The $300 Million Contract Awarded to the Interior Secretary's Friend's Company Is Exempt from Government Audits

The federal government has awarded a tiny Montana company a $300 million no-bid contract to repair Puerto Rico's hurricane-wrecked electrical grid. The company, Whitefish Energy, has close ties to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. A copy of that contract leaked last night, and it seems to prohibit the federal government from auditing Whitefish's work and to shield other details of the company's efforts from being disclosed via open records laws.

"In no event," the contract says, will the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Comptroller General of the United States, "or any of their authorized representatives have the right to audit or review the cost and profit elements" of the deal.

The contract was posted online by Ken Klippenstein, a contributor to The Daily Beast, the first publication to report on the connections between the company and the secretary of the interior.

The leaked document seems to confirm concerns—voiced by lawmakers, pundits, and reform groups—that the Whitefish contract is a lucrative special deal for a friend of a top administration official, and that it places politics ahead of what's in the best interest of Puerto Ricans, many of whom are still without electricity.

Andy Techmanski, owner of Whitefish Energy, is a neighbor and friend of Secretary Zinke, according to multiple news reports. The two men have publicly disclosed their acquaintance. The company has only a handful of employees and is relying almost entirely on subcontractors to do the actual work of restoring power in Peurto Rico.

Members of Congress have called for an investigation into the Whitefish contract. Yesterday members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce sent a letter to Techmanski seeking copies of all contracts and subcontracts signed by Whitefish as part of its work in Puerto Rico. Meanwhile, members of the House Natural Resources Committee wrote to the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) requesting more information about how and why Whitefish was selected for this work.

Separately, Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) have requested a Government Accountability Office review of the "use of public money to reimburse work completed by Whitefish Energy," according to Reuters.

Prior to landing the contract for repair work in Puerto Rico, Whitefish's largest project had been a $1.3 million deal to rebuild less than 5 miles of electrical lines in Arizona, The Washington Post reported this week. By comparison, there are more than 2,400 miles of transmission lines and 30,000 of distribution electrical lines in Puerto Rico.

The Trump administration and the company itself have offered only the barest of explanations for how a small electrical firm from Montana managed to land a lucrative contract for work in the Caribbean. Both have claimed that the company has experience working in mountain ranges and on rugged terrain and have denied that cronyism played a role in awarding the contract.

"There was no federal involvement," Chris Chiames, a spokesman for Whitefish Energy, told BuzzFeed this week. "There was never any special favors asked, nor would there have been."

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which is no stranger to fiscal malfeasance, said Friday that it had "significant concerns" about the Whitefish contract. According to The Hill, FEMA denied having signed off on the contract and said details of the contract suggesting as much were inaccurate.

Whether Whitefish gets the job done is supposed to be shrouded in secrecy. The copy of the contract posted by Klippenstein includes a provision prohibiting the government from auditing its work. Another part of the contract says the Puerto Rican government "waives any claim against [Whitefish Energy] related to delayed completion of work."

Until the Trump administration can offer a better explanation for the decision to award a multi-million no-bid contract to a company with close ties to a top administration official, this whole thing smells really bad. The administration sure looks like it's been swallowed by the very swamp it promised to drain.

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A Driver’s License Won’t Get You Through Airport Security If You Live in These States

You'll need a passport.

If Steven Spielberg were to stop you on the street next year and invite you to star in his movie on the condition that leave right nowfor the airport without stopping at home, your opportunity at fame and fortune would be squandered if you happened to be a resident of New York, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Louisiana, or American Samoa.

The reason: At some point in 2016—the precise date hasn’t yet been announced—driver’s licenses from those states will no longer be considered sufficient to clear airport security and board an airplane.

Read next: These are The Best Credit Cards for Travel Rewards

This new policy is a result of the Real ID act, passed by Congress in 2005 as a counterterrorism measure to standardize the reliability and efficacy of personal identification. Unfortunately, the driver’s licenses of that handful of states did not make the cut, failing to provide enough security features in the cards themselves or enough verification of identity and immigration status in the application processes.

The Department of Homeland Security began rolling out Real ID in 2014. Phase one involved restricted government areas, and phases two and three concerned semi-restricted areas like nuclear power plants. But phase four touches federally regulated aircraft—and therefore will affect millions of people.

When it rolls out officially for travelers, you won’t have anything new to worry about if you’re going abroad—you’ll need a passport anyway. But if you’re flying domestically, double check that your license makes the ID cut.

Update: The State Department has some tips on how to get a passport in a timely manner.

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10 Indicted, 80 Locations Raided in Biggest Synthetic Pot Crackdown in New York City History: Officials

Federal agents and New York City authorities raided about 80 locations throughout the city Wednesday and arrested six people in what officials are calling the largest crackdown on the importation, distribution and sale of synthetic cannabinoids, commonly known as synthetic marijuana, in New York City history, law enforcement officials said.

A total of 10 people were named in a federal indictment on charges of participating in a scheme to illegally import at least 100 kilograms of illegal synthetic compounds into the U.S., enough to produce 260,000 retail packets, officials said. The seizure had a street value of about $30 million.

Of the 10 suspects, four are still being sought, officials say.

Several of the defendants are accused of importing illegal synthetic compounds in powdered form from China using commercial delivery services and transporting them to a processing facility in the Bronx where other defendants mixed the compounds with chemical solvents and then sprayed the mixture onto tea leaves, the indictment says.

I-Team: Designer Drug K2 Growing in Popularity

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Co-conspirators then bundled the dried tea leaves into retail packets, labeled them and transported them to warehouses controlled by wholesale distributors, the indictment alleges.

Officials say the retail packets, which contained about 3 to 6 grams of synthetic marijuana, were sold to individual customers for $5 per packet. Packets were sold under names such as “AK-47, “Blue Caution,” “Green Giant,” “Geeked Up,” “Psycho” and other brands.

The investigation and raids were conducted by the DEA, the NYPD, Homeland Security Investigations and the NYC Sheriff’s office.

Those arrested Tuesday appeared in federal court in Manhattan later Wednesday. All are charged with conspiracy to distribute narcotics and face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

Prosecutors asked for a high bail amount for the defendants because of the money involved in the operation -- $30 million worth of products have been seized so far.

Two of the defendants were released on $200,000 bond; three others were released on $500,000 bond. One other suspect, Murad Kassim, remains detained on $1 million bond because he was a flight risk, the judge said. Kassim is also believed to have access to to a significant portion of the money in the scheme.

All defendants have been ordered to surrender travel documents and were given travel restrictions within the southern and eastern districts of New York. 

Officials say synthetic marijuana is popular among teenagers and young adults because it is inexpensive and sold at legitimate retail locations.

The U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy has reported the effects of synthetic marijuana use include anxiety, nausea, vomiting, rapid heart rate, tremors, seizures and suicidal thoughts.

Authorities said potency can vary from batch to batch so no one knows the precise effects. Synthetic marijuana is not detected by drug tests, so some users see it as a way to use without the risk of testing positive, according to officials.

“Despite sometimes being calls synthetic marijuana, this stuff is not marijuana. It can cause unpredictably severe and even lethal effects," Preet Bharara, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said at a news briefing. "It is not natural and it is not harmless in any sense of the word. In fact, some experts believe that spice can be up to 100 times more potent than pot.”

“What is being sold every day in bodegas and convenience stores throughout the city to teenagers, to homeless people, to addicts is literally poison," Bharara added. "Toxic chemicals that bind to receptors in the central nervous system to frightening and sometimes even deadline effect.”

At the news briefing, officials said phone calls to U.S. poison centers for synthetic marijuana in the first four months of this year increased 225 percent compared with the same time period last year. In New York state, use of synthetic pot resulted in 2,300 emergency room visits in a one-month period this year, a ten-fold increase compared with the same time period last year. 

"This is a scourge on our society, affecting the most disadvantaged neighborhoods and our most challenged citizens. It affects teenagers in public housing, homeless in the city shelter system, and it’s quite literally flooding our streets," Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said in a statement. "This is marketed as synthetic marijuana, some call it K2. It is sold by the names of Galaxy, Diamond, Rush, and Matrix. But its real name is poison.”

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