Puerto Rico wants to cancel $300 million Whitefish contract
CABRERA: We're following breaking news out of the Puerto Rico this evening. The island's electric power authority says it wants to cancel its largest contract with an energy company working to restore power in the wake of hurricane Maria, 70 percent of the U.S. territory is still without electricity. A whole month after Maria made landfall in the island. Now the controversial $300 million contract was awarded to Whitefish Energy, a 2-year-old Montana based firm that only had a couple of employees before the storm hit Puerto Rico last month. Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell was among those calling for investigations into how Whitefish Energy got this contract and she's joining us live now from Seattle. Senator, thanks for being with us. You asked the government accountability office to review this Whitefish contract. What is the reaction to news that Puerto Rico's power authority now plans to cancel this deal?</s>SEN. MARIA CANTWELL (D), WASHINGTON: Well, it should be canceled. What we keep getting are bits and pieces of information but what we can glean now from what's transpired is that this company is charging the U.S. taxpayer maybe as much as 30 percent or 40 percent more. Than what would go as normal rates to do repairs in this kind of disaster recovery. So we should cancel it. We should get a fair deal for U.S. citizens and U.S. taxpayers. Every dollar that we spend in Puerto Rico is going to be dear so we shouldn't be overpaying.</s>CABRERA: Now the governor there today sad he wants to make the process when it comes to giving these contracts as transparent as possible. Is that the issue for you as well, transparency and how this contract was awarded?</s>CANTWELL: Well, we definitely want to continue to investigate how the Whitefish organization got this contract, the language in the contract and why we would ever expect to pay 30 percent to 40 percent more than the going rate in this kind of situation. So that will be a question, but what needs to happen into disaster like this and a lot of utilities have relationships which are called mutual aid. They already sign up in advance to help sistering state or region of the country and they know when a disaster happens they are going to need to go and get the repairs done quickly. They don't go in and gouge. It looks like Whitefish gouged that maybe they said well, we won't require you to pay up front but they then gleaned a higher return and thereby is costing the U.S. taxpayer more money than we need to pay in such a disastrous situation.</s>CABRERA: Of course officials on the ground had said in part one of the reasons was because they didn't require some kind of fee up front and of course, immediacy is crucial there when you look at the numbers, 70 percent of the island is still without power. But now if this contract is canceled, what does that mean for restoring power?</s>CANTWELL: Well, we need to go back to those mutual aid agreements. I guarantee you practically every state in the union has offered to help Puerto Rico. I'm sure that every utility who has manpower would happily send workforce there to help and my guess is what will happen is we'll make more progress now. The fact that they know that they can do this kind of reciprocity and that they will get paid and that issue has been flattened, we'll see a more expeditious plan to get this done and not as expensive as what we've been charged by Whitefish.</s>CABRERA: Will the federal inquires into the Whitefish contract continue?</s>CANTWELL: Oh, yes, yes, there are issues here in how this contract came about. There are issues in the contract itself and the question as we all would want is, we would hate to see in any disaster, anywhere in the United States of America, someone coming in. And having the ability to make a lot more money off of the disaster than is necessary for the recovery, and I think what we want to make sure is that we learn from this situation and never let it happen again.</s>CABRERA: Senator Maria Cantwell, thank you so much for your time.</s>CANTWELL: Thank you.</s>CABRERA: Still ahead, the president calls the Russia investigation a witch hunt and calls on fellow Republicans to do something. But what is that something? I'll ask a Republican congresswoman next.