Puerto Ricos utility cancels controversial $300 million contract with Montana firm hired to repair
Source: Washington Post
Full title: Puerto Ricos utility cancels controversial $300 million contract with Montana firm hired to repair electrical grid
By Steven Mufson October 29 at 12:37 PM
BREAKING: Puerto Ricos utility canceled the controversial $300 million contract with a Montana firm hired to repair its electrical grid. The announcement by the island state-owned utility came hours after Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossello called for the contract with Whitefish Energy to be canceled. The governor of Puerto Rico called for the cancellation of a controversial $300 million contract the islands utility signed with a small Montana-based company tasked with a central role in repairing the territorys hurricane-ravaged electric power grid.
Gov. Ricardo Rossell said that the contract was a distraction after critics in the electric power industry, Congress and the Federal Emergency Management Agency raised questions about whether the company, Whitefish Energy, was well equipped to respond to the hurricane damage.
Thirty-nine days after Hurricane Maria hit the territory, Rossello said that he would request assistance from Florida and New York under mutual aid arrangements that utilities traditionally activate to help other states during an emergency. About 80 percent of the people living on the island still have no electricity.
As a result of the information that has been revealed and the need to protect the public interest, as governor I am asking the power authority to cancel the Whitefish contract immediately, Rossell said in an unusual Sunday morning news conference at La Fortaleza, the governors mansion.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/puerto-rico-governor-says-contract-to-whitefish-company-should-be-canceled/2017/10/29/e5336cda-bcb8-11e7-97d9-bdab5a0ab381_story.html
Short article (so far). Updated now.
= new reply since forum marked as read
yesterday when he was speaking about PR and how he could send hundreds of workers from his state and help out. There is a special deal that states make when they send their own crews as well as regularly contracted crews to other states as was done during Sandy five years ago. The Federal Gov pays their fees later and this is commonly done between states in times of emergencies. Today he said he was glad the PR governor declined the Whitefish deal and would like to send crews as well along with other states. The problem is that it has already been 36 days and 70% still don't have electricity. Cuomo also said that it will take time for barges to ship bucket trucks and heavy equipment to PR and there needs to be accommodations for about 6,000 linemen, etc once they arrive in PR for a long term stay.
He was also discussing Climate Change and said that they will need to raise buildings, make solid foundations for new infrastructures and not just with the situation but the entire country and the federal government needs to start sinking big bucks into this NOW! It is too bad that Climate Change is a hoax.
K&R
PR will STILL have to pay that company like $30 million for just showing up and getting started and their transport back to Whitefish...
“In no event shall [government bodies] have the right to audit or review the cost and profit elements.”
Makes me mad our tax dollars are being spent on this kind of corruption. 
