Well, my name is Doug MacCourt, I'm a partner with the law firm of Ater Wynne, based out of Portland, Oregon, and I've been involved with the Tribal Energy Program for about the past 15 years.
I started when some of the tribal communities and governments that we work with and serve were interested in taking a look at whether developing their energy resources made sense, how do they do it, you know. And some of them had some experience already and some of them were starting from absolute scratch. I first attended a few of the sessions, a few of the work sessions, and from that, Roger Taylor and Lizana Pierce asked me, would I be interested in taking some of our expertise and working across the country and in Alaska with tribes, and with other entities that serve tribes, like utilities, and trying to distill some of that information, particularly in the areas that we work and we have expertise, which is: How do these business deals come together? How do tribes actually negotiate their way through having a valuable resource but putting it into economic use? And at the same time protecting their interests, meaning their fiscal resources, their objectives for economic development, serving their people, making sure that people who are underserved in electricity and other forms of utility functions get service, and also try to keep cost down and improve the quality of life for tribes.
So that's how I got involved in it, and it's really been one of the most rewarding and interesting things I have done. The Department of Energy's mission and function really is a good fit with where tribes want to be and making a good, wise use of their both renewable and fossil fuel resources, and doing it not just for an economic development play, but to achieve what they are setting out to with their governments, which is keeping people employed, building the capacity that tribes need to actually manage these resources over time and having a long term stewardship and vision for where the resources are and how they are developed.
And there has been a concerted effort that I've been engaged in, that the Department of Energy has been engaged in, with all the federal partnership and the tribes over the last 20 years to see what pieces of that system can either be fixed or done away with so that tribes can have greater control over their resources and allow the tribes to manage them responsibly because that's exactly what they want to do.
Tribes are in a fairly unique position with renewable energy or clean energy projects, partly because the goal of having clean energy is a very good fit with a lot of the mission of the tribal government and the tribal people to improve their quality of life, make the best use of the resources they have, but also try to get an economic foothold in both serving their own communities and competing in the larger markets. It's actually a great opportunity, and that stems in part from the fact that there are vast renewable resources on tribal lands.
Tribes have a huge wealth of resources, but their own communities and their own vision of how they want to develop those resources. And often times, what that means is going slow, and saving both time and energy and the resource for the right time, the right type of development, and I think that's often very smart, because it's not just the current generation that benefits from that. I think that vision we could all learn from, from tribal America, as we look at our energy resources.
The level of sophistication that tribes have now of the business transactions, the ability to assess their resources, knowing when they need weatherization or knowing when they need technical assistance, is really phenomenal. Fifteen years ago, the conversation was much different. So, one of the things we need to keep our eye on is continuing that level of delivery of service because it will produce results. It will put energy for all Americans to work, and it will also strengthen the tribal economies and their communities.