James Jensen: Welcome to everyone. I’m James Jensen. Today’s webinar chair. I am a contractor supporting the office of Indian Energy policy and program’s Tribal Energy Webinar Series. Today’s webinar, titled Federal Resources and Collaboration Supporting Indian Energy Development is the seventh webinar of the 2019 DOE Tribal Energy webinar series. Let’s go over some event details. Today’s webinar is being recorded and will be made available on DOE’s office of Indian Energy Policy and Programs Website in about one week. Copies of today’s Power Point presentations will be posted to the web shortly after this webinar. Everyone will receive a post-webinar e-mail with a link to the page where the slides and recording will be located. Because we’re recording this webinar, all phones have been muted.
We’ll answer your written questions at the end of the final presentation. You can submit a question at any time by clicking on the question button located in the webinar control box on your screen and type in your question. Let’s get started with opening remarks by Lizana Pierce. Ms. Pierce is senior engineer and deployment supervisor in the office of Indian Energy Policy and Programs to be stationed in Golden, Colorado. Lizana is responsible for managing technical assistant and education and outreach activities on behalf of the office. Implementing national funding opportunities and administering the result in tribal energy project grants and agreements.
She has 25 years of experience in project development and management and has been assisting tribes in developing their energy resources for nearly 20 years. She holds a bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering from Colorado State University and pursued a masters in business administration through the University of Northern Colorado. Lizana, the virtual floor is now yours.
Lizana Pierce: Thank you, James, and hello everyone. I join James in welcoming you to the seventh webinar of the 2019 series. This webinar series of sponsored by the Office of Indian Energy Policy and Programs, otherwise referred to as the Office of Indian Energy for short. The Office of Indian Energy directs us and coordinates and implements energy planning, education, management, and programs that assist tribes with energy development, capacity building, energy infrastructure, energy costs, and electrification of Indian lands and homes. To provide this assistance, our deployment program works with the Department of Energy across government agencies and with Indian tribes and organizations to help Indian tribes and Alaska native villages overcome the barriers to energy development.
Our deployment program is composed of a three-prong approach consisting of financial assistance, technical assistance, and education and capacity building. This tribal energy webinar series is just one example of our education capacity building efforts. This webinar series is also part of the Office of Indian Energy’s efforts to support fiscally responsible energy business and economic development decision making and information sharing amongst tribes. It is intended to provide attendees with information on tools and resources to develop and implement tribal energy plans, programs, and projects, highlight tribal energy case studies, and identify business strategies tribes can use to expand their energy options and develop sustainable local economies.
In addition to the Office of Indian Energy, the federal government has other offices and departments that supply resources and assistance to tribes looking to pursue energy and/or development opportunities on their land. We’ve invited two of these organizations to join us today. The Department of Interior _____ of Energy and Mineral Development and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Indian Energy Service Center. We’ve entered into agreements with folks of these organizations to coordinate and leverage our individual resources to better serve Indian countries.
Today, you’ll hear more about each of the organizations and resources that might be useful to you in your energy development. We expect to have ample time following the presentation from senior staff from each organization for questions. So please take this opportunity to better understand what assistance is available and get answers to any questions you might have. We hope this webinar and the webinar series is useful to you. We also welcome your feedback. So please let us know if there are ways we can make the series better.
Before I turn it back over to James, I also wanted to take the time to thank our planning committee for giving us our time to help us plan and execute the webinar series. Each member brings a different perspective and a wealth of experience, and I for one cannot thank them enough for this participation and input. With that, I’ll turn the virtual floor back over to James.
James Jensen: Thank you, Lizana. Before we get the presentations, I’ll introduce all of today’s presenters. From our first presenter, we’ll hear from Ms. Lizana Pierce who has already been introduced and just spoke. Following Ms. Pierce, we’ll hear from Stephen Manydeeds. Mr. Manydeeds is chief division of energy and mineral development US Department of Interior Assistant Secretary Indian Affairs. He oversees a unique federal office responsible for all energy and mineral activity in the _____ land nationwide. The office has a longstanding commitment to identify tribal needs and how they best fit with their long-term desires and to help tribes maximize their resource potential to whatever extent they want. Mr. Manydeeds is a geologist and an enrolled member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. He has over 35 years of experience performing geologic and economic studies of energy and mineral resources on nearly all western US reservations.
Following Mr. Manydeeds, we hope to have a presentation from Johnna Blackhair. Unfortunately at this time, we’re having some technical difficulties on getting her connected. If we are able to connect, she’ll be our final presenter, and we’ll introduce her at that time. We apologize to the audience if we aren’t able to bring that presentation to you today. What we might be able to do is post her slides regardless, and you’ll have access to those on the website along with the others. Thanks to each of our presenters for making the time to join us today. With that, let’s get started with our first presentation. Ms. Pierce, please proceed once your slides are up.
Lizana Pierce: Thank you, James. Hello everyone, and again, thanks for joining us on today’s webinar. First, I’d like to say that Dr. Floss is unable to attend and present today as he had planned. He sends his regrets. As James said, my name is Lizana Pierce, and I’m the deployment supervisor of the Office of Indian Energy Policy and Programs and will be presenting on behalf of the office today. Today, our topic is federal resources and collaborations supporting Indian energy development. What we hope to share today is that there are a number of federal resources available for Indian countries to build _____ capacity and for energy development.
We’ll also discuss how DOE and Department of Interior are partnering to better serve Indian country. Next slide, please. As many may not be familiar with the department, I wanted to provide a brief introduction. The mission is to ensure America’s security and prosperity by addressing energy, environmental, and nuclear challenges through transformative science and technology solutions. Next slide, please.
The Office of Indian Energy is one of about a dozen ______ secretary ______ offices and departments. Next slide, please. The offices authorized under the energy policy act of 2005, which is funded and officially established in January of 2011. The office is charged by congress to promote Indian energy development, efficiency, and use, reduce or stabilize energy costs, enhance and strengthen Indian tribal and economic infrastructure, and to bring electric power and services to Indian lands and homes. Next slide please.
The statute also provides broad latitude to the director to establish programs, including offering grants on the competitive basis for energy development. And I’ll just pause here a moment and allow you to read the slide. Next slide, please. I want to start by briefly sharing some information on the Office of Energy. Our mission is to maximize the development and deployment of strategic energy solutions that benefit tribal communities by providing American Indians and Alaska natives with the knowledge, skills, and resources to implement successful strategic energy solutions, and we have a few of the projects that the offices co-funded, highlighted in a collage to the right.
Specifically Seneca Nation in New York in the upper right installed 1.5 megawatt wind turbine. The council has_____ Tribal government and _____ together installed the BioMass _____ Power System in Fort Yukon, Alaska that provides heat to some of the buildings within the community as shown in the lower right. At the bottom left is a picture of ______ where they installed energy efficiency measures. Continuing clockwise, you have the Sokoggon _____ Community Housing Project, and finally in the upper left corner, a solar photo update installation on the low income home on the Rocky Boy Reservation.
Next slide, please. To achieve its vision, the Office of Indian Energy offers competitive grants, technical assistance, and education and capacity building to assist in funding Indian tribes, including Alaska native villages in overcoming unique regulatory and economic challenges to developing their last energy resources. Next slide, please.
With respect to financial assistance, between 2010 and 2019, the office has invested nearly 85 million in more than 180 tribal energy projects valued at over $180 million. Significant investments that yield tangible results. In fact, in fiscal year 2019 alone, we awarded _____ new grant reviews, expected to result in 19 megawatts of new generation and to save those communities nearly $260 million over the life of those installed systems.
Next slide, please. To learn more about any of those projects, their website which has the project database interactive map, a summary of each and every project and highlights project successes. Next slide, please. On this slide, you’ll see the funding history for the grant funding, which is averaged about 8.4 million per year. In fiscal year 2013, those funds were carried over and awards were made in 2014. Next slide, please.
Which leads us to our next funding opportunity. At the National Tribal Energy Summit held this past month in Washington, DC, we announced a notice of intent to issue another funding opportunity soliciting applications for energy infrastructure deployment projects on tribal lands. Our funding opportunities are intended to promote energy independence and economic development with the ancillary benefits of providing employment on tribal lands with the use of commercial warranted energy technologies. Native Americans, Alaska Natives will do their best to meet their needs, their location, and their available energy resources.
As such, consistent with the principles of tribal sovereignty and self-determination and within all of the above energy strategies, projects brought under the plan total will be fuel and technology neutral. If you are familiar with the past funding opportunities, you’ll notice the topic area one is focused on facility scales energy generation and energy efficiency measures. Topic area two is directed towards community scale energy generation projects. And topic area three for integrated energy systems to power essential tribal buildings during emergency situations or for community resiliency.
However, you’ll also notice the addition of community energy storage under topic area two, and the addition of a topic area four, which is focused on electrified tribal buildings. The funding opportunity announcement is expected to be issued October or November, so please keep an eye on the website or sign up for our ListServ to be notified when it’s issued. Next slide, please.
It’s worth noting that our funding opportunities are competitive, and for deployment grants, the projects are intended to be _____. Over 600 applications we have received since 2010, we’ve funded 95 percent of meritorious applications and funded roughly 30 percent of all applications received, which I believe is relatively high percentage, especially with only $8.4 million a year on average. Next slide, please.
Just to highlight some of the tribal successes collected through the competitive process and co-funded by the Office of Indian Energy, starting on the top right, Seneca Nation’s 1.5 megawatt wind turbine installed in 2017 as I mentioned before. On the lower right, a solar _____ system installed in a home on the Rosebud reservation in 2016. Clockwise, you’ll see the Chaninik Wind Group formed in 2005 serving four tribal communities in Southwest Alaska who use the DOE office of Indian Energy Funding to install thermal stove in 2013 or use – use excess wind energy to provide heat to homes in this community.
On the lower left, 1.3 megawatt solar home ______ in 2017 by the Southern ______ Indian Tribe in Colorado. In the upper left, the ______ tribal council who installed a community scaled biomass project to heat their community buildings in 2018. And the top ______ who implemented energy efficiency measures in 2013 to save energy. Next slide, please.
The office also provides technical assistance. The goal of the technical assistance is to address the specific challenge or fulfill a need that is essential to a current project’s successful implementation. The intended result of this technical assistance is a tangible product or specific deliverable designed to help move a project forward.
Next slide, please. Taking a deeper look at the technical assistance offerings which is also on our website, you can see what type of technical assistance my best _____ community or your project depending on where in the process of development you are. To request technical assistance at no cost to you, an authorized tribal representative can go to the website, review the options we offer and submit a simple request through the website. Knowledge and informed decision making is critical to project development. Next slide, please.
I also wanted to highlight some of the informational resources. We have an energy resource library that provides tremendous amounts of information and documentation that might be of interest to you. Additionally, we have a curriculum which has both foundational and advanced courses, and we also hold workshops and webinars, which this is an example. Next slide, please. I also wanted to bring to your attention some of the research that has been done. One, that’s identifying the various barriers and pathways for renewable energy development, solar energy prospecting in remote Alaska, tribal energy system vulnerabilities to climate change in extreme weather. There’s a Venetie assessment as well as the geospatial analysis which was sort of the crux for Tribal Energy ______. And then financing opportunities for renewable energy development in Alaska. Next slide, please.
The Tribal Energy Atlas was developed – funded by the Office of Indian Energy and Developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. To the best of our knowledge, it’s the first of its kind, interactive geospatial application for the _____ tribes to conduct their own analysis of installed energy projects and resource potential on tribal land. Next slide, please. To stay up to date on energy issues affecting Indian countries, ICEIWG, or the Indian Country Energy and Infrastructure Working Group was formed to inform and advise our office. The purpose of ICEIWG is to bring government and tribal leaders together to collaborate and gain insight into real time tribal experiences, representing obstacles and opportunities in energy related infrastructure development in capacity building in Indian country.
Delegates at the working group are selected by the director based on the charter which requires that all members be elected officials, tribal governments, or they’re _____ employees with the authority to act on their behalf. Federally recognized tribes actively conducting eligible energy development activities. ICEWIG is composed of a diverse group of Indian tribes to last ______ tribal leaders and to guide policy and program prior to _____ and long-term statute related to energy and infrastructure development on tribal land.
You can find out more about ICEWIG on our website. Next slide, please. This is a short overview of some of the resources available to tribes from our office. We always want to convey that we are here to partner with tribes in tribal _____ and to assist you in achieving your energy visions. Next slide, please.
Along with the other presenters on this webinar, we formed a memorandum of understanding an MOU as our office is working together to provide better service to Indian country. The MOU indicates – includes sharing knowledge and exchanging information, facilitating training and services, and training to contracts and other agreements and conducting activities that _____ participants. The MOU initially between DOE’s office of Indian Energy and DOI’s office of Indian Energy and Economic Development was signed in 2016, and this past year DOI’s Indian Energy Service Center joined our MOU. Next slide, please.
And finally, I’d like to bring to your attention our annual program review. The program review features project status updates from tribes across the nation who are leveraging office of Indian Energy grant funding to deploy in the energy technologies or initiate the first steps to energy development. Due to the widespread interest in energy development, however, we’ve opened up the review to all of Indian country. So if you’re interested and choose to join us to this unique forum to be held the week of November 18 in Lakewood, Colorado. To register or to learn more, see our website at the link at the bottom of the slide. Next slide, please.
I want to thank you all for your interest and for your attention, and I’ll now turn it over to our other presenters. But I’ll be available after all the presentations to answer any questions. Thank you.
James Jensen: Thank you, Lizana. Excellent presentation and a lot of good content there for our tribal audience to know about. Next, we have Stephen Manydeeds. It looks like your slides are up, Steve, so go ahead.
Stephen Manydeeds: Yeah, thank you very much. I appreciate it. Lizana talked about a lot of things that we work together closely on, and I want to emphasize again that we work very closely with DOE and their energy commitments, and we’re really excited about working with them. Next slide, please. You can see that our slide – our mission statement is very much in line with what Lizana has and what DOE has, and basically the goal of us is to provide the best technical advice to our Indian land owners. The goal here is that we are not – we’re a voluntary group. You don’t have to use us. You can use whoever you want to have. Free to Indian landowners.
So if you want to use us, that’s great. If you don’t want to use us, that’s great also. We support the tribes in whatever they decide. Really what’s critical in this whole thing is that we’re not a regulatory group at all. We are very much an economic development group, and we support whatever the tribe chooses to do with its energy resources, whether they develop them or not. Next slide, please.
As you can see, we’re very much like Lizana, we have a bunch of laws and regulations that we’re under, and these are just some of them. Next slide, please. The one that’s really critical in here is to take a look at what the ’82 Act – Mineral Development Act of 1982, which says that the secretary shall ensure upon request that the Indian Tribe or individual Indian to the extent of their available resources to provide them available advice, assistance, and information during any kind of negotiation or development of their energy minerals. Minerals energy being part was considered part of the minerals. The 82 Act says that we’re going to develop grants to help you guys, to help tribes get to that point. So I want to make this clear. This is not just for Indian tribes, but this is also for individuals that are – that are interested in developing their energy. Okay? Next slide, please.
The Department of Interior has a bunch of priorities that they set out, and here are some of the priorities that we’re supporting, that we are – that again, sustainable development of the tribe’s resources. We want to make sure a tribe does get into developing the resources, whatever they choose. We try to make this as sustainable as possible. We try to make sure that tribe sovereignty is adhered to, and we try to strike a regulatory balance. That is going to be more talked about later on by the Indian Service Center. We’re also very much about tribes maximizing. If a tribe does decide to develop their energy and mineral resources, we recognize that in some cases, these are depletable resources and we want to maximize the return for the tribe – that the tribe gets for those resources.
So if they do decide to develop something, that they get the full value for these resources. Next slide, please. You kind of see where we stand in that, and where we want to go – when you go into this. So a tribe may come to us and say, “We’re thinking about developing resources. What can you do to help us?” We really sit down and at this point in time, really lay out a plan. What are you trying to accomplish? Often it has nothing to do with developing energy resources. It’s well, we’re concerned about the high cost of heating for our people, we’re concerned about employment, we want to try to maximize employment on our reservation, we’re concerned about economic development, we want to make sure our tribal sovereignty is adhered to, and we are trying to make sure whatever we suggest really fits in with what the tribe wants to do.
So we sort of do when we tell all of our tribes that when we sit down and look at their resources, really it’s a toolbox, and not one thing is going to magically cure all the things that they want to accomplish. It’s usually a combination of different things that make it work, and I guess the best example I can give is if you go to a carpenter and ask him to make a bookcase for you. And you look over and the only thing you see in his tool desk is a saw, you’re going to start to wonder whether or not you’re going to get a good bookcase out of that or not. You take a look and see all the tools available to him, then that is what we’re trying to make clear to you. You have a bunch of tools available to you. What are these tools and how can we help you get to this point? And then in some cases, you want to go forward and want to talk about how you can develop this, and again, it may be that you want to get outside partners, you want to do it yourself, you want to do a joint venture. What exactly do you want to do? And in some cases, they want to either do a joint venture or if they want to negotiate with – they want to lease it out, we can sit down and sit at the table behind them, helping and assisting the tribe in negotiating, the same thing with ______.
Once it’s all signed, that is when the service center kicks in, and they get very involved. Next slide, please. So we’re kind of unique. Basically, all the senior staff here have come from the private sector, so we’re very much attuned to the private sector. We’re not a regulatory office. We’re almost everybody here with the exception of a few administrative staff are scientists, engineers, geologists, marketers, economists, have MBAs, and we look at it from that standpoint of how do we help you develop your resources so that is sustainable so that when we – when the government walks away, it stands on their two legs and it’s running forever.
We cover a spectrum. We go all the way from oil and gas, coal, all the renewable energy resources, but also we also include sand and gravel because again, whenever build anything on a reservation, you sort of need sand and gravel. So we look at other resources. We’re very much hands on. There’s about 80 of us here in this office, and we work on – with all the tribes. As much as you want us to work on it, we sort of view ourselves as for lack of a – sort of picture that you’re going out and you’re going to remodel your kitchen. If you’re remodeling your kitchen, you sort of have a vision of what you want it to look like, what the cabinets are going to be, what the counter top should be, what kind of appliances you want to put into it.
Then you go out and hire a general contractor and tell them what you sort of have a vision, and he makes suggestions to you what he can do, and you give him the job. He makes sure everything is done at the right way at the right time. So for instance, you want to have the demo guys to come in first, and maybe you want to come in and do the electrician, electricians come in, the plumbers specialize things that you can’t do.
And you want the plumbers to come in at the right time. Certainly the cabinets, the dry wallers, all the things that are at the right time so at the end of the day, your vision is realized. Here’s your vision at the end of the day. Certainly would be terrible if you did all the work and then said, “Oh my gosh, we’ve got to tear everything out, and got to now put in – got to work on the electrician type stuff.”
So this is our goal is serve as general contractors to the tribes interested in working with us. Next slide, please. This is the reason why it’s really important why you want to look at this. This is economic activity on Indian lands for 2018. This is last year. And as you can see, almost 70 percent of all energy activity on Indian lands is energy related. And I will point out that this does not include renewable energy, which at the time in 2017, they sort of looked at that and said, “Well it’s about $100 million added value,” and about so many jobs. This is really understating the problem because they didn’t include some of the things like for instance the _____ dam up in Flathead where the tribe owns the dam and certainly gets a significant amount of revenue from that.
There’s several other tribes that have dams that are operated. It didn’t include, for instance, the Moapa reservation. A lot of the tribes have installed their solar panels and certainly other renewable energy projects throughout Indian country. These aren’t really covered, and the reason for that is they’re not reported to the federal government, they’re not a trust asset. So the federal government really doesn’t care that much, but I want to point out even with that, even with the little thing, it outstrips timber by a lot.
Okay? It’s still a big value that we have to look at for the whole – for everything. Next slide, please. And so the question has to be asked are we successful doing what we’re doing? And that’s – this slide shows you what has happened. When we’re passive – and this is the office prior to 2004, basically what the office did was simply saying okay, we did a report, here it is, God speed, hope you can develop something, and you can look at the amount of revenue it got from energy and minerals in Indian country.
And again, you can go online and find all this information by yourself. But when we sort of took a proactive, we started working for the tribes, when we sat down with the tribes and asked them what were you trying to commit, what are you trying to get after, you can see the growth of the tribes. Tribes really took this stuff to heart. And basically, you know, our tribes have a tremendous vision on what they want to have happen.
The problem is they probably don’t – often, they don’t have the technical expertise that’s available to them. If we can provide that technical expertise to their vision of what they want to accomplish, you can see that they’ve really taken off on the revenue stream for the tribes. Next slide, please. And again, this sort of points out – again, this is an example of oil and gas where again, the tribes because they’ve gotten – again, they have a vision, the very good negotiators, but you can’t negotiate if you don’t have good information at your disposal.
This is us giving the tribe really good information. You can see they basically helped strip the BLM. The red line is BLM lands on shore. Basically, it’s about I want to say about 11 and a half percent return for their – for oil and gas, whereas the tribes gets a much bigger return for their oil and gas. So they get – they get – they’re maximizing the value for their resources. So again, just sort of give you a point that this approach that we’re having seems to be working very well. Next slide.
As you can see, we’re active on about 230 different projects on about 150 different reservations, and we’re all over the place. Some of them are mineral sand and gravel projects. A lot of these are renewable energy projects. As you can see, we have about 83 renewable energy projects around Indian country, about 17 oil and gas projects. The TVC which is our tribal energy capacity, development capacity program where tribes are looking at getting into utilities, that’s been taking off also, and we’re active in about 16 reservations out there, and that’s one thing a lot of people don’t realize is that on Indian lands, Indian lands – we estimate about eight to ten billion dollars of electricity every year.
Again, that’s a lot of money should the tribe look at getting into that revenue or not. Next slide, please.
And so this is kind of what we – this is our steps of how we develop strategies for you, working with the tribe. Looking at it, capacity building, business development plan. It is a lot more than just looking at a resource and saying, “Yes indeed, you have wind resources, you have solar resources, you have biomass resources.” It also goes into sitting down and saying if you want to do that, how should you develop these resources?” How should you also build up with planning on this whole thing? It makes no sense whatsoever to go into a piece of property and look at your land and simply say, “We’re just going to log all the trees.”
Really you have to plan, and we really emphasize planning for the tribes. If you’re going to develop your resources, please do it in an environmentally sensitive manner so it’s done so you look at it. We’ve seen very often where tribes have developed sand and gravel pits next to a school. The question is why did you do that. The answer is it looked like it was easy to get to. Mining heavy industry right next to a bunch of elementary school kids, this is not a good mix. And so we try to emphasize that. Perhaps this is not a good idea, and maybe find other places for you.
Next slide, please. This sort of goes through and tells you all the programs we have. Certainly technical assistance is just available, just simply a call saying hey, we’d like help, and give us an idea, and we can certainly sit down and start that whole process. We have a program in which we hand out funding to help tribes assess and promote development of tribal resources. Again, it’s energy resources. We have a huge renewable energy program here that we really work hard on. Energy – tribal energy development capacity program in which we’re helping tribes think about, manage, and organize their technical capability for their energy resources. Kind of emphasize on that one again.
Some of this is very simple, but you’re sort of looking and saying, “How are we using energy and what are we using it for,” to all the way where you think you want to take over a utility. And then NIOGEMS is a computer program that we have that is available for tribes and for agency – tribal agency people to sit down and help manage their resources. It allows all this information to be put out in a graphical sequence. Okay?
Like Lizana, we hand out money, and every year we don’t – we can’t – we have a limited amount of money, about $6 million, but you can see tribes really do want to develop their energy and mineral resources. It’s not just – and the vast majorities are again renewable energy projects. And so the tribes definitely want to develop a resource, and it’s unfortunate we can’t help out all the tribes that want the money. Next slide, please.
And so what I’ll talk real quick about is on our ongoing projects here within that, and again, it’s sort of oil and gas where we’re looking at for oil and gas, we sort of look at there’s about 44 tribes that do have oil and gas. And what we do there is look at all the tribes and we sort of say okay, what is the breakeven price for developing oil and gas on your property on reservation lands.
And we go back to the tribe and let them know about that so they can make a management decision whether they want to develop it or not develop it. It’s up to them. Okay? With solid minerals, we talked about how for roads, 80 percent of all roads on Indian lands are sand and gravel, and you know that the _____ lands and you can’t have economic development unless you have good roads. And we kind of support that. We’re kind of looking at renewable energy, again, from the standpoint of what is the – what are you trying to – what’s the problem you’re trying to solve, and how can we use renewable energy to help solve that problem.
We’re also trying to reignite a program in which we have a training, which it’s usually about a two-to-three day long training in which we bring and go to the tribe and give them, for instance, if they wanted to develop let’s just say sand and gravel, how would you do good management of sand and gravel? What would be a good thing to do? If you’re going to do it, what’s the right way to do it, making sure you know how to say – claim it, how to mine it, how to claim it, how to look at it from that standpoint.
So you don’t end up with a hole in the ground. At like Lizana, we’re very proud of our relationship with DOE. We have had a great relationship with them as far as letting us know what’s going on and all, and that’s just been great. Next slide please. I get ahead of myself, so next slide, please.
This is the TEDC, the energy capacity – again, we inherited this program in 2015, and you can see tribes are really interested in developing it. Next slide. And so the thing we look at is what kind of infrastructure you have for business developing, looking at tribal codes, looking at how you should organize your business and all under this. Next slide please. This really does get to what we’re talking about when we look at that, and understanding – because again, you can look at it and say it’s a passive – you pay the bill.
We’re asking for our capacity, you can actually start looking at your bill and figuring out what’s happening and where you’re spending it. Some of it is fairly straightforward. One of the success stories, if you want, is a tribe in New Mexico discovered just by switching watering – they watered their golf course at 2:00 in the afternoon by switching it to 2:00 in the morning. They saved $40,000 in electrical bills. Just because at nighttime, that’s a lower electrical cost. And just by doing that, not changing the watering schedule, just moving it back 12 hours, it had a radical change, which is a great thing to have happen.
Looking at engaging and how you look at it, what’s important to you. You know, if you have a casino, how can you manage your casino? We found one casino that had three meters on it, and why would you have three meters? Well they had three expansions, and every time they had an expansion, electrical company simply put another meter on it. That was leading to triple billing, and they’ve been able to sell that. And do they want to get into an energy project and looking at it? So that’s something that again, when you get into this, you build up your capacity, start looking at things you may want to take over or not take over.
Again, when you look at it – we’ve had one reservation, looked at it, said, “Oh my gosh, the rights of ways for the power line is – has expired,” and they use that as negotiating ability to get access to a substation so they can put a big solar farm onto it. That’s something that sort of gives you an idea of the different things that can be done when you look at your energy – development and capacity grants. Next slide please.
This sort of gives an idea when you look at tribal utility what you’re trying to do, maintain the status quo, going all the way to own the whole tribal utility, how much money you’re kind of looking at, potential savings, the kind of things and benefits and potential risks associated with it. This is a busy slide, so I’m really hopeful when we put this out there, you guys can take your time and leisure and sort of look at all the different things. Again, that’s sort of what this tribe wanted to accomplish. Where does it want to go?
I mean does it really want to own the poles and wires, or is it good enough to just simply have it outsourced, or is it just controlling the power supply? They wanted to get into biomass or they want to go into a big solar farm, they just want the utility and they just want to sell it to the utility? What do they want to accomplish? So sort of a lot of different options that are available to you. Next slide, please.
That’s all that I have. Here are the two people – myself listed on top, Winter is also available. Here is our numbers, here’s our e-mails. Please let us know how we can help you. We’re excited about this. We’ve got a bunch of people really excited about helping tribes and working with tribes, so we really look forward to hearing from you. So that’s it for me.
James Jensen: Thanks, Steve. I appreciate the presentation. A lot of good stuff there as well. I am pleased to announce we appear to have Johnna on and available. Hopefully the audio works, but we’ve got her slides up, and Johnna you can get started in a moment as soon as I’m done here. I just want to remind everyone we’re going to take all questions at the end. We do have a few questions that have come in, but please continue to submit those questions, and I’ll direct them to our panel after Johnna’s presentation. Ms. Blackhair, I didn’t introduce you all at the beginning, so please take a moment and introduce yourself before you get started. Thank you.
Johnna Blackhair: Thank you. Thank you to those coordinators of this opportunity to introduce the Indian Energy Service Center. My name is Johnna Blackhair. I’m an enrolled member of the Chippewa _____ Tribe in Montana. I’ve worked for the Bureau of Indian Affairs for 28 years. Prior to being full time, I worked on what we had called a seed program at the agency. So while I was in high school, I worked for the superintendent. My tribe is a sub-governance tribe, so had a lot of teasing about why I worked for the Bureau of Indian Affairs in high school and felt I could do a lot of good while I was inside of BIA.
And fully understanding and knowing the ability of our tribe to be self-governed and participating in self-governance and Indian self determination. I’ve worked primarily with energy tribes from the UN Sonora Agency. I was a legal liaison for the tribal council there before I came to be an employee with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and then I worked for a short time for the Penzoil refinery as it was being decommissioned. And came back to Bureau of Indian Affairs in the Natural Resource Department where I worked with the range and wild land programs.
And then applied and became the realty specialist, realty officer, acting superintendent off and on for 12 years. Before I went to the Southwest Regional Office as a regional realty officer where I oversaw and was acting regional director from time to time, was the superintendent at Maslero. Went to the Eastern Region to gain more knowledge and understanding of how I could support Indian self-determination and self-governance from the eastern region standpoint of the east coast tribe being predominantly Indian self determination tribes, and came here last January on a detail as the associate deputy bureau director.
At that point in time, there were four vacancies in central office, and I covered budget, the associate position, the acting deputy from time to time, and then eventually applied to the job and came on full time in September. So with that, I think taking a look at the Power Point presentation, I don’t want to get into too much more detail about myself. I want to get into the material and how we can help expedite and provide some services to Indian country, and in a manner so the Indian Energy Service Center can provide. I’ll give you a little bit of background. Go to the next slide.
So the key contacts are identified here on this slide. For me in the office of trust services, we are comprised of 149 full-time central office employees located in Washington, DC, Albuquerque, New Mexico, Lakewood, Colorado, and Boise, Idaho. We have the responsibility of all headquarter activities associated with the management protection of trust and restricted lands, real estate services, natural resources, water, forestry, wild land fire, environmental and cultural resources.
The BIA museum and artifacts. We also are provide coordination related to services for Indian trust owners and tribes, including acquisitions, disposal, _____, leasing and sales, and assist land owners and tribes in the management of their resources and the development of those resources, and the protection of those resources and those test assets.
The trust administration statistics comprised of 55.8 million surface acres, 58.9 million mineral acres. Forested acres are 18.7 million acres dedicated to props and livestock, and agriculture use is 46 million in 35 states. Darryl LaCounte is the director. He became the full-time director in April of this year, and like I said, I became the deputy bureau director September 15 of this year. Dawn Selwyn is the acting associate deputy bureau director for land management, and she’s located in Albuquerque. Carla Clark is the acting director at the Indian Energy Service Center, and we have Yvette Smith as the acting deputy director for the Indian Energy Service Center. Jim Wood is the branch manager for BLM.
At the Indian Energy Service Center, we have our operations centrally located in Lakewood, Colorado. Next slide. The Indian Energy Service Center is a multi-agency collaboration between BIA, BLM, ONRR, and OST. Our mission is to expedite Indian oil and gas activity, standardize processes, and provide a multiple disciplinary engagement to support Indian energy, renewable energy, and mineral development activities to better serve Indian beneficiaries and tribes. The Indian Energy Service Center is a nationwide inter-bureau office composed of elements of all of these agencies, including OST, BIA, BLM, and ONRR.
Each of these offices serve active and extensive roles in the Indian Energy and mineral development process. The service center has a critical role in facilitating this business process in a standardized and streamlined fashion, such as interior meetings with its ongoing Indian trust responsibility with most cost effective and most streamlined efficiencies in mind.
Taking a look at our roles and responsibilities, regarding their backgrounds, so the backgrounds, we’ve showed here in this slide regarding oil and gas activities and the need to create such an office because of the significant backlogs in the various processes defined in our standard operating procedures, go to the next slide, please.
The federal partnerships identified here are to resolve issues that impede oil and gas development and to expedite trust functions. The Indian Energy Service Center is collocated with all of these entities, except for OST, the Office Of Special Trustee participates by supporting our mission, our goals and objectives, and the ability to coordinate the revenue to the individual Indian owners with our support from ONRR. Go to the next slide.
Again, these are federal partnerships. You’ll find with our logos on the top, Darryl LaCounte is the director of the bureau of Indian affairs, William Pendley is the director for the Bureau of Land Management, Greg Gould for ONRR, Jerry Gidner for OST. IESC standard operating procedures and training is something that they conduct. We’ve been trying to make sure we’re reaching the employees in a manner that would be conducive to them taking on our realty functions, our programs, or just quarterly, annually, semi-annually.
And on this slide, I’m not sure if you can link from the slide, but you can register for any of these trainings through DOI Talent. For this call, I’d like to go into a little bit more about what DOE has been able to provide in our working, coordination an opportunity to further advance in person events and online resources such as this webinar. And in an effort to support and build internal capacity needed to implement successful strategies or strategic plans that tribes may have to develop their resources. IED, they assist tribes with exploration development management of their energy and mineral resources. Their ultimate goal is creating jobs and sustainable energy economic and tribal opportunities, such as tribes and creating an environment of progress through training, business planning, expert consultation, mineral evaluation, providing Indian loan guarantee programs to facilitate and access capital and loan financing for Indians.
And again, the Indian Energy Service Center support and streamline interiors Indian energy development business process. So the service center is primarily a transactional office of support. The trust function and the field offices across the country. They manage all types of Indian Energy and renewable transactions within our internal system, our trust asset account management system.
As you can see, we have the Indian Energy steering committee. This committee has been in place since the early to mid ‘80s. The Indian Energy Service Center concept has been something that was supported by all of our federal partners to ensure that we can expedite and streamline processes as well as accomplish clearing out any of the backlogs at the local offices. We found that through strategic workforce plan, we’ve last year developed the office trust services the tribal land bases and tribal staff and personnel and BIA staff and personnel sometimes struggle to have full time employees out in locations that are remote or hard to fill, or the cost of living may be too high.
There’s 57 percent of BIA’s workforce is focused on trust related positions, trust related transactions. The necessary need for our federal partners to come to identify where those particular workforce issues might hinder development in oil and gas, or renewable energy. And it was a responsibility and an assignment of mine to develop the strategic workforce plan to advance and identify some opportunities for Indian country.
The Executive Management Group is also identified on this slide, and there’ll be an opportunity for us to come together, again, in December of this year to start to prioritize some of the workload activity for each of our federal partners and identify what our 2020 priorities will be to start working for further supporting and assisting the local level and regional offices to advance energy development in Indian country. Go to the next slide please.
This is the current staff at the service center. We have the acting director at the top as Carla Clark, and then our branch chief for each of our federal partners. To the left is BIA Albert Lawn. He’s a realty branch manager, and those are his employees. We have those in orange there filled, the light, the positions to be filled, and the white is vacant. So as you can see, we’re staffing up the service center to accommodate the requests and the volume and workflow that is coming in as we stand up to Indian Energy Service Center.
Next here is Jim Wood with BLM. We have Yvette Smith with ONRR, and then we have a supervisory trust specialist. This position with OST, we’re including it here so that we can have direct support to Indian Energy through OST and having them engaged in our day-to-day operation. And the far right is Carla in the administrative arm of the Indian Energy Service Center, the deputy director for the service center. Go to the next slide.
Currently, we have 12 employees for BIA, eight for BLM, six for ONRR. As we can see, these are the positions and this is available on the right hand column. Next slide please. These are the federal charters that are in place, and our federal charters are local federal partners meetings that happen – work with on the ground working relationships that the Indian Energy Service Center is involved or aware of the local issues so we can support any of the leases or communitization agreements, the _____ survey updates, ownership, regulatory, streamlining. Any type of training they might need. Charter updates, outreach to mineral owners.
Our service center is meant to not only support tribes, but also to support Indian _____ and leases that agencies like the _____ agency, _____ agency, or any of the offices in Oklahoma and Texas might have with individual allotees. The service center is in support of many of those local activities, and those types of manner. And since I’ve been involved in energy and my entire career, basically, we’ve always had ATV or CA backlogs, and since last – since I started tracking last summer to this spring, the first time in my history that we have not had a TD backlog.
And that means that the application to permit and permits to drill on federal Indian minerals is zero. Next slide. So with our relationships in the activities associated with those relationships at the ______ and regional offices, agencies request for assistance with their current workload, and working with our federal partners at the agency level, the Indian Energy Service Center is able to meet quarterly with our agencies, if not monthly to identify where they might need support and assistance to dispatch any of our employees out to these locations, or else work remotely from Lakewood, Colorado to accomplish goals and objectives of the agencies in those _____. And renewable transactions. Okay, I just heard someone yawn.
I don’t know if someone needs to be on mute, but I think I’m not boring. Or if I’m not talking fast enough, I can talk faster and go through these slides a lot quicker.
James Jensen: You’re fine, Johnna. I apologize that that came through.
Johnna Blackhair: All right. So with state and tribal royalty audit committees, we have our ONRR office staff there engaged with the 202 and 205 tribes that receive funding through our ONRR office in conducting and coordinating those types of activities. With DOE coordination, you’ll see what we’re doing there and how we’re advancing our relationships through these MOUs with those federal partners. We recently were able to get an EPA MOU established and in place as well as army corps of engineers and a few others.
Over the summer, we were able to have some working group coordination with the department. They were very interested in how we coordinate with our tribal partners, our federal partners, and our estate partners to advance Indian energy, and economic opportunities in Indian country. So the interest is there, and the support is there to carry on with building out the Indian Energy Service Center to support tribes and tribal members. You’ll see what has happened with the meeting conferences. Some have been training there, and how active our office has been. Go to the next slide.
And taking a look at what offices are seeking from the Indian energies for support, we find in the BLM Colorado state office that the Southern _____ agency has requested and has received support for environmental impact statements and review of the environmental documents for the Southern Plains region, that Concho and Anadarko and Pawnee agencies. We are working towards online lease sale, and lease management sales support. Fort Berthold appeal language, taking a look at the venting and flaring proposals, lease assignments, investigating and conducting and providing recommendations on trespass, oil and gas rights of way, providing support for approval of the CAs, the communitization agreements that are out there, reviewing bonds, and lease segregations and providing _____ training.
Not only to the agencies, but to the _____ as well as operators that are out there. The BLM has been heavily involved in the North Dakota field office. There’s a list of the things that they’ve been accomplishing and tackling the needs that are provided to them from our federal partners. Likewise with Oklahoma field office and Eastern Oklahoma Regions, and then the U&O Agency.
For the U&O agency, we’re taking into account the need to look at the online lease sale for the expired leases that the service center has identified and working towards getting those for negotiated lease sales or doing an online lease. Go to next slide.
This is more accomplishments regarding the backlogs and the high priority issues that were brought forward by federal partners, but also by our agencies and tribes that are meeting with our service center staff quarterly. It’s a lot to account for. I think the service center has brought a lot of value to ensuring that our federal and mineral resources and renewable resources are not only produced and managed, but also protected. Go to the next slide.
These are the current projects that were brought up during the last meeting we had with our federal partners at the Indian Energy Steering Committee and our activities associated with conventional energy around the country. So we’re Fort Berthold, that previous slide, was a combination of all the activities on this slide. This slide shows more of that direct support and service to these areas. Go ahead and go to the next slide. This is a training component I spoke of earlier.
There’s one class coming up in Albuquerque, the standard operating procedures class. That’ll give an overview of how our federal agencies interact with on-shore energy and mineral lease management activities. It’s a very good session, especially for those agencies or tribes that are not direct service, that are either compacted or contracted to have our tribes and tribal employees understand and know what steps in the process need to be conducted to manage and develop fluid minerals.
Since December 2016, 741 employees have been trained, and that includes everyone interested and anyone involved in Indian Energy Development. We’ve also had some like it shows here, the office of the inspector general, and more recently the GAO office has been participating in the process. Okay, go to the next slide. Oh, let me say something really quick here. Go back. What we’re developing – I’m really into wanting to go virtual and automated and making sure that we can have things in an instant rather than days or weeks or months or years that we train through video modules.
We have – we’re developing on our internet site through BIA, I think it’s the BIA website, the video modules of the standard operating procedures and those will soon be available. And it’s on DIO Talent, but I think just even for a refresher for anyone wanting to understand and know what needs to be done at any point in time of developing energy, you can go to these modules and it would even tell you who to contact, if it would be the responsibility of BLM or OST or BIA – in that particular module for whatever function you’re performing, you’d be able to go to the computer based training and be directed to fulfill those transactions. Go to the next slide.
These are the new initiatives that were identified last year of taking a look at what the Department of Interior priorities are. So we’ve identified them here. Go to the next slide. Department priority number two. Sustainability. This one here is leasing, streamlining, well permitting and development, provide national standards of trainings for processing Indian communitization agreements. We’ve moved forward with enhancing our TAM system so we can track and manage the CAs and the APDs. That’s a goal and objective of mine to make sure that we do this in the system so we can have a point in time and track timing and monitoring the approval process so that we can further streamline and identify where the breakdown might be so we can have online lease sales and the specialized leasing process automated.
So go ahead and go to the next slide. Restore trust and be a good neighbor. So defining that for Indian energy in the service center, these are the points that the service center said that they could do the multi-agency training, developing the SOP, Indian communitization agreement, processing, additional training offerings to tribes and oil and gas operators. They all have the same understanding and under the same process. Increasing transparency of royalty data. So systems training. ONRR has taken on the leads to provide a comprehensive training on various Indian systems and streamlining the process to increase the speed and accuracy for any of the compliance reviews that are handled either by tribes 202 or 205.
And then annual tribal letters, IESC will coordinate annual letters that will go out the tribes to identify their royalties in previous fiscal years and client activity so they can see the trends of the royalties and revenue and furthering the opportunity to manage the resources. Go to the next slide.
So this is – priority four is to ensure tribal sovereignty means something. this is to provide system access for royalty data and – I don’t know if some of you back in the day used to get the floppy drives and then the three by five discs, and it starts coming across electronically. So this monitorization project is coordination with our compliance to be fully electronic. I think the date is 2022. So this is one of those aspects that IESC and ONRR have said they would make that then outreach to begin these on a monthly basis, to navigate the royalty data that is provided by ONRR. Their responsibility. And then further outreach with the allottees, and identifying and explaining the explanation of payments. They’ve hosted a lot of question and answer sessions, and those are the partners that were involved. The fee to trust and trust to fee. Trust acquisitions and disposals. For downstream processing is something that is also begun working on for lease management and title and accounting for compliance systems. So our systems can be automated in an instant rather than having to wait days, weeks, or months or years for that type of –
So go to the next slide. Increase revenue to support department and national interests. So oil and gas production accountability, increase field inspections, venting and flaring, CA reporting, verification pricing, provide for Indian country these types of questions and answers. I think the outreach has been very successful in the local, on site hype sessions as well as with tribal leadership. Currently this week, tribal leadership from – for this quarter, for the Fort Berthold agency and the tribes there at the Lakewood office, and they’re going to this exercise right now. So go to the next slide.
Strike a regulatory balance. So coordinating future role making and related consultations on ONRR activities. So not only with ONRR, but also any of our policies and processes and procedures or handbooks and those things that are ______ that are charged to conduct and perform. We are working towards streamlining categorical exclusions. Identifying the various data that is needed to coordinate and expedite the transactions. Like I said, IESC is the transactional arm of our federal partnership to ensure that tribe of resources are being developed and managed.
Priority number eight, modernize our infrastructure. So energy related right away, processing and renewables. So speaking to that, we’ve had the right away regulations updated in 2006. And there have been training specific to oil and gas development in those types of right away activities have been training provided regarding housing and other types of rights of ways that are needed to promote tribal goals and objectives. Renewables, we’ve been able to lend support to some of the environmental activities associated with developing renewables, primarily out in the western region, and specific regions for wind and solar.
Next slide. So it was very important to have accountability and transparency. So we have weekly stakeholder conference calls. The service center coordinates these so we’re all on the same page, we know what the issues are, we know when we’ve crossed off a project from the list of things to do and can move onto the other priorities that are identified by our federal partners. These are the activities the service center coordinates that are involved in the providing and reporting of to me and Darryl and _____ secretary in the department. Next slide.
So the added value of having all of our federal partners in one location has proven to be very positive. So royalty verification, the corrective actions was a result of any of the approved CAs. As you can see, we’ve been able to recover from the operator $16,000 for one of the examples. The CA backlog has basically provided $733 million in paid out royalties for 127 backlogged CAs. Streamlining and identifying where there were bottlenecks or where things were being tied up in the system or within the inter-working relationship of that standard operating procedure or on-shore order.
We’ve been able to work those out weekly and identify where we can further advance or enhance or improve our communication or business process. And again, providing training. Making sure that not only our BIA folks know what BLM’s roles and responsibility is or ONRR. We’ve been able to cross train other federal staff so that they know when they are aware of what their responsibility is to our federal ______. Next slide.
More added value. These are the projects out here on the left. The lead for the transportation allowances in Indian country, ONRR took the lead on that, and they’ve been reporting, and this is the corrective action and what we’ve been able to identify under our claiming on allowances for Indian properties and contract terms that are identified for those leases. Osage Engineering assistance. Osage has a vacancy for their petroleum engineers. So BLM has stepped up and helped with the workload and the volume there, and the result was 52 new oil and gas wells were permitted.
And BLM worked with PPA, BA, and BLM to identify and develop that permitting process on injection wells. Again, production accounting reviews, BLM identified that we had 15 oil and gas leases that needed to be reviewed for the Fort Berthold agency, and those were the activities that were provided during that time. Hold on a second, please. I’m supposed to be in a different meeting here pretty soon, so they gave me a warning that I need to get wrapping up here. The federal partners meeting with IESC, like I said, they happen quarterly. Any time any of our federal partners need to reach out prior to that quarterly meeting, they do.
So we’re updating our charters, making sure we have all of our federal partners identified in their role and responsibilities included. So go ahead and go to the next slide. APD reviews. This is what we’ve accomplished with BLM in the Farmington office. 115 new oil and gas wells were permitted. Diligence reviews in Oklahoma. We were addressing five-year backlogs, identifying underdeveloped Indian leases and leases with potential drainage. For me, that’s very big because we do not ever want to have any taking against our mineral estate.
Well number cleanup for the Oklahoma field office there. These are all basically BLM driven. Make sure that we have accurate numbers and record keeping. And then BIA support to the Osage agency in the NEPA process. Go ahead and go to the next slide.
These are the contacts. Carla Clark is the acting director for the Indian Energy Service Center. Dawn Selwyn, she’s out of Albuquerque. Yvette is an ONRR employee, but she’s the acting director for the service center, and then myself and my contact information is there. What I did want to also provide was there’s requests that are submitted for any support and assistance is generally handled by the agency’s superintendent or workload type activities, and that’s coordinated through Carla Clark. Or you can go to the website created for the service center. It’s www.ONRR.gov/IndianServiceCenter/IESC-Referrals, and those requests for services and support could be entered there.
So we’re going to update this and incorporate this information into the BIA webpage, and it’s going through some IET reviews before we can create these links to access those directly. Right now, it’s under the ONRR.gov site. Okay, with that, I guess I’m through, and we can take some questions if we have any for me.
James Jensen: Thanks, I appreciate you providing the presentation and filling in at the last moment. Thanks for helping us there. We do have a few questions. So let’s go to them now, and these are questions for anybody here on the panel. I’ll paraphrase some of them. The first one here is do any of your offices provide opportunities for a multi-dimensional approach to community development that would include renewable energy or any kind of energy development, but also the socioeconomic and technopolitical skill development to allow those projects to be sustainable, building – actually building within the tribe to help support those projects. That’s for anybody in the panel.
Stephen Manydeeds: Well – go ahead.
Johnna Blackhair: I was going to say this is a question for Steve.
Stephen Manydeeds: Thanks, Johnna. Yeah, basically, we do work with a lot of tribes, and we believe when you do development, development doesn’t occur in a vacuum. Development occurs with a whole community that has to be part of a whole buying into the whole operation. And again, when you do development of anything, I don’t care whether it’s oil and gas, renewable energy. There’s always jobs associated with that development, and certainly the tribe has to take advantage of it. If you take a look at the one slide that shows how much the economic income was, which was $7 billion, the economic impact it has on that community is about $10 to $12 billion.
There’s no reason why the tribe shouldn’t try to get all of that $12 billion as far as developing it, hiring. The people that come and develop have to eat. They have to sleep somewhere. They have to wear clothes. You have truckers associated with, you have industry associated with it, support industries and all of that. So absolutely, planning a development is something that really has to occur at the beginning so you don’t get cut short by saying, “Oh my gosh, I wish we’d done something different.”
James Jensen: Any other additions to that? I think the question is maybe a little bit directed towards is there funding available to kind of take on that more holistic approach, rather than a very specific project by project approach.
Stephen Manydeeds: Okay, that is where we work – we have three divisions underneath in the Indian Energy and Economic Development. We have our division, which looks at energy and minerals, and then of course there’s the division of economic development, which – and both our groups have funding associated with it. And as well as the DCI, the Division of Capital Investments is a guaranteed loan program. So really, when we look at IED, the whole thing is that we’re looking at – we recognize that we can’t handle – for instance, looking at trucking and all that. That’s really Jack Stevens, that’s the expertise, and he’s the guy that really should be involved in this whole thing. So it is, it’s much – and I agree with the question.
It’s much more – what you’re looking at is a holistic approach. And just like one division won’t fix everything, we bring several different divisions into the whole play so you’re looking at the full suite of division of economic development. And that’s us, division of economic development, and office of capital investment where the guaranteed loan program is. And all three of those have different programs associated with it that provide funding.
James Jensen: Thanks, Steve. Another question here, is there funding assistance or other assistance available for energy op eds or retro commissioning?
Stephen Manydeeds: Yeah, I think Lizana has that kind of a program with her booth.
Lizana Pierce: Yeah, this is Lizana. We have some technical assistance available that could potentially help with energy audit. Occasionally, we’ve had funding opportunities focused on energy audits and retro fits. The early phases of that.
James Jensen: Thanks, Lizana. Kind of a timely question here, referring to I think what they’re calling safety power shutoffs in California. It says how soon can the three of you deploy to talk to a fledgling consortium of California tribes organizing emergency decentralized energy solutions for vulnerable on-reservation medical populations affected by these shutoffs? So I guess, to surmise, is there any resources available to help in kind of a near-term response to these shutoffs.
Stephen Manydeeds: Well our office – we’ve been seeing this come down the line, and our office has been gearing up with different kind of scenarios of how to, first off, how can a tribe become really self sufficient. One of our tribes that has been successful in there is Blue Lake Rancheria, which can be according to what they’ve been telling us, it can be shut off about five months. I don’t know if it’s that much long or not. I hope they don’t get shut off for five months, but it’s one of those things that looks like it’s going to be a long-term impact, and it’s something we’d love to get together with different tribes to find out what they’d like to do in order to accomplish this, and it could be a combination of solar batteries, bio-mass, a bunch of different options that are out there that really can help them so they can weather the storm, so to speak.
James Jensen: Thanks, Steve. Anybody else want to chime in on that one?
Lizana Pierce: Yes, this is Lizana. Through a technical assistance request, we can consider doing that. Our focus is sort of on energy, so it may take other agencies as well to sort of address some of the other issues associated with blackouts, turn offs if you will.
Johnna Blackhair: And for the office of press services, we’d work directly with the agency and the regional office and our programs to identify what those resources or those proposals would look like. And if we have a mechanism or a program that we could utilize to help develop and manage those situations.
James Jensen: Thanks, Ms. Blackhair. Another question here. Does anybody have programs or resources that can help tribes or entities respond to BOA or prepare BOA applications?
Lizana Pierce: Typically through technical assistance, we can help with the concept. We can’t help the mechanics of writing the BOA or responding to our own BOAs, and that’s primarily so we can stay sort of unbiased in the competitive process. Again, the concepts or technical assistance with projects plan or development, we can assist with that.
James Jensen: Thanks. Well with that, we don’t have any other additional questions. I want to thank all our presenters for their time today, and particularly Johnna, your last-minute scramble is appreciated to get you on today. A lot of good content there. We are interested in audience suggestions on how to strengthen the value of this training, so please do send us any feedback you have. On our final slide here, we just have the final schedule for the 2019 series, and we just have one presentation, one webinar left, and that’s tribal microgrids, energy storage, and resilience. It’ll be held on 11th of December, 2019, at 11:00 AM. So with that, I thank everybody for their time today and appreciate all your efforts to execute this webinar. Thanks, and have a good day.
Stephen Manydeeds: Thank you.
Johnna Blackhair: Thanks, James.
Lizana Pierce: Thanks, James. Bye.
James Jensen: Thank you.
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