I would be shocked if Interior Secretary Zinke didn't engineer this ridiculous deal with people from his hometown in Montana. The whole think stinks.

Stephanie Rhule on MSNBC had a spokesman from Whitefish Energy stammering this morning as he tried to insist the deal was totally legit. He tried to argue no other company wanted the contract. Stephanie wasn't buying it.

One of Zinke's sons just did a summer job with them. Which I'm SUPER sure is just a coincidence.

Besides $$ for Zinke, bet there was some hand-off to the governor. We already know Zinke is both a Repug ass and personal profiteer and it sure seems that the governor or PR is the same since he approved this heinous, bad for PR. bad for Americans contract.

Our tax dollars at work.

Did you notice that they are billing "hourly" rates, what a rip-off scheme that is. They don't actually have to do anything at all, just bill. They should have set this up as "rebuild entire PR electrical grid" within 3 (6?) months, have all hospitals online iwthin a month, etc, etc. and pay for meeting these milestones. This hourly stuff is an insanely bad idea for people of PR, will anything at all get done?

Dems need to hold immediate hearings on this and file a lawsuit to overturn this blatant profiteering from Zinke and friends.

if the 300 million adds to PR's debt it would be exactly what we've done to third world countries for decades.

We lend money to poor countries for 'infrastructure improvements' that don't benefit the people because: the money goes for improvements that benefit a corporate interest such as a manufacturing plant that needs a dam built; the contracts are given to global firms, not local firms; and a fair amount goes to graft, corruption, and pocket lining. Everyone wins except the country which is then saddled with more debt and becomes a slave to the US or World Bank for UN votes, more contracts, etc..

Highly recommended reading.

while locals were the ones who put out a request for bids, negotiated and signed the contract.

We're doing pirouettes around the fact that it was PR officials of a PR-owned power company that signed the deal because we don't want to blame the victim.

This contract stinks. A company less than 2 years old, with 2 employees, $300 million dollars? Whitefish will have steak for dinner and P.R. citizens will have cold beans.

Or, am I missing something?

Once it was announced, we knew something was fishy. Young company with 2 employees? Did they work off a card table on top of it? Hell of a lottery to pull off this deal.

I think they deserve a big thank you.

It's hard to say who reposted it first.

Let's say The Wall Street Journal., The Hill, the Washington Post, etc. all got the statement at the same time. It's now a contest to see who is the fastest typist.

I thought I read about it here in a link several days ago from an alternative press type site. Regardless, it is nice someone is doing the job that government employees used to do. It is also nice that the media picked up on it.

I didn't pay any attention to it at the time. I saw the article in the Flathead Beacon, but it didn't seem that interesting. I didn't bother to post a thread about it, not until after people started asking questions. Here's my thread from the Montana forum, started at 9:52 a.m. on Tuesday, October 24, 2017:

DU thread: Whitefish Company Tapped to Rebuild Puerto Rico Power Grid

* * * * *

Somehow seeing how word slowly filtered up from a small regional newspaper to a few inquisitive trade journals and then finally started to break in the national press makes this all somehow more vivid. This was not supposed to see the light of day.

All the big players in the industry know who all the other big players are. Then, from out of nowhere, a couple of guys with a pickup truck and a ladder show up and get awarded this yuuuge contract. At the least the ladder is fiberglass, and not aluminum.

Do not the government lawyers look at contracts before they are signed?
An attorney looked over my house contract before I signed it, and it was for way way less money.

PR is fairly autonomous. It signed a contract. I'd assume that PR-government lawyers looked at it.

Then again, this was before Oct. 6, so the contract was signed just a bit more than 2 weeks after Maria made landfall. The usual safeguards--if there are any--may have been ignored in the rush to what needed to be done. ("It needs to be done" is a frequent excuse for doing things wildly illegal.)

Or the terrorital equivalent. Is not there an individusl in the legal department of the terrority that looks over contracts?

This Twitter feed, as are many others, is following the story:

https://twitter.com/kenklippenstein

US Congressman demands Oversight Committee investigation into Whitefish contract, warning of "sweetheart contracts and backroom deals"

Link to tweet

FEMA Statement on PREPA's Contract with Whitefish

Link to tweet

Nobody, person or company can AUDIT expenses or costs associated with the contract

that this was done under President Hillary Clinton's administration. (it never would happen under her administration, but try to imagine it)

Now imagine what the GOP's reaction would be.

Hat tip, Wwcd: Not sure if this will help you, FEMA Website on PREPA

he walks and everyone else get screwed!

received a big check from these guys...I recalled he was complimentary of
Trumpolini's PR response.

No doubt

"Talk to these, ahem, contractors in Montana."