San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz on Tuesday said the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority should cancel its “alarming” $300 million contract with a tiny Montana utility company financed by major donors to President Donald Trump “right away.”
“The contract should be voided right away and a proper process which is clear, transparent, legal, moral, and ethical should take place,” Cruz told Yahoo News.
She said the $300 million contract between the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority and Whitefish Energy Holdings, a tiny Montana company run by a CEO friendly with Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke, is “alarming.”
“It seems like what the Puerto Rican people are going to be paying for, or the American people are going to be paying for, is an intermediary that doesn’t know what is at stake here and that really has to subcontract everything,” Cruz said.
Cruz has been a vocal critic of the federal response in Puerto Rico, drawing attacks from Trump and other members of his administration. In the Yahoo interview, she suggested the slow response was “because we’re a colony of the United States to begin with.”
“Yes, there is racism. There is discrimination,” she said. “Mr. Trump may have the most powerful job in the world, but that does not make him a respectful person.”
The Daily Beast reported on Tuesday that Whitefish Energy Holdings’ general partner donated the maximum amounts permitted to Trump’s Republican primary campaign and his presidential campaign, gave $20,000 to the Trump Victory PAC and donated a total of $30,700 to the Republican National Committee in 2016.
Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, on Tuesday called for an investigation into “why the Whitefish contract was awarded and whether other, more cost-effective options were available.”
“We share the mayor’s frustration with the situation on Puerto Rico, but her comments are misplaced,” Whitefish Energy Holdings told TPM in a statement.
The company told TPM it has “more than 300 workers on the island and that number is growing daily.”
“We find her comments to be very disappointing and demoralizing to the hundreds of people on our team that have left their homes and families and have come here to help the people of Puerto Rico,” Whitefish Energy Holdings said.
Cruz on Wednesday afternoon questioned the company’s statement that called her remarks “misplaced.”
“If @WhitefishEnergy feels that asking for transparency is ”misplaced”, what are they afraid we will find,” she tweeted.
In response, Whitefish Energy Holdings appeared to threaten to withdraw its workers from San Juan.
We’ve got 44 linemen rebuilding power lines in your city & 40 more men just arrived. Do you want us to send them back or keep working?
— Whitefish Energy (@WhitefishEnergy) October 25, 2017
This post has been updated.
Beyond the issue of cost-effectiveness and corruption, I would be worried that a company with two employees cannot handle the job of restoring power to all of Puerto Rico.
Do either of them even speak Spanish?
I know very little about Whitefish Energy Holdings. The fact the Trump administration has at least in some small way facilitated their contract for work in Puerto Rico has sullied their name in the eyes of many. Associating with Trump is bad for a person, a company, any entity at all really. He’s gangrene.
There are companies that outsource nearly their entire workforce. Warehouses full of Manpower employees working for ABC Distribution. Yet ABC distribution has 5 employees. I’ve worked for firms that the entire accounting department are on contract. We cut a big check every week, someone else handles everything else. It’s not unusual. Does Whitefish Energy Holdings do this to one degree or another? I don’t know, but if they do it’s not anything suspicious.
I understand it’s not suspicious per se, but does the company have a record of overseeing big budget operations? I think the answer is no.
Too late, Madame Mayor; the fix is in.