Tiny power company from Interior Secretary's hometown snags huge Puerto Rico contract

A power company that had two employees when Maria hit has been given a $300 million contract to restore power in Puerto Rico. This company also happens to be from the same home town as Ryan Zinke, the Secretary of the Department of Interior.

I think this is absurd and favoritism. So many want to blame the mayor of San Juan, a city that was spared from the worse, for the problems of disaster response while the US has had a minimal response despite our massive Navy and Coast Guard.

Restoring power is a priority for Puerto Rico, but giving a tiny firm $300 million to do it reeks of corruption and lack of judgement from the Department of the Interior.

www.nydailynews.com...

A Montana energy company that had only two full-time employees when Hurricane Maria ravaged Puerto Rico has been tasked with restoring the power grid in the cash-strapped territory, according to a report Monday.

Whitefish Energy Holdings LLC snagged the daunting $300 million contract from the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority and has been filling its workforce with at least 280 short-term contractors since the storm’s Sept. 20 landfall, according to The Washington Post.

Washington Post Story

The army started I believe 6 more generators yesterday

a reply to: mikell

A friend mine is there installing solar systems.

Generators are a short term fix and do nothing to address all the down power lines.

About that whole "terrible disaster response" we keep hearing about.

Thousands of troops deployed. Hundreds of civilian and military engineers. Dozens and dozens of helicopters. Ships. Hundreds, if not thousands, of people from civilian agencies.

In the rush to blame Trump for any and every thing possible, I think a lot of folks have forgotten that Puerto Rico was practically leveled by the storm and fixing things isn't going to happen overnight, or in a week or two.

ETA - as to the power contract: Brian Klaas (some author) is claiming Zinke's son worked for the power company at some point. So there's that.

"Drain the swamp"

...

It's REALLY just Trump-speak for backfill and pump full of sewage.

Roll out the pork barrel. Wonder what dollar amount has been pegged to cover the overage that will surely happen.

Looks like PR isn't broke any more.

a reply to: Shamrock6

We can LEVEL a country w/our military and restore basic services quickly...

Why not our own territories?

Where's the San Antonio-class amphibious transport docks? Army Corp of engineers? Don't we have like ten Nimitz class carriers?

Why aren't we USING our incredible military power to help PR get back on track?

Brian Klaas (some author) is claiming Zinke's son worked for the power company at some point.

I would imagine he's a company executive about now.

a reply to: DanteGaland

Friends of Congress get first shot at the money. That's the system.

originally posted by: DanteGaland
"Drain the swamp"

...

It's REALLY just Trump-speak for backfill and pump full of sewage.

Trump had nothing to do with the deal as far as I know. From the source:

Whitefish Energy Holdings, LLC today announced its continued support of the Puerto Rico power restoration mission with the formal approval and ratification by the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) Board of Governors of the company's $300 million agreement with PREPA.

Did you know that 1 in 200 people alive today are decedents of Genghis Khan?

So lets just hurry and go in there and rebuild with the same shoddy patchwork infrastructure. So everyone in Puerto Rico can get back to their low paying Jobs and Television. Throw a few hundred million here, a couple billion over there. A few people scrape some cream off the top, and their houses are rebuilt and families relocated to mainland America. And do the same thing all over, next year for hurricane Herewegoagain.

a reply to: Middleoftheroad

So PR is hurting for power and their wisdom says to select a two man company to rebuild the grid. Yeah, I believe that.

a reply to: Jimmycrackerson3

$300,000,000 will buy a eff load of coat hangers and duct tape. Patch that little fellar right up.

a reply to: IgnoranceIsntBlisss


Yeah $3,000 will buy the coat-hangers and duct-tape while the other 299,997,000 goes into someone elses offshore accounts.

a reply to: jrod

So, you are complaining about urgently needed help because it isn't the kind you want to magically appear?
Partisan are we, hate Trump do you?

I agree that it is "pork" but now let's talk about Clinton and Russian control of 20% of our uranium which was money virtually directly into Bill's pocket when he got half a million for a Moscow speech. I do hate politicians in general.

This has PORK painted in 100 foot tall letters on it. No need to hide it anymore.

a reply to: DanteGaland

Try reading what I wrote. And the accompanying link. Do some research instead of parroting the news.

The Corps of Engineers is already there. They have been there. So is the Navy. So is the Army. So is the National Guard. Even the Marines are there.

The Corps of Engineers have had people there long enough to figure out Puerto Rico looks like Iraq in 2003. That's how devastated Puerto Rico is. It took over a year and over a billion dollars to fix the electrical grid in Iraq. And only the electrical grid.

Looks like the Navy has already sent multiple ships into the area to conduct operations.

a reply to: IgnoranceIsntBlisss

Maybe some tin cans and string to restore the phone lines.

$300 mil to a company with essentially zero capability is madness.

a reply to: Jimmycrackerson3

PR is offshore, but the semi-adjacent Cayman Islands is a better place. They should hop over to Panama have a sit down with Mossack Fonseca before they skip over to the Caymans and then jump over to PR with the wire cutters.