Trump to ask for $13 billion in aid for Puerto Rico

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is preparing to ask Congress for $13 billion in new aid to help Puerto Rico and other areas hit by natural disasters, congressional sources said Monday, with the request likely by next week.

President Donald Trump is scheduled to visit Puerto Rico on Tuesday.

Congressional sources said they did not have a precise figure for the likely new aid request, but said $13 billion was in the range of what was under consideration.

Additional requests from the administration are expected for longer-term assistance to Puerto Rico, as well as Texas and Florida, which also were hit by powerful storms in recent weeks.

Administration officials said Washington still has about $10 billion in unused disaster relief funds currently in the pipeline. About $7 billion in new money became available Sunday with the start of the new fiscal year.

Early on Monday Puerto Rico’s governor reported some progress in getting fuel supplies to the island’s 3.4 million inhabitants as they faced a 13th day largely without power after Hurricane Maria.

At least 5.4 percent of customers in Puerto Rico had their power restored by mid-morning on Monday, according to the U.S. Energy Department, with San Juan’s airport and marine terminal and several hospitals back on the power grid. It said the head of Puerto Rico’s power utility expects 15 percent of electricity customers to have power restored within the next two weeks.

Mobile phone service is still elusive. The Federal Communications Commission said Monday that 88.3 percent of cellphone sites — which transmit signals to create a cellular network — were out of service, virtually unchanged from 88.8 percent on Sunday.