In one of the strongest bids yet for federal intervention into Puerto Rico’s fiscal woes, a member of Congress is calling for a control board to take over the island’s beleaguered government.

Representative Jeffrey D. Duncan, a South Carolina Republican, sent a letter to his fellow lawmakers on Friday, urging them for a solution to Puerto Rico’s financial problems that may result in “management changes” in the commonwealth.

Mr. Duncan said Congress had the authority to establish a control board in Puerto Rico, similar to the one it created in Washington, D.C., in the mid-1990s.

“I believe legislation to require the establishment of a financial control board, to enable the politically unpalatable changes necessary to put Puerto Rico back on the road to self-determination, may be needed,” wrote Mr. Duncan, who is chairman of the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.