Adaptation and Resilience to Climate Change works, which has interpreted that the Legislative Assembly has until the end of the coming ordinary session – that is, until November – to act on the draft of the plan that a group of experts delivered in April 2024.
“We understand that the law is clear when it says that the commission (joint) has until the next session, once the draft is given, to deliver to both bodies the plan of the plan. That expired on June 30, 2025, and did not happen. We met before that date with several legislators who are part of the joint commission, to know in which status the review and approval of the plan was, and arrived on June 30 and nothing happened“, said Federico Moscosodirector of El Puente.
The Law 33-2019who commissioned Committee for experts and advisors on climate change (CEACC) The elaboration of the plan to deal with the implications of climate change, stipulated that the joint commission, after formally receiving the draft, will have not later the culmination of the next ordinary session to present the plan simultaneously to both bodies of the Legislative Assembly. “
The full of both bodies, in turn, would have to consider the document “during the ordinary session in which it is submitted.”
“If at the end of the ordinary session for consideration, the Legislative Assembly has not acted regarding the mitigation, adaptation and resilience to climate change, climate change, It will be understood that the plan was approved and will be sent to the governor of Puerto Rico for its signature or veto”, Argues the text of Law 33.
Having submitted in April 2024 – during the last session of the last Legislative Assembly -, The bridge and legal connoisseurs They have interpreted that the deadline for the bodies to act on the Plan beat on June 30when the first session of this four -year period ended. On the other hand, the joint commission, by voice of its president, the senator Marissa Jiménez Santonihe pointed out that The term extends to the conclusion of the second session of this year, under the constitutional principle that the Legislature cannot be bound by the actions of previous assemblies.
Cintrón Moscoso said that, on July 22, the bridge was summoned – together with other entities – at an executive view of the joint commission, in which the organization expressed its opinion around the obligation to act on the draft plan.
“We returned and said that, according to us and the law, they were in breach because the term had passed and, yet, they have not acted. We decided that the only appeal that we have left, since it is in the hands of the commission (joint), is to file a mandamus asking for the aid of the court”, Said the director of the Environmental Organization.
The mandamus presented to the San Juan Court, through the Ms. Ninoshka Picart Pérezit intends that the legislative agency present “immediately” the report corresponding to the plan, whose draft covers 700 pages subdivided into two volumes, which expose, respectively, a diagnosis and strategies to address the main effects of climate change in a dozen sectors, such as coasts, the availability of water, energy and education.
“For us, there is no reason to delay it more time, because the draft went through public views.”said Moscoso, in relation to the process that the CEACC – composed during the elaboration of the document by the meteorologist Ada Monzónthe climatologist Rafael Méndez Tejedathe engineer Carl Soderbergoceanographer Maritza Barreto and the environmental health expert Pablo Méndez Lázaro– He gave the draft prior to his delivery to the legislature.
By retaining the document in the joint commission, the bridge also considers that other legislators are prevented from studying and providing their input to the document.
Moscoso Cintrón, on the other hand, recalled that the bridge already sued successfully in the past to force the government to assign the necessary resources so that the CEACC will carry out its functionas well as for the Natural and Environmental Resources Department prepare a Inventory of greenhouse gas emissions which also ordered Law 33.
“It seems to us that, after that titanic effort and from that important moment to put climate change and adaptation and resilience to the center of public discussion in Puerto Rico, we have seen that it has been deflated. Now, politicians do not want to touch the issue in a concrete way and with the urgency that this law was approved”, Said Moscoso.