Antonio Weiss, left, counselor to Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew, testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, April 13, 2016, before the House Natural Resources Committee during a legislative hearing on a discussion draft of the “Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act.” Weiss is joined at the table by former Washington, D.C. Mayor Anthony A. Williams, a Senior Advisory at Dentons US LLP, center, and John V. Miller, CFA Managing Director, Co-Head of Fixed Income Nuveen Asset Management, right. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress must act quickly to help Puerto Rico manage its $70 billion debt as multimillion-dollar payments to creditors loom, a House committee chairman said Wednesday.

Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, said Puerto Rico’s financial woes will become much worse when the U.S. territory fails to make debt payments in less than a month. Legislation introduced by the House Natural Resources Committee on Tuesday would create a tough control board to manage Puerto Rico’s finances.

At a hearing Wednesday, both Bishop and an Obama administration official said that if Congress does not act, lawmakers run the risk of a future financial bailout.

“Unfortunately, because the situation has gotten so dire, broad reforms are required now,” Bishop said.

In drafting the proposal, GOP lawmakers have tried to satisfy Puerto Rico’s government, creditors and conservative members of their caucus. Democrats and Puerto Rican officials have worried that the new board would have too much power, while some conservatives have objected because the plan would allow some court-supervised debt restructuring.

The committee was expected to vote on the bill Thursday.

Hoping to bring fellow Republicans aboard, Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., quickly endorsed the legislation, which would create a seven-member board to audit the San Juan government and put financial plans in place. It would still allow Puerto Rican leaders to have some say in the process, a key priority for Democrats.

“Congress has a constitutional and financial responsibility to bring order to the chaos that is unfolding in the U.S. territory — chaos that could soon wreak havoc on the American bond market,” Ryan said.

Committee Republicans said a strong control board is necessary to get the island’s economy back on track. But they said when introducing the latest draft that they were aiming to avoid a “colonialist” approach.

The committee consulted with Anthony William, who as District of Columbia mayor worked with a similar control board in the late 1990s. At the hearing, Williams said “many of the principles that made D.C.’s board successful are also key elements of the Puerto Rican oversight legislation.”

A committee draft from March met objections from all sides. The new version would increase the size of the control board from five to seven seats, with the two added members picked by the minority party in the House and Senate — a clear enticement to Democrats who have opposed the bill. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California said the earlier version of the bill would exert “undue and undemocratic control” over the territory.

She still does not seem ready to sign on.

“More work needs to be done on the heart of the Republican proposal to improve the makeup and scope of the board and streamline the restructuring process to make it more workable,” she said in a statement late Tuesday, without detailing the changes should would like to see.

The legislation would not give Puerto Rico the broad bankruptcy authority sought, but would allow the board to decide whether debt restructuring was necessary in some cases. The board could then facilitate court-supervised debt restructuring.

In an attempt to satisfy conservatives, the new draft would give creditors more of a say on debt plans, with an option for certain ones to vote on whether they wanted to voluntarily restructure debt.

The House Republican Study Committee, a group of around 170 conservatives, had expressed concerns about the debt restructuring provisions in the first draft, throwing the bill’s future in doubt. Texas Rep. Bill Flores, the group’s leader, said members “are encouraged that there appear to be some improvements.”

Still, several Republicans expressed concern at the hearing about the debt restructuring, making the outcome of Thursday’s committee vote unclear.

“I believe we’re going down a slippery slope here,” said Rep. Jeff Duncan, R-S.C.

Pedro Pierluisi, Puerto Rico’s nonvoting representative in Congress, praised Bishop and the sponsor of the bill, Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Wis., for eliminating language that would have allowed the board to issue some rules and regulations as if it were the territory’s government.

Puerto Rico has been mired in economic stagnation for a decade. The financial problems worsened as a result of setbacks in the wider U.S. economy, and government spending in Puerto Rico continued unchecked as borrowing covered increasing deficits.

Treasury Department official Antonio Weiss said prompt action was needed because Puerto Rico is in distress.

“Health, education, and public safety services have been curtailed because the government is out of cash and cannot pay its bills,” he said.

Weiss said the administration was encouraged by progress on the bill, but concerned allowing creditors to vote on debt restructuring could delay the process.

“There is additional work to do,” he said

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