The Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority has canceled its controversial contract with Whitefish Energy, a small Montana firm that had been awarded a $300 million deal to rebuild part of the territory's power grid.



Ricardo Ramos, CEO of PREPA, made the announcement during a press conference on Sunday afternoon, hours after Puerto Rico's governor, Ricardo Rosselló, told reporters he had petitioned the state-owned utility to "immediately" cancel the contract, calling it a "distraction."



“It's interfering with everything and it doesn’t go towards the best interests of the people of Puerto Rico," Rosselló said of the contract, which came under intense scrutiny after weather.com reported that it was granted without a competitive bidding process.

PREPA also bypassed the usual mechanism involving the larger, more experienced American Public Power Association, which helped bring in workers from public utility companies across the US after Hurricanes Harvey and Irma this year.

On Friday, energy regulators launched a probe by the Puerto Rico Energy Commission, a broad investigation into the handling of energy contracts in Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. The House Committee on Natural Resources is also investigating the Whitefish contract specifically.

"We’re working in an emergency. Everybody is working on ten things at once. I don’t want to give apologies but those things happen," Ramos said Sunday, defending the decision to contract Whitefish and another private company, Cobra Acquisitions, LLC, to assist with restoring the grid.

“The best thing that can happen is its cancellation," he added. "But the investigations will continue."

In a statement Saturday, Whitefish emphasized its disappointment in the decision to terminate the deal, and touted its work in Puerto Rico thus far.



"The decision" to cancel the contract, the company said, "will only delay what the people of Puerto Rico want and deserve — to have the power restored quickly in the same manner as their fellow citizens on the mainland experience after a natural disaster."