View the webinar recording and slides.

>>James Jensen: Welcome everyone. I'm James Jensen, today's webinar host. Sorry for getting started a little bit later than usual. Just getting things worked out on this end. I'm a contractor supporting the Office of Indian Energy Policy and Program and I support the Tribal Energy Webinar Series. Today's webinar titled "Funding Your Energy Future" is the sixth webinar of the 2022 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. Copy of today's presentation slides will be posted to the Office of Indian Energy's website shortly after today's webinar. Everyone will receive a post webinar email with the link to where the slides and recording will be located. Because we are recording this webinar all phones have been muted. We will answer your written questions at the end of the final presentation. You can submit questions at any time by clicking on the question button located in the webinar control box on your screen and typing in your question.  

We'll get started with some opening remarks from Lizana Pierce. Ms. Pierce is a senior engineer and deployment supervisor for the Office of Indian Energy Policy and Programs and is duty stationed on Golden. Colorado. She is responsible for the execution of the deployment program which is national in scope. Specifically the deployment program includes financial assistance, technical assistance and education and outreach. She also implements national funding opportunities and administers some of the resulting tribal energy project grants and agreements. She has over 25 years of experience in project development and management and has in assisting tribes in developing their energy resources for over 20 years. Ms. Pierce holds a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering from Colorado State University. Lizana the virtual floor is yours.

>>Lizana Pierce: Thank you James and hello everyone. I join James in welcoming you to today's webinar. And I also want to take a moment to thank our presenters in advance for giving up their time and expertise. This webinar series is sponsored by the Office of Indian Energy Policy and Programs otherwise referred to as the Office of Indian Energy. The Office of Indian Energy's congressional charter was to promote Indian energy development, efficiency and use, reduce or stabilize energy costs, enhance and strengthen Indian tribal energy and economic infrastructure and bring electric power and services to Indian lands and homes. To provide this assistance our deployment program partners with Indian tribes and Alaska native villages to overcome the barriers to energy development. Our deployment program is comprised of a three pronged approach consisting of financial assistance typically through competitive grants, technical assistance at no cost to tribes and eligible tribal entities and education and capacity building. This tribal energy webinar series is just one example of our education capacity building efforts. 

Specifically the webinar series is intended to provide attendees within 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. This year's webinar series entitled Empowering Native Communities and Sustaining Future Generations is focusing on the changing energy landscape and how tribes can position themselves to participate in the energy transition for the benefit of their communities and future generations. Transitioning to a cleaner, more sustainable energy future will require significant capital investment. So today's webinar will share some of the opportunities that are available to tribes to fund these investments. 

However with the significant amount of federal funding that is currently available we are not able to provide a comprehensive list of all funding opportunities but we'll share some tools and resources that could help you identify additional funding opportunities which may be useful to funding your project. We do hope this webinar and the series as a whole is useful to you so we welcome your feedback. So please let us know if there's ways we could make the series better. And you can send your feedback to our main email address at IndianEnergy@hq.doe.gov. And again I want to thank the presenters in advance for giving up their time and preparing for presenting on today's webinar. Thank you. And with that the virtual floor is yours James.

>>James Jensen: Thanks Lizana. Before we get started with the presentations I first want to introduce all of today's speakers. Our first presenter is Briggs White. Briggs is the deputy executive director of the Biden administration's interagency working group on coal and power plant communities and economic revitalization. In this role he works with the dozen federal agency members of the energy community's interagency working group or IWG to advance its mission. The IWG is identifying and coordinating opportunities to connect energy communities to federal investments to help ensure the shift to clean energy economy and create good paying union jobs, spur economic revitalization, remediate environmental degradation and support energy workers in coal, oil and gas and power plant communities. Leading up to this appointment Briggs played a central role in multiagency effort to prepare the IWG's initial report to President Biden. Prior to that he most recently served as a technology manager for three research and development programs on behalf of DOE's Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management. Briggs joined DOE's National Energy Technology Laboratory in 2007 and is based in Pittsburgh. 

Following Briggs we will hear from Matthew Dannenberg. Matt is the tribal liaison for the Office of Intergovernmental and External Affairs. He previously served as deputy chief of staff for the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy at the Department of Energy. Dannenberg grew up with a passion for meteorology which led to a career in civic engagement and lobbying to impact climate change. He has served as – excuse me – as communications and legislative director at the public service commission of Wisconsin and is a proud member of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and a graduate of the University of Wisconsin, Madison. 

Following Matt we will hear from Katrina Pielli. Katrina serves as the director of the Office of Engagement in the US Department of Energy's Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations or OCED. She has over 20 years of experience shaping policy, driving forward ambitious programs and building partnerships to tackle global energy challenges and address the climate crisis. In her role as the engagement office director in OCED she ensures robust, meaningful stakeholder engagement is at the center of OCED's demonstration projects to accelerate an equitable transition to a decarbonized energy system. Most recently Katrina served in the DOE office of policy advancing supply chain efforts with a focus on the nexus of manufacturing and community. Prior to advancing – excuse me. Prior to returning to civil service Katrina was in international development and humanitarian energy consultants where she worked with government leaders philanthropy, humanitarian agencies and private sector companies to achieve their energy and climate goals. Katrina holds a Master of Science in environmental management and policies from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a Bachelor of Arts in environmental studies and policies from Cornell College. 

For our last presentation we will hear from Matthew Ferguson. Matt is a senior consultant with the DOE's loan program office where he consults on financing energy technology deployments and advises tribes on financing their energy investments with the federal credit offered by US Department of Energy. Prior to DOE he focused on complex financial transactions in the roles of attorney, management consultant, business advisor and corporate executive. He studies finance and marketing and is a licensed attorney. Thanks to our presenters for making the time to join us today. With that let's get started with our first presentation. Briggs you may proceed once we have your slides up. Thank you.

>>Briggs White: All right. Thank you Joe and thank you to the audience for attending today to learn a few, learn about a few additional tools that hopefully are useful. And thank you to DOE's Office of Indian Energy for an opportunity to speak about this federal working group. The working group is focused on energy communities. But I'll just remark at the top that many tribal communities are also energy communities and even if they're not also tend to be rural in nature which many of the funding opportunities that I'm going to highlight today are for our rural audiences. So hopefully the resources are useful. Why don't we go to the next slide?

The federal working group is really bringing the whole of government effort to supporting energy communities and energy workers that are in transition. So we have eleven federal agencies plus OMB that are participating in this effort that was initiated under executive order back at the beginning of the Biden administrative. And quickly in April of '21 we issued an initial report to the president that identified strategies and places that we were going to focus to support these folks. I think that one of the key threads here is that if you're interested in supporting energy development many of the energy communities are interested in either continuing the work that they're doing currently or perhaps pivoting in one direction or another. For example if they're an extraction economy used to extracting coal or other energy commodities in the fossil sector perhaps pivoting into extraction of rare earth elements or critical minerals that can be important for the clean energy supply chain. 

If they have former power plants or mines there are currently provisions thanks to the bipartisan infrastructure law that can support clean energy manufacturing in census tracks adjacent to those assets. And then finally on the deployment or production of energy side of the spectrum there are now opportunities to take coal power plants for example and other pieces of energy infrastructure and repurpose them whether it's for clean energy manufacturing or remediation. And so lots of opportunities in the energy space moving forward and really through these eleven federal agencies yes, of course there's a lot through the department of energy but also through these other additional agency partners and I'll flag a few of those examples as we move forward. Next slide please.

So just to give you a sense of some of the funding that I'm going to be overviewing in the next slides, between these eleven agencies we know that doing energy development requires a lot of different aspects from getting the site ready – and that could be through at the abandoned mine land reclamation program through DOI or through EPA's crown fields program to making sure it has the appropriate infrastructure so that could be road and rail, broadband, electricity, cleaning up the site as I mentioned whether that's EPA, DOI or other agency supports. There could be some clean up involved to sort of get the site ready. And then downstream we have to have a workforce in order to put together the projects whether it's on the supply chain or actually supporting the deployment. And so a lot of opportunities in the energy space and these programs will be included in the clearinghouse that I'm going to overview in the next slide or two. Can we move forward please?

So energycommunities.gov a website that we established on behalf of the federal working group, we include funding opportunities that can provide support services to energy communities which as I said there's a number of provisions in there for rural communities as well as tribal communities. Took a quick look and of the current 166 funding opportunities that we have in the funding clearinghouse at energycommunities.gov there's currently 145 of those that are, that native or tribal entities are eligible for. There's currently 37 open with additional ones planned so lots of opportunity on the table. We also flagged that 67 require no cost share which we know is a barrier particularly in low capacity communities to accessing those resources. 

So lots of opportunity on the table and that is in large part due to bipartisan infrastructure law. Over $180 billion of the $238 billion that's currently open or planned came from the bipartisan infrastructure law so lots of funding there. And at the energy communities clearinghouse we'll give you opportunities to sort your way through that because we know navigating the federal government it is challenging at times and hopefully connect you with the right funding opportunity and in many cases even a point of contact that you can get some help to work your way through that. Next slide please.

So just an example of some of the kinds of programs that you'll see on the funding clearinghouse. If you're in Appalachian region for example you might be eligible to participate in ARC's power program which provides a wide range of services from workforce, economic development, infrastructure, etcetera including energy development. USDA has a plethora of programs that are energy related. I wanted to call out a few. Could be community facilities so large energy users for example hospitals and that kind of thing. USDA can support that. They can support direct renewable deployment. For example solar deployment. Lots of funding for energy infrastructure through their rural utility service and then also just broadband infrastructure which we know is a major priority in many tribal locations. Of course there's lots within DOE. You're going to hear much more from LPO and OCED and others later in the call so I won't spend a lot of time other than just to underscore there's a tremendous opportunity on a variety of topics to do energy development for DOE, in particular supercharged now through the inflation reduction act. Department of Interior, wanted to flag the abandoned mine land remediation as well as oil and gas well capping of which we know are important. 

Also water projects being important on many tribal lands. Department of Labor has workforce training which can be helpful for having a workforce to develop your next energy project as well as supporting dislocated workers that may be associated with the transition away from prior applications. Focusing on EPA, EPA has a significant amount of funding through the infrastructure bill on their brownfields program so can help you get a site ready. And they have technical assistance which has a very low bar to access, relatively easy application process and you can get support ranging from financial studies to market analyses as well as helping lay out a project that then you can subsequently apply for getting the actual construction grant funding. They also have a huge amount of money through the infrastructure bill for water, both clean water and wastewater as well. Next slide please.

So just diving one slide deeper. Here's a snapshot of the funding clearinghouse at energycommuities.gov where you can search on the status whether it's already been closed, if its currently open or if its planned for the future. If the funding type includes cost share or no cost share. Importantly you can see the fourth from the left, eligible recipient where you can select Native American or tribal entities if that is your eligibility criteria as well as other features. You can search and find the various funding opportunities that suit you best. And that includes technical assistance, loans, grants, etcetera. Next slide.

Just wanted to provide a couple of high level overviews on the inflation reduction act since it's so impactful in the energy space. More than $250 billion for redeveloping and repurposing energy related infrastructure both through LPO which you're going to hear about later as well as through USDA and __ authority for lending that's not appropriated but nevertheless can catalyze a large number of projects in the energy space. There are bonus tax credits for clean energy deployment, particularly if you're near to fossil energy infrastructure. Likewise $4 billion for clean energy manufacturing so both supply chain and deployment tax credits. Next slide please.

And also lots for environmental justice and communities. Here we just have a handful that are more community focused. For example if you're an energy community that's been doing extractive work for a long time we know that the black lung disability trust being reinstated is incredibly important for miners' health. EPA will administer $8 billion through a green bank for energy communities. There will be community and environmental justice block grants through EPA that include some technical assistance which will be very helpful. The small pots of money if you will to help access the big pots of money. And then $145 million for tribal electrification as well that will be administered. So a lot of exciting – this is just a very high level overview and you're going to hear more later in this webinar. Next slide please. 

I want to just pivot to engaging with you moving forward. First of all we through the federal working group have had a public comment portal open now for some time. If you're just hearing about this now our deadline is September 8th which is tomorrow. But we would love to hear from you anytime. So feel free to reach out to us if you can submit your comments. If you do have five minutes which is really all it takes, feel free to click on energycommunities.gov, navigate to the comment portal and you can electronically submit your comments there. Likewise we'd just love to hear your comments directly. Nex slide please.

And finally I'll just wrap up with we'd love to engage with you on the social media platforms. We also have a newsletter that we send out twice a month. It includes updates on all the funding opportunities that are in the clearinghouse. So if a request for information or a funding opportunity hits the street we'll flag that in a newsletter and include that. Likewise if there is an event either produced by the IWG or one of our partners at some of our federal agencies we'll also include that so you can hear about that as well. So please sign up at energycommunities.gov and you can receive event invitations and funding opportunity updates through the newsletter and engage with us on social media. We'd love to hear your thoughts in terms of what the needs and challenges are as well as what the opportunities that we support, Next slide. 

So just want to end with a big thank you. We really see tribal nations, Native American entities as being partners in clean energy deployment and want to be your partner. So let us know if we can connect you with one of our federal agency partners here in the working group. And I look forward to working together. So with that, that concludes my remarks and turn it over to the next panelist.

>>James Jensen: Thanks so much Briggs. Appreciate the broad overview. That's helpful to kind of set the stage. Our next presenter, Matt Dannenberg is going to delve into a little bit more detail on the inflation reduction act and some other things still at a pretty high level. But that clearinghouse you just spoke of Briggs is a great resource to get into more detail on specific funding opportunities. That's a great thing to bookmark. All right Matt. Looks like you're ready to go.

>>Matt Dannenberg: All right. Thanks so much James. And first just wanted to start off by thanking Briggs. It's been a great partnership as one of the participating agencies here at DOE and the interagency working group. We had an awesome launch of a rapid response team in the Four Corners area this month and just exciting to be a part of that partnership. I want to thank James, Lizana, the Office of Indian Energy Policy and Programs for pulling us all together today to relay all this great information at this truly historic time, the leadership director Wahleah Johns and the deployment team here and then finally everyone in the audience today for all the work that you do to advance energy sovereignty in Indian country and Alaskan native communities. So __ for all the work that you do. And I wanted to start off. Go to the next slide.

Introducing myself. I'm new to this role, two months in here as tribal liaison in the Office of Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs. [Not English] As James had said I'm a proud member of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, bear clan here and live in Milwaukee, Wisconsin but frequently I'm in DC and traveling around as kind of the external facing person here on our team working and connecting with tribal leaders and community leaders across the country. And really in my time here, my vision here is how can the Department of Energy deliver our trust responsibility to tribes and Alaskan native communities and improve upon that in the short and long term. And so first and foremost just want to let you all know my door is open as is this regional specialist team that covers the rest of the country. I'm the point of contact for tribal nations, community leaders. And ultimately we want to build strong relationships with local, state officials, other agencies so we can connect all the dots and make sure that we're leveraging all the monies of the federal government in order to meet our mutual goals. 

Also my capacity wanting to make sure that we're giving opportunities like this to amplify any DOE funding opportunities and success stories. And so in the next few months I'm going to start implementing monthly office hours for tribes to take advantage of as well as a newsletter that will be providing updates on the inflation reduction act and bill provisions as they're rolling out. And that will be in addition to the newsletter the Office of Indian Energy puts out. But it will be covering a little bit more holistically the whole Department of Energy and all the programs impacting Indian country. And it's not just tribal leaders but I want to ensure that we're incorporating and empowering diverse voices in maybe tribes that the department has worked less with over the years. And so how are we being more inclusive in expanding and delivering on our trust responsibility. 

And finally being a navigator of the department so if you're interested in meeting with certain offices if you happen to be coming to DC or we're coming to you I'm the front door and helpful in finding, setting up meetings with various offices where you want to learn more about our opportunities or take advantage of technical assistance. Feel free to use me as a resource and to connect you to who you need to be connected to. And of course we have the Office of Indian Energy hosting this convening but we also have our Tribal Energy Steering Committee. And DOE has just been very proactive in implementing President Biden's memorandum on strengthening tribal consultation that he signed right away in the beginning of the administration. This committee had been dormant the last couple of years of the previous administration but has reconvened in response to the memorandum. And so regularly every couple of weeks we have 60 to 100 representatives from all the DOE offices coming together, sharing the latest updates and news and talking about how to better collaborate and improve. And so just this last week we identified one of the needs as additional training all across the agency to improve each program's outreach to tribes. So we had our next series of trainings to continue to brush up and flex our muscles and understand what truly the trust relationship is and how we can better deliver on that. And that is going to be something that we institutionalize and have regularly to make sure we're continuing to serve you all better. I think let's go to the next slide. 

So wanted to just touch on not just the Indian country but also of course Alaskan native communities high level. And not to steal any other presenter's thunder. A bit about what's upcoming in the inflation reduction act and the bipartisan infrastructure law. I mean truly this is a period of unprecedented investments in infrastructure as well as combating climate. And so first off we have this program, the high efficiency home rebate program. This is $225 million that is set aside specifically to be distributed to Indian tribes that is to be determined by the secretary of energy. 20 percent of that grant may be used for planning, administrative costs or technical assistance. And grants in this section may not be combined with other federal grants or rebates including homes rebate. So there's going to be a lot more news to come in terms of how this program will be distributed and through who or who is administering it in the next several weeks and months here. So please stay tuned. It's a really exciting opportunity. 

Jump down to the bottom here. The Bureau of Indian Affairs Interior received yeah, $150 million for tribal home electrification. And that is something we are going to be collaborating very closely with them on. Again this is for unelectrified tribal homes or transitioning electrified homes to zero emission energy systems as well as associated necessary home repairs and retrofitting. This money is appropriated through 2031 and again there will be a lot more news to come as agencies are collaborating and funds will be administered and distributed. And then of course Matt Ferguson here today will be spending some time getting into the depths about our loan program office opportunities which is just truly a game changer in how we're going to be, tribes will be able to finance energy deployment projects. So going from $2 billion in loan guarantee authority to $20 billion is just going to be such a game changer so so excited to see what's in store in the next several months and years because of this new authority through the inflation reduction act. But I'll leave it there for now. Go to the next slide.

I think the biggest update I wanted to share on the bipartisan infrastructure law is there was a deadline of the end of this month for the grid resilience formula dollars 4101D. But if you haven't heard yet that deadline has been extended to March 31, 2023. So this gives folks more time to plan and submit your applications. I will drop a link in the chat for an FAQ in regards to how this would be administered in stacking. If you've already begun your applications you can still submit those before the end of the month but there's been an extension that's been getting a lot of questions about consortia applications and things like that that we are still sorting through. And so wanted to make sure you all had that news. And for other updates of course you can always visit energy.gov/bill. There's on that website the current queue of upcoming deadlines whether its requests for information or application deadlines or funding opportunity announcements. Truly a really great resource there. Let's see. And yeah. Also as I said earlier be starting a newsletter that has a comprehensive kind of summary of upcoming build deadlines especially ones that are pertinent to tribes so you don't have to necessarily sift through that website. But I'll have that teed up in a newsletter format. So looking forward to getting that out later this month. And we'll go to the next slide. 

And so that's my last slide here. We lost a slide. Wanted to talk just for a moment. James I think I see your desktop. There we go. Very exciting. We're having our 2022 Tribal Clean Energy Summit hosted by the Office of Indian Energy. I know Lizana is going to comment more on this later but just wanted to highlight this is coming up in a few weeks, October 4th and 5th here in Washington DC. Very exciting opportunity here. 

We have a couple of tracks. First will be kind of a closed session for tribal leaders. They'll be – have the opportunity to meet in person with Secretary Granholm and have a round table discussion really on how DOE can be a better partner in energy, pursuit of energy sovereignty. So really looking forward to that discussion. And then there will be a public track available so tribal energy staff or stakeholders, industry, interested parties, likely many of you on this webinar can take part in that either in person or some aspects of it will be virtual. So I'll make sure to drop the link for the Tribal Clean Energy Summit into the chat and you can there see detailed agendas for each of those tracks. We hope you very much can take part in joining us and form that discussion. And so we're excited to engage with you there in October. And with that I'll turn it back over to James and our next panelist.

>>James Jensen: Thanks Matt. Glad to have you on. Welcome to the role I guess I should say and glad to introduce you to our audience. We've gotten some messages already about getting your email address and whatever. So I think this will be good to get you linked up with the audience here. So our next presenter, Katrina Pielli. We'll pull your slides up and then you can give us the _____. Thanks. 

>>Katrina Pielli: Great. Thanks so much. Really appreciate that. And thank you to the Office of Indian Energy for inviting me to speak and talk to you all a little bit about the new Office of Clean Energy Demonstration. So I'd just like to start by really emphasizing that we at OCED take our responsibility and the opportunity to work with tribes seriously. We have someone on our staff named Brian Odonika who is dedicated to that work and also institutionalizing across all of the office's activities. And I will drop his contact information in the chat at the end of my remarks. We also are excited to see many of you next month at the Tribal Clean Energy Summit where OCED will be there in force. So next slide please.

The Biden administration really set these ambitious climate goals and leaning on that was able to pass the bipartisan infrastructure law with partnership from congress. And so in December the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations was established with the mandate to deliver $21.5 billion provided by this infrastructure law to support law scale clean energy demonstration projects really driven by this 2035 and 2050 climate goals. OCED will focus on accelerating the clean energy technologies from the lab to the market and fill a critical innovation gap on the path to achieving these climate goals while also importantly mitigating risks that allow private sector investors and developers to act. We are a technology neutral office that is focusing on these initial activities provided by the infrastructure law but also will be working in additional areas in the years to come. And again our focus here it so partner and to collaborate with the private sector, with tribes, state and local governments, with community based organizations and other key stakeholders as we build these projects to really prove out the value of new technologies in the real world and deliver economic, social and environmental benefits across the country. Next slide please.

And so in a nutshell our mission is to deliver clean energy demonstration projects at scale in partnership with the private sector to accelerate deployment, market adoption and the equitable transition to a decarbonized energy system. Next slide.

And to do that we see ourselves having a very clear mandate. So first is to really serve as the primary office at DOE to do that demonstration work. Also establishing a project management oversight center of excellence. As you probably know DOE has a mixed track record on successful demonstration project management. We are applying lessons learned here in OCED and we are really focusing on the front end planning as we launch these key multibillion dollar demonstration projects. And we're not only enhancing how we oversee project management for demonstrations. We're supporting other offices across the department to ensure more consistent approach and implementing these capital intensive large scale demonstration projects as well as really centering a lot of our engagement work as a complimentary center of excellence. 

Second is enabling that transition as I mentioned at the top to clean electricity and zero emissions. And to do that we really are again filling that innovation gap. We're also ensuring that the workforce and the local communities that really are the key to making these projects work are part of the solution from the beginning and also investing alongside those projects to support job creation, advancing environmental and energy justice and really making sure that communities see benefits as we move forward. Third again unlocking the really trillion dollar potential for these projects and follow on investment. So really making sure that we are a trusted organization that is understanding risk and what is preventing private sector from investing in these projects today so that as we move forward and do that handoff to other parts of the department like the Loan Programs Office that you'll hear about soon and to private sector there is a clear understanding of what comes next and where our role is. 

Fourth is to maintain a risk based, balanced and defensible portfolio. I mentioned risk a few times already. Importantly here with the type of projects that we are investing in these have substantial risk inherent. And so we recognize and actually expect that some of these investments might fail. And it's important to us that we apply lessoned learned as they move forward and really keep iterating and keep moving towards achieving scale with these projects. And finally I mentioned also leveraging private sector a few times here as well. But it's the broader energy ecosystem. It's making sure that we are being quite clear about the roles and the responsibilities and the opportunities around public private partnerships, working with stakeholders across the gamut as we think about our programs and solicit feedback through things like the request for information and workshops and meetings and being very clear eyed about what we're trying to achieve and what the roles are. Next slide please.

So I mentioned OCED filling a critical gap. I just wanted to throw this slide up here, not to really draw kind of attention to the technology readiness levels at the top necessarily but really to show you where OCED fits. So I mentioned Loan Programs Office who you'll hear about in a moment who sit sort of on the more deployment side of the DOE spectrum. And then we fall right in there in between some of the more applied offices work and some of the work of our colleagues in ARPAE for example. Really focused on that market risk and less so on the technical risk and a bit more towards that commercialization side. Next slide please.

So this is a snapshot of the programs that OCED is developing right now again because of the link to bipartisan infrastructure law. I am not going to go through these all in detail. I'm really going to focus on those last four in red that I think have the most relevant link to you all but certainly I'll talk through some of the more high profile ones including the regional clean hydrogen hubs to kick off. So congress gave us $8 billion to establish these hubs. These will create networks of hydrogen producers, consumers and local connective infrastructure to really accelerate the use of hydrogen as a clean energy carrier that delivers or stores tremendous amounts of energy. And so we are working closely with our colleagues in the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy who have a Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Office as well as a number of parties across the department and outside of the department. We issued a request for information that garnered thousands of pages of response so thank you to folks listening who responded. 

We issued a notice of intent in June 6th and we will be issuing a funding opportunity announcement this month or in October. I can tell you right now we are looking for proposals that prioritize environmental and energy justice, equity, community engagement, workforce development. And so we look forward to seeing what folks come up with. Next is upgrading our electric grid. Here again not going to spend a lot of time here but I'm sure you all know what an important role a modern resilient grid takes. Importantly on this one eligible entities to receive funding for this $5 billion does include Indian tribes. This provision is being developed very considerably with our new grid deployment office and we are partnering with them. So I will just say more to come very soon on this program but not much at this point to share publicly. 

Our advanced reactor demonstration program, depending on who is on the line some of you may be very familiar with this. OCED inherited two of these ARDP projects from our office of nuclear energy. And this program received $2.5 billion from the infrastructure law for these programs. One is the Terra Power Natrium Reactor in Wyoming and the other is the X Energy XE100 in Washington. A lot is happening here. What I will say is that both of these project implementers are in touch with the tribes as it relates to these projects. DOE looks forward to more direct engagement in the fall as well. And we really understand that there are a lot of equities surrounding these projects and working through Brian and a colleague Christina and of course other colleagues we are excited to talk with you all soon. Moving down to our carbon capture and carbon management here we have just about $3.5 billion from congress to invest in carbon capture demonstration projects and large scale carbon capture pilots. We are excited about the RFI that was released for both divisions that closed back in February. We are advancing this work building on the workshops that were hosted in April in partnership with the Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management. And those workshops followed the events that were held in Columbus, New Orleans and Salt Lake. 

We issued a notice of intent in mid-July to fund the demonstration projects. And we anticipate issuing that funding announcement for the demonstration project portion of the funding in the timeframe basically September and October. So more to come on that one as well. And then our advanced industrial emissions demonstration program, this is $500 million. We are designing this one right now building off of a lot of great feedback our advanced manufacturing office solicited through their workshops and feedback session. This one you can expect to see something from us I would say very good. No timeframe yet to announce per se. But we are developing it. Because the inflation reduction act added some additional funding for OCED for industrial we're taking the time now to actually ensure that the provision from the infrastructure law and the IRA work is actually aligned. So that's why we're pulling back from giving specific times on that one. 

So all of that said we have these two energy storage provisions that we are actually combining into one energy storage provision for purposes of talking to you all today. It's $505 million and we're excited because here when you look at the energy storage demonstrations and pilot grants tribes and tribal organizations are eligible entities. And this will help really advance widespread commercial deployment by lowering the cost of energy storage and increasing the duration of the energy storage resources. And we all know that when we look at meeting our 2035 and 2050 goals cheaper, longer energy storage that can increase local control of the power systems and build resilience, minimize power grid disruptions is so important. So these grants will fund opportunities for communities to deploy storage for the first time with an emphasis on overcoming regulatory and institutional barriers for deployment. For both of those energy storage provisions we issued an RFI that closed in June. We got a wide range of feedback. We also held four listing sessions in July and August and are working right now on the funding announcement. 

The next is our energy improvement in rural and remote areas. So the infrastructure law provided $1 billion to OCED for entities in rural and remote areas which congress defined as cities, towns or unincorporated areas with fewer than 10,000 inhabitants. To increase the environmental protection and impacts of energy use and to improve resilience, reliability and safety. We've started calling this program IRA – or sorry ERA, not to be confused with IRA. And we are right now excitedly developing our request for information and also developing our workshops which we plan to be offering and announcing very soon. Congress did not give us a lot of direction for this program. And so we are really using what they gave us to design a thoughtful program and then we'll be looking to _____ that. And also bringing your voices to help inform what we're up to. We do anticipate as I mentioned holding those workshops. 

And then the last thing I'd say is last month OCED did announce a partnership with EPA to create the thriving communities environmental justice technical assistance centers or TICTACs. This is up to $100 million five year cooperative agreement opportunity led by EPA but with DOE in partnership. And here again the eligible entities to apply to be a TICTAC includes minority serving institutions, including TCUs, as well as intertribal consortia. Individual tribes are not eligible but a consortia is. And this is really envisioned to be a one stop shop for environmental and energy justice related to technical assistance needs and questions using a hub and spoke model to really allow us to get local organization involved in the delivery of these services.

 Lastly I'll mention our mine land provision. So we received $500 million to conduct demonstrations of clean energy on current and former mine land and here again congress was fairly specific about the technologies that are eligible to be included. We are to fund up to five projects in geographically diverse regions, two of which much be solar. And we're looking for these projects to really demonstrate the opportunities around not just the project but also community engagement. It could be used to then further unlock the development of additional sites through the private sector sort of on their own using our learnings. Congress told us to prioritize job creation, greenhouse gas emission reduction and economic benefit. And so right now we're working with our national labs to understand the technical, regulatory and economic challenges associated with the deployment of clean energy on current and former mine land. We issued an RFI that closed in August and then we are holding three workshops, two in person, one in Knoxville September 2021 for the east. Another in Denver October 11 – 12 for the west and then a virtual October 25 – 26. And so definitely invite you all to participate. I can drop the links to those as well in the chat. And that is then informing the design of the actual funding opportunity announcement. 

And here again those EPA technical assistance centers are also applicable for communities that are interested in this specific provision. So finally thank you again for your time to talk with you today. OCED is really interested in working with you and hearing from you. Thank you for your responses to our RFIs and our funding announcements coming soon. Also to your participation in your workshops. We're really excited to have more direct discussions and being involved with you in consultations. I hope what I was able to share today sparked some interest. Feel free to reach out. Again I will drop some contact information, some links in the chat and look forward to the Q&A. Thank you so much. Over to you.

>>James Jensen: Thanks Katrina. A lot of good information, a lot of stuff happening and forthcoming from OCED. So thanks for sharing all of that. So our last presentation here is with Matt Ferguson and he'll be talking about the loan program office and opportunities there. Matt looks like your slides are up.

>>Matt Ferguson: Thank you. Next slide please. So today I will briefly tell you a little bit about the Loan Programs Office and the tribal energy financing program and outline a few thoughts to position your tribe to take advantage of the opportunities related to investing in energy. And then I'll conclude with specifically outlining detail here somewhat related to the inflation reduction act. Next. One of the key things that I'd like to have you leave this discussion with is that overall we have a strong recommendation for you to engage early with the Loan Programs Office if you have any interest in financing an energy project whether that's on Indian lands or off Indian lands. There's no application fee and your objective is to get a conditional commitment. Next slide.

The loans programs office really provides access to credit for commercial technologies for tribes and it provides access for innovative technologies to the marketplace overall. Next slide. The inflation reduction act as Matt stated before increased our ability to lend from $2 billion to $20 billion which really is a game changer. And now we have about $80 million to address credit subsidy costs. In the federal credit act in the 1970s congress determined that its best for all credit programs to assess overall the costs of providing credit. And that $80 million is designed to address that as well as some of the administrative costs associated with the program. So tribes are able to take advantage of the tribal energy financing program whether that's a direct loan from us or secondly if you have a banking relationship that it makes sense for them to be the lender we will guarantee up to 90 percent of the loan. We're able to lend for a total of 30 years. 30 years is calculated by adding the construction period and the term period. And then we have about $40 billion to invest in energy innovation. This is open to all. Tribes are welcome to apply also. Next. 

Overall we have this six part process that we use for all of our programs in the Loan Programs Office. The first part is preapplication consultations. We're more than happy to discuss with you your overall objectives, discuss what your thinking, what your overall plans are and help you understand the application so that when you are filing an application you're able to communicate your clear path to ultimately developing the project and placing it in service. One of the benefits with borrowing from the loan program office is that in addition to having an office that has continued to manage all of the assets in which we've leant in the prior years with prior programs, you're also able to have some level of access to the Department of Energy's 17 labs. Number five which I will outline a little bit further in the presentation, that's really where your objective is is to just secure a conditional commitment. Once you do that basically we've committed to put the resource aside for you and then you can move forward with the development of your project. Next slide. 

We encourage applicants to really think about our program as part of their investment decision whether it meets the tribe's sovereignty or return objectives. The emphasis is on the expected cashflows or economic value of energy. So to overall justify your loan and the investment and for there to be some clarity for your community to understand, take into consideration the use of the land and the natural resources or the ability to repay the loan and seek to quantify the benefits. In part one of attachment A of our application, number seven, we ask for you to quantify and provide a narrative as to the benefits that the tribe anticipates from the loan because our program is competitive so it's good for the tribes to be able to outline the anticipated benefits from the financing in addition to just having low cost financing. Next slide.

This program was established in EPAC and its in 25 USC 3502. And as stated it was amended in the inflation reduction act. The energy development can address the tribe's energy needs such as cost management that you would consider your levelized cost of energy. Or it can be an enabler for economic development or improve your resiliency and measure that somewhat based upon your system reliability. And lastly which is what many use it for is for commercial use where they're able to get some level of return on investment or a pay back. Next slide.

A key point is that the financing and terms for the loan are flexible. You present what you think is best to make a repayment on the loan. And in this present environment having a treasury based loan that can be a fixed rate is of tremendous value. And this most tribes are forming partnerships or joint ventures with experienced developers for their investments. And this loan program really addresses many of their reluctance to partner with a tribe and enables the tribe to contribute in a clear unambiguous way about expressing the economic value when it comes to the tribe's ability to finance the project with a loan provided by the loan program office. Next slide. Next.

The earlier slide just made the point that this program is exclusively for tribal borrowers. We do encourage technologists and developers to learn about the program but after that initial conversation you're strongly encouraged to bring your tribal partner to further conversations with the loan program office. I cannot stress it enough that this program is to benefit tribes and their financing of investments in energy. And so its always best to have the tribe involved early also in discussions with the loan program office so that as partners you can prepare a quality application. In general there's about five types of applicants that we are presently reviewing in our process. Some are tribal governments that have received some level of grant to pay down their energy investment. However they see this as a great opportunity to really accelerate their energy vision and so they're seeking a loan to develop all of their energy goals here that make sense. The second is the common historical way in which a tribe would rent out its resources or seek some type of royalty as well as tax receipts. And in this scenario the tribe is taking that expected cash flow and using that as collateral to make further energy investments. 

The third is a tribe that has been for example an energy community and they're using the loan as an opportunity to make a greater investment to support their tribe's transition for future economic development or to attract additional investment. There are some tribes that have some level of resources that are very interested in investing in clean energy specifically and they're taking advantage of the loan program to make some level of a sovereign private equity style investment in a project that may or may not be on tribal lands. Some tribes are contributing their talents and resources in business and finance and other areas to help other tribes in developing their resources. One of the byproducts of our roundtable discussions and consultations has been somewhat of an informal matchmaker to help tribes connect with other tribes to help them further their energy visions. And then lastly of course our tribal utility authorities who are using the program as a means to acquire additional assets or to accelerate their capital budgets for energy investments. Next slide. 

Most of the applications really require for you to build out or augment your team. If you are interested in actually developing and learning in the process oftentimes hiring an owner's representative would be very helpful if you choose to move forward without partnering with a developer. An engineer of course, special legal counsel is often needed to help in assessing the various options when we take a look at the tax incentives and the ability to transfer or to get the direct pay option that the inflation reduction act provides, a financial advisor, an accountant that would provide the financial projections that we would rely on to underwrite the loan and possibly an energy consultant. Next slide.

Many of you have formed energy visions or energy strategic plans. And we encourage you to take a look at that and to see how that fits with your overall investment case in securing a loan. Also if you have a master plan I think that that's very helpful as you socialize the opportunity to invest with the tribal community. Next slide. This program finances all energy resources and technologies. It's completely agnostic. However I did want to bring to your attention some of the variables that come into assessing the reasonable prospect of repayment and being able to just underwrite the project. And so if you're using the energy for individual tribal members, for residents or tenants versus the tribal government using the energy or thirdly if you're selling the electricity. Selling the electricity is clearly the easiest to be able to underwrite because most of the times you'll have a long term contract to sell the energy and that will be used to rationalize and justify the loan. 

At the same time if you are using the energy or doing something within the tribal community, that can also be used to underwrite and assess the reasonable prospect of repayment. There's two general types of transactions or loans that we are providing. One is very similar to what a borrower would secure with financial institutions or the lending community and it is addressing technology such as solar PV. And then the other is a bit bespoke. A microgrid is a good example of that because you're combining a number of technologies and so technology diligence might be a little bit more complex. Or there might be some complicated financial structuring. Thirdly on the bespoke side is that since there hasn't been much overall energy development in Indian country for use there might be some needs to do some special financial structuring or deal structuring and that would also go into the bespoke column. Our office is versed in these more complex custom transactions because that's pretty much what we do with the financing of all the innovative energy technologies. Next slide. 

In general the tribal program is used for commercial technologies that are already in the mainstream. However you are able to use it for innovative technologies also. I just put together this slide briefly just to help you kind of imagine the types of thinking and projects that you can do right now that would somewhat fit within that standard such as solar PV, land based wind, transmission, cogeneration or pipelines. And then medium term as the market evolves as well as certain details of technology evolve such as integrated systems, energy as a service, storage and offshore wind you'll note that some of these are also specific areas that we're interested in supporting from an energy innovation and catalytic perspective as the loan program office. And then long term hydrogen has been used throughout our economy for many years. 

Now there is renewed interest and new interest to create green hydrogen which is using renewable energy as the feedstock to ultimately provide hydrogen fuel. At the same time fuel cells has been an area that is very much related to hydrogen and that has, would somewhat fit into the very commercial technologies. So as you can see there is a continuum of technologies, complexity, risk and opportunity for you. Next slide. As Dr. Briggs, White and Matt Dannenberg stated the inflation reduction act really was or is a game changer. In addition to giving greater lending authority to the loan program office it also provides an opportunity for tribes in their sovereign tax exempt status to own a project and to receive direct payment pretty much in the same value as the tax credit. The only economic value I believe that would be missed out on would be the economic value of the tax depreciation as I understand it. Next slide. 

So this is just used for illustration purposes but there are two aspects here that are just really amazing. In addition to just the economic value that the loan program provides when you add the opportunity to use the direct pay – which the direct pay works very similar to a rebate – you can see how if you have a 30 percent tax credit and then if your community would be deemed to be an energy community and a ten percent adder would be added to that 30 percent. And then if you were doing the development on your lands there would be another 10 percent. So that's basically a 50 percent rebate that could be used to reduce your loan. So if this was a $100 million project that met your investment goals that we discussed before you would have an asset that cost you $100 million that you would be able to repay for over 20 years. And in this scenario you would be repaying approximately $45 million. Next slide.

As I stated before its really important to engage early so that we can identify the hurdles and discuss the eligibility and viability of your project. Our application process is broken out into two parts. The first part really is just is this an eligible borrower, is this an eligible energy resource/project? And then once that's validated and determined you're then invited to part two. And in part two we have looked a little bit deeper at the financial projections and the economics so that we are able to determine that there is a reasonable likelihood of repayment. And once that's done then you're formally invited into due diligence. And then you would follow through where we would do, we would review NEPA, review the legal and regulatory matters, the market and review the technology. And then we would move to an interagency credit review process that includes OMB and treasury. And then provided all of that is successful we would provide a conditional commitment. And once the conditional commitment is done then you would be able to have some level of comfort and assurance that we would be financing in this example the construction and term of your energy project. Next slide.

So you would pay for your construction by taking draws as your would in any other construction project that would be substantiated. And then at the end of construction that would convert into a term loan. During construction you do not have to make any payments. Interest would accrue and when the project is placed in service and you have the term loan the accrued interest would roll all into the total principle of that loan. Now as I illustrated before once the project is placed in service and then you will out the form as I understand it there will be a specific form that the tribe will fill out that we'll submit to IRS. And then I imagine within a year or so the IRS would submit a check, give you a check. You could then use that check to pay down the $100 million and so therefore you would only have a $45 million loan that you would have to pay back over the life of the loan. So next slide.

So medium term these technologies I think are worth considering as I stated before. Hydrogen, offshore wind, any enhancements to your renewable energy projects, for example augmenting solar with storage as well as looking more heavily at carbon capture and sequestration. Next slide.

I wanted to – as I stated before tribes are welcome to apply for a loan for financing for innovative projects and I thought that it would be good to just tell you a little bit about what our thinking is. Overall I think that history has shown that you get your reach and overall tipping point in the economy when you're able to have where the private sector is able to invest about $100 billion. And so based upon that we're looking at these types of technologies such as direct air capture, carbon capture and sequestration, advanced nuclear, advanced geothermal, a number of technologies to optimize the grid. One of the areas that tribes are very interested in since they're oftentimes at the edge of the grid is different types of ancillary services that can be achieved with virtual power plants. In industry converting energy waste such as coal fly ash is an acceptable type of energy investments that we're taking a look at. And then lastly of course EV charging or next generation aviation and sustainable aviation fuels. Next slide.

So this slide illustrates for example I think approximately in 2006 the wind market achieved about that $100 billion of private capital formation and about 2009 the solar technology sector achieved about that $100 billion mark there. And I think that there's overall comfort that that market has been established and its in the mainstream. Next slide. 

So keep an eye for the overall long term objectives of your tribe while at the same time we encourage you to take advantage of some of these near term opportunities. Next slide. So I hope that you were able to see some role or opportunity for your tribe to invest in energy and I'd encourage you to contact us to discuss your energy vision, your objectives, to discuss a path forward for you and to discuss the way that you're analyzing this opportunity whether it's payback or return expectations. Thank you very much. That concludes my remarks. 

>>James Jensen: Thanks Matt. Great laying out the opportunity there with the loan program office. It's a ton of money available through the loan guarantee program. That's exciting. Before we get to the Q&A we're going to have Lizana speak once again who is going to highlight some funding opportunities and resources and just kind of the I guess fill in some of the blanks at this point. Although I think our previous presenters have done a good job kind of highlighting the opportunities. So with that Lizana we'll bring up your slides and go to those and then we'll dive into Q&A for the whole panel at that time.

>>Lizana Pierce: Thank you James. Hello again everyone. I just wanted to round out some additional information. Some of the resources that I find very helpful besides the Office of Indian Energy's current funding opportunities which are somewhat specific to tribal energy. Briggs mentioned the interagency working group, the energy community side which in my opinion after all these many decades is probably the best all inclusive single site for opportunity across the board for tribes or for anyone for that matter. Another good resource is the database for state incentives in renewable energy desireusa.org. Do not forget the USA part on there. Otherwise you'll go to places that you may not want to go. But that site provides the information on federal incentives and funding opportunities but it also provides some local information, local state policies and rebates and incentives. Next slide please. 

So as was mentioned we did want to make sure that everybody is aware of the electric grid formula grants, states and tribes that that extension has as Matt Dannenberg mentioned has been extended to March 31st. And that information is online as well as the formula allocations. The second thing that I wanted to bring up is there's a lot of funds at FEMA under their building resilience infrastructure and communities, their BRIC program. I would urge folks to look into that. As I understand there's significant amount of money and potentially undersubscribed. So again another terrific potential resource. Next slide please.

And as was kind of mentioned, touched on, there are quite a few opportunities coming through the inflation reduction act and tax based credits as well as potentially rebate direct pay options. So something to think about. I've included the link down below for the White House fact sheet. It's fairly top level at this point but it highlights those provisions that are specific to tribes. Next slide please.

And again there's the phenomenal opportunities through the bipartisan infrastructure law. The link there to the DOE site specific to all of the opportunities Katrina had mentioned as well as others throughout the department so another good resource. Next slide please. And of course I'd be remiss the Office of Indian Energy does plan to issue an opportunity announcement to deploy clean energy systems. And next slide please. And the second to power and electrify tribal buildings. These are coming soon. Total of $35 million. We've had some changes not only in the congressional definitions, statuary requirements for our program and Indian lands which was expanded as well as the reduction in cost share. So stay tuned for that to be notified. You could sign up to our newsletter. Next slide please.

So stay in touch. You can go to energy.gov/indianenergy and sign up for the newsletter. We try to get information out on our program, other agencies and opportunities throughout DOE and the government. They are also now on Facebook and Twitter so join us. Next slide please. And again at Matt Dannenberg mentioned the tribal energy, clean energy summit is right around the corner. If you are interested or tribal leaders interested I believe that the deadline for registering and for hotel block, room block is quickly approaching. So information is on the Office of Indian Energy website. It will provide an opportunity for tribal leaders to have dialogue with Secretary Granholm as well as tribal staff and others to hear about the programs within DOE. And I think – I know that was fast and furious. I just wanted to highlight some other opportunities and some of that was already previously covered. So I'm going to hand that back to James and we'll start the Q&A. Thank you.

>>James Jensen: Thanks Lizana and just a reminder to our audience in general we are going to post these slides. They'll probably be posted later today and then they'll get an email I think some time tomorrow with the link where these slides are located. There's a lot of good information in this slide deck. If you don't see that email or you forget about it you can also always navigate back to our website and navigate to our webinar section. And then all of the historical webinars we've held over the years are listed there grouped by year. And then you can pick the webinar and find the slides that were used during that webinar. So just remember you've always got that resource if you need to go looking for information shared here today. We've got a fair bit of time now to go address the questions you have so please do submit any written questions that you have and we should have time to get to them. With that, I'll just start jumping into the questions that we do have. And I think first I'm going to start with you Matt, Matt Ferguson. I've got a couple questions here. The first one here is you talked about energy as a service. And an individual is asking if you could better define what that is. Is it the same as ESPC or an ESCO? And that's it. So is it the same as an energy savings performance contract or energy service – I can't remember what ESCO stands for. But go ahead, Matt. If you can elaborate on energy as a service.

>>Matt Ferguson: Thanks James. That's correct. So whether the arrangement is structured similar or as an energy service performance contract or and ESCO type of arrangement one of the benefits of energy as a service is that you're able to just incorporate all of the benefits into that contract that we would rely on as representing the long term economic value of the transaction. Oftentimes looking just at energy produced or generated is incomplete especially as we're looking at energy differently. So an energy services arrangement would make a lot of sense. It could also be used for a tribe that wants to just improve the entirety of the buildings and resources within the tribal bounds. Having that investment structured as energy as a service might be an easier or more effective way to structure that transaction.

>>James Jensen: Thanks Matt. Going to Briggs now question here. Communities and economic revitalization was mentioned. In that regard is HUD part of the interagency working group?

>>Briggs White: HUD is not officially part of the interagency working group. We have had ad hoc engagements with other agencies outside of the ones in the original executive order including HUD. But that's really been based on the expressed needs in the various places that we worked. So when services that HUD can deliver have been requested we've pulled in HUD as needed.

>>James Jensen: Great. Thanks. Matt Dannenberg are you back? All right. I know he had to step away so we'll skip over his questions for a bit here. Let me click on, go down. Another for Matt Ferguson. Do the loan guarantee programs trigger NEPA and do you have any insight into how long the EA or EIS process could take?

>>Matt Ferguson: I cannot speak to how long it would take. But my understanding is any time that there is federal participation then NEPA is triggered. Oftentimes we will just rely upon another lead agency and work with them. But most of the times we would not be the primary or lead. 

>>James Jensen: Thank you. Question here Lizana, if Matt's not back yet you might need to try to field it. But is there a cost to register to attend the public track of the Tribal Clean Energy Summit.

>>Lizana Pierce: Oh I'm not aware that there's a cost to register for the summit other than your own travel.

>>Matt Dannenberg: Yeah. I'm back. Sorry for that. Yeah. No registration cost. Just lodging and travel.

>>Lizana Pierce: But the registration is really open through September 27th so just short of three weeks. 

>>James Jensen: All right. Thank you guys. Matt, another question for you, Matt Dannenberg. The question is who is the regional rep for Montana and the surrounding states. And then you might want to clarify I guess your role versus the regional roles.

>>Matt Dannenberg: Yeah, yeah. No. It's a great question. So at the current moment we do not have a regional specialist that covers the intermountain west area or the southeast so we kind of as a regional specialist team kind of step in and cover those. So Rose Stephans Booker covers the west cost but often we'll step in and cover Montana issues. So that's who I would point you too. And really in terms of the difference between my role versus the rest of the regional specialist team is they – whereas I'm doing notifications for tribal leaders and the government to government relationship they're handling the notifications to state governments, governors, local county's municipalities and including them, making them aware of funding announcements and opportunities as well as if the secretary is traveling coordinating with local governments on the ground to take part in those activities. 

>>James Jensen: Thanks Matt. Another one for you perhaps regarding the grid resilience formulas awardee RD10 or 40101D. Is it true that the first two years will be awarded as one initial disbursement?

>>Matt Dannenberg: Yeah. Thanks for that question. That is the case. And I'll drop the or I'll have James drop the link for the FAQ in the chat that kind of spells out the official language. But yeah, both the first and the second year deadline will be March 31, 2023. 

>>James Jensen: Great. Thanks Matt. Question for you Katrina. How is OCED applying the principles of the justice party initiative and its activities to enable full scale clean energy demonstration projects, i.e. inclusion, diversity, equity and access in contracting community engagement. Etcetera?

>>Katrina Pielli: Yeah. Thank you. That's a great question. So first we have really decided to institutionalize energy and environmental justice regardless of the Justice 40 initiative which is very important because it's just the right thing to do and because if we're really trying to be successful in these programs we have to include that work and that thinking from the get go. So we have two energy justice liaisons in OCED on my team who are responsible for Justice 40 but also just more broadly environmental and energy justice. And so in terms of how we're incorporating the actual J40 priorities and then just the broader metrics, all of OCED's programs are considered covered programs for Justice 40. So we will be both tracking and then reporting out our progress part of the Justice 40 process. So that will happen. But then more broadly we're developing stakeholder engagement plans for all of our programs that include embedding the EEJ work within that. So rather than seeing it as a separate activity we're truly bringing it in and making it part and parcel to our work. So having to chat more on the side or connect anyone who is interested to our EJ liaisons if interested drop me an email. Thanks.

>>James Jensen: Excellent. Thanks Katrina. Another question for you related to the mines opportunity, mine land opportunity. Clean energy demonstrations on land adjacent to mines or affected by mines are they eligible for funding or is it only within boundaries of the mines? 

>>Katrina Pielli: Yeah. Thank you for that. So the definition from congress in terms of what's actually eligible in terms of mine land either current or former are two things. So one is land subject to SMECRA or the mining law of 1872. And that includes both, well, not both, all three active, inactive or abandoned. Also public or private as well as coal and hard rock. So we are really operating within the definition of what congress told us for that program. Thanks. 

>>James Jensen: Thank you. A question for Matt Ferguson. When you refer to tribes are you including wholly owned enterprises of the tribe as potential applicants?

>>Matt Ferguson: Yes.

>>James Jensen: Ok. That was easy. Exactly. Another question, how soon will see more detailed information on the inflation reduction act for tribes? That's a broad one. So I don't know. Matt you want to take a shot at that Matt Dannenberg? 

>>Matt Dannenberg: Sorry. Can you repeat that?

>>James Jensen: How soon will we see more detailed information on the inflation reduction act for tribes? 

>>Matt Dannenberg: Yeah. That's a really great question. I'd say definitely tune in and participate in the tribal clean energy summits. And then also in November we'll also have the president's summit. TBD on a specific date for that. But there will be a lot more details coming as agencies like I said we had some initial planning calls with interior on that. Electrification provision and so I'd say in the next few months here kind of like when the bipartisan infrastructure law dropped and was signed in November it takes a couple of months for programs to get our plans together and start to do webinars that get a little bit more into the detail. So I'd expect in the next two to three months to really see a lot more detail around some of these opportunities. I'm not sure if any of my colleagues want to jump in or add to that. 

>>James Jensen: It doesn't sound like. I think as you mentioned it takes a while for the details to filter out and be worked out. So it will kind of be piecemeal on a case by case basis as more information gets firmed up. Can – well I think Matt Ferguson this is probably a question for you but others might have information as well. Can you please explain direct pay options? So I know you talked about that a little bit. Can you just maybe go over what that means again in some detail?

>>Matt Ferguson: Well it's not specific to the loan program but as I understand it that now that for many of the energy projects that are eligible for tax credits there's some optionality. So you could transfer the tax credits to someone else is one option that a developer could choose to do. Oftentimes though in the past a tax exempt owner such as a tribe the tribe was going to take an ownership interest or equity interest into the project you'd have to do a lot of legal structuring to do that. Now you do not have to do that. Rather you would just – but you would have to choose then the direct pay option. So you would not use the tax credits. The tribe would be a co-owner or the complete owner of the project. And at the end of construction after the project is placed in service there would be a form that the tribe would fill out and send to the IRS seeking payment for the appropriate percentage that they're seeking. And the IRS would deem the tribe to be a taxpayer for these limited purposes. 

>>James Jensen: I think that was pretty good. Does anybody else want to chime in on that? All right. Another question for you Matt Dannenberg or no, I think Matt Ferguson. I didn't hear anything about geothermal in the question. I assume this would fall under storage. So I guess kind of broadly is geothermal projects eligible for –

>>Matt Ferguson: Yeah. So traditional geothermal would be a commercial technology. There is ample geothermal in operation throughout the world. And then also there are some advances with geothermal so it would also be eligible for the innovative program. Yeah, geothermal it would be great. It's somewhat complex in being able to assess the resource. And there are a limited number of engineering, procurement and construction firms that have experience with geothermal. So it's really important to have qualified experts to assess, assist with the engineering, procurement and construction as well as to acquire quality equipment and make sure that you have excellent engineers and scientists to help in documenting the potential resource. 

>>James Jensen: Excellent. Thanks Matt. Kind of well I have a question here. Well it's actually relatively specific but hard to give a specific answer. How long may it take to get approval for a solar PV farm in Indian land? I assume the question is in regards to permitting and NEPA. I don't know. Lizana do you want to take a stab at that broadly?

>>Lizana Pierce: Oh gee, thanks. I'm not a NEPA expert by any means or permitting. But everything is going to be site specific to assess the potential benefits and the impacts of the project. Is the prime head by land. Is it in a flood zone? It is in a bird pathway? I mean it goes on and on and on. And so I don't know if there's a good answer for that. I also think that the length of the NEPA process and permitting rights of way and those kind of things also are dependent upon agency resources. So again I think its going to depend. It's going to depend on the site. It depends on what's needed. If any of those triggers are there, triggers for consultation with US Fish and Wildlife for instance or those kinds of things. So I don't know if there's a good answer for that. And the scale, the scale of the project also would play a part. That's as good as it gets James.

>>James Jensen: Yep. No. I think that was good. And yeah. I know that's certainly a depends question. The one thing I would add to that is you might be able to google categorical exclusion criteria for solar and the CADX or categorical exclusion is kind of a low level NEPA review and can typically be much faster than environmental impact statement or EIS. So if you qualify for categorical solution and there is some published kind of criteria for that, that can help define the term as far as short versus long. Let's see. A Matt Ferguson question, can a battery manufacturing facility apply for a loan under the DOE loan program office?

>>Matt Ferguson: If the tribe is the owner of it. 

>>James Jensen: Yeah. I assume that's implied. Developing a facility, capital cost for that is eligible. So that's good to hear.

>>Matt Ferguson: Yeah. So we're able to finance that. That would be something to engage early so that we can discuss whether we are only financing equipment or hard assets or whether we also need to finance some of the business risk or something else related to it. 

>>James Jensen: Thanks for that further color. Has any consideration – another question for you Matt Ferguson I believe. Has any consideration been given to carbon credit monetarization to help fund projects. Oh actually maybe that's not Matt Ferguson question but does anybody know how to monetize carbon credits and help finance projects?

>>Matt Ferguson: So with relation to the loan, right, any verifiable source of revenue or economic value would be taken into consideration. So nothing, we wouldn't place any value on anything speculative. But if there is already an existing market for it we certainly would take that into consideration in evaluating the viability of the project. 

>>James Jensen: Thank you. Matt Dannenberg I think you mentioned something about this but is virtual attendance possible for the clean energy summit?

>>Matt Dannenberg: Yeah. There will be portions of the public track that will be virtual and so yeah, register for the public track and as we get closer here there will be more details in terms of which portions of that are going to be virtual and streaming. 

>>James Jensen: Excellent. Thank you. Another question for you Matt Ferguson. Can the Loan Programs Office be used by tribes to start their own clean energy generation facilities off reservation for commercial, retail and wholesale sales? And then there's a follow up question can a tribe use the Loan Programs Office to start a tribally owned ESCO business?

>>Matt Ferguson: So the first one is whether the tribe can develop a project off Indian lands and get financing under the tribal energy financing program. The answer there is yes. Then the second question was with regards to financing of an ESCO business? I would say let's talk about it. That is not usually what's contemplated but I would not say no based upon what I'm hearing right now. 

>>James Jensen: Excellent. Thank you. Now the questions are coming in faster than I can read them but we've only got room for a couple left. 

>>Matt Ferguson: Can I get another lay up?

>>James Jensen: I don't know. I'm diving into this one without having preread it so let's hope someone can answer it. The White House bill tribal playbook was very insightful. Could this format be done for the inflation reduction act? 

>>Lizana Pierce: I'll take a shot at that. I'm not sure any of us can presume to speak for the White House but I would hope that something similar may be coming out. And I don't know Matt Dannenberg if you have any additional insight but I would hope more detail is in work. Go ahead.

>>Matt Dannenberg: There is and I'm sending a link to James to share with everyone in the chat. There's a fact sheet on how the IRA helps tribal communities. Again its pretty high level but and all across government of course. But yeah. Hopefully a helpful resource to everybody. 

>>James Jensen: All right. Yeah. Thanks for mentioning that Matt. I just sent it out and previous to that I sent a link out that you'd provided on the FAQ for the formula grant. There's some good information in those two links. So that brings us to the end of our scheduled time. We're going to leave a couple questions unanswered but maybe we'll forward them on to the appropriate person and might be able to get you answered offline. I want to thank all of our panelists for their participation and help with the webinar today and the attendees for their participation in today's webinar. We are very interested in your strengthening or in strengthening the webinar series. So please do send us feedback. On the final slide I'll bring up here we have the remaining webinars of the 2022 series. The next webinar is titled Developing the Workforce for the Energy Future. It will be held on October 12th. For those that maybe had scheduled this previously, its delayed one week from our original schedule so make note of that. And with that, this concludes our webinar for today. Thank you again for your interest and attendance and we look forward to you joining us at future webinars. Thanks to everyone and have a good day.

>>Lizana Pierce: Thank you James. Goodbye.

>>Katrina Pielli: Thank you James. 

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