Randy Manion:           Good morning or good afternoon, wherever you may be, and welcome to the second webinar of the 2017 DOE Tribal Energy Webinar Series. Today's webinar, "Federal and State Policy Advancing Strategic Energy Partnerships." I'm Randy Manion, today's webinar chair, and manager of Western Area Power Administration Renewable Resource Program.

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, along with copies of today's PowerPoint presentations, in about one week. Everyone will receive a post-webinar email with the link to the page where the slides and recording will be located. Because we are recording the webinar today, all phones have been muted for this purpose, and we'll answer your questions at the end of all the presentations. However, you can submit a question at any time by clicking on the question button located in the webinar control box on your screen and typing your question. If you've entered an audio PIN when you joined, at the end of the webinar, you can also raise your hand, and if we have time, we'll unmute you so you can ask our panel your question directly.

We'll try to keep the webinar to no more than two hours, and we have several speakers today, so let's get started with opening remarks from Lizana Pierce. Lizana is a program manager in the Office of Indian Energy Policy and Programs, duty stationed in Golden, Colorado. Lizana is responsible for managing technical assistance services, implementing national funding and financing programs, and administering the resulting tribal energy project grants and agreements. She has more than 20 years of clean energy technology project development and management experience, assisting tribes in developing their energy resources and building energy visions. She holds a bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering from Colorado State University, and pursued a master's in business administration through the University of Northern Colorado. And Lizana, it's a pleasure to have you back to give opening remarks, and the virtual floor is now yours.

Lizana Pierce:            Thank you, Randy, and hello, everyone. I join Randy in welcoming you to the second webinar of the 2017 series. This webinar series is sponsored by two US Department of Energy organizations, the Office of Indian Energy Policy and Programs, otherwise known as the Office of Indian Energy, and the Western Area Power Administration, or WAPA.

Specifically, the Office of Indian Energy Policy and Programs directs, fosters, 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, we work within the department, across government agencies, and with Indian tribes and organizations to promote Indian energy policies and initiatives, and to help Indian tribes overcome the barriers to energy development.

Our deployment program is composed of a three pronged approach consisting of financial assistance, technical assistance, and education and capacity building. And this webinar series is one example of our education and capacity building efforts.

This webinar series is part of the Office of Indian Energy's efforts to support fiscally responsible energy business and economic development decision making and information sharing among tribes. It's intended to provide attendees with information on tools and resources to develop and implement tribal energy plans, programs, and projects, to highlight tribal energy case studies, and identify business strategies tribes can use to expand their energy options and develop sustainable local economies.

Our webinar today, "Federal and State Policy: Advancing Strategic Energy Partnerships," will highlight how partnerships are essential to the successful development and deployment of tribal energy projects, and are a key strategic focus of the Office of Indian Energy. Over the next few hours, we will explore how energy and environmental laws and regulations can and do impact tribal energy partnerships and development activities.

Attendees will learn about which federal requirements could impact energy projects on tribal lands, as well as circumstances where state regulations could apply. The speakers today will cover topics ranging from an overview of the tribal energy regulatory environment. We'll also have two tribal case studies and an overview of the state, local, and tribal program activities, tools, resources, and proven approaches to navigating the complex energy policy landscape, including renewable energy portfolio standards, tax credits, and net metering aggregation.

We do welcome your feedback on the webinar series, so please feel free to reach out. And I've been blessed to have worked with each of today's speakers, and pleased to have the opportunity to introduce this particular series, or this particular webinar. And with that, I'll now turn the virtual floor back over to Randy to introduce you to today's speakers. Thank you.

Randy Manion:           Thank you, Lizana. And our first speaker today will be Doug MacCourt, but I will introduce all our speakers up front, so if you could just bear with me for a minute. And Doug is a policy advisor to the director and staff of the Office of Indian Energy Policy and Programs, and works throughout the DOE and with other federal and state agencies on policy, legislative, and funding issues that are critical to the office's mission of developing and deploying clean energy and related economic development programs in Indian country.

He has more than 25 years of experience working with tribes, Alaska native corporations, and tribal business enterprises on all aspects of energy development and natural resource matters. Doug published the Renewable Energy Development in Indian County, a handbook for tribes, and is listed in the Chambers USA America's Leading Lawyers for Business and Best Lawyers in America for Native American and Natural Resources Law.

And prior to joining DOE, he was a partner in the Portland law office of Ater Wynne, where he led the – where he was the chair of the Indian law practice.

And then following Doug today is Elizabeth Doris. Liz is the principal laboratory program manager for state, local, and tribal audiences at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. She manages a $10 million annual portfolio, and is responsible for developing and directing all aspects of NREL's relationship with these audiences, and coordinating these activities across the laboratory.

Liz has 17 years of program development and management experience, and energy efficiency and renewable energy policy, research, and content expertise in energy policy, including 50 publications on effective policies for clean energy development. She has a BS degree in environmental science from Boston University, and an MA in environment policy from Johns Hopkins.

And then following Liz will be Jim Manion. Jim is currently the general manager of Warm Springs Power and Water for the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, which oversees the operation of the tribes' interests in the Pelton Round Butte hydroelectric project. Jim is also responsible for oversight on energy development activity on the 650,000 acre tribal land base. Additionally, Jim has assisted the tribes in negotiating right of ways, including two high voltage transmission corridors, and one proposed natural gas crossing through the reservation.

Jim has represented the tribes in negotiating an ownership interest in the State of Oregon's largest hydroelectric project, and Jim has been involved in the energy business for over 35 years.

And then concluding today will be Jon Paul Romero, a civil engineer with – I apologize. He is a civil engineer. Mr. Romero has over 20 years' experience in planning and project management, environmental and public involvement, governmental process, agency formation, engineering design, land development, traffic and transportation design, and construction management, including project financing, bidding, and contract administration oversight, along with the operations and maintenance of various commercial and industrial facilities, infrastructure totaling more than $350 million.

As executive director of the Northern Pueblos Housing Authority – that was the name I was looking for – Mr. Romero has been responsible for management and operations of residential, commercial, and industrial facilities, infrastructure and maintenance programs for the wastewater treatment plants, infrastructure, roads, water, sanitary sewers, and landscaping, parks, and drainage facilities.

So with that, we'll get started with Doug. Doug, just give me a moment to pull up your slide deck.

Doug MacCourt:        Great. Well, thank you, Randy, and while Randy's pulling up my slides, once again, this is Doug MacCourt. I'm the senior policy advisor for the Office of Indian Energy Policy and Programs here at the US Department of Energy in Washington, DC. And it is my distinct privilege to be on this panel, in particular for today's discussion, because it's a nice bookend to last month's webinar. And if you took the presentations on the past and current regulatory landscape from the February webinar and set them down next to today's presentations, you'll have I think a very good roadmap for where we've been, what the current state of affairs is for energy development on Indian lands.

And what I'm going to focus on mostly today, and you can go to the next slide, Randy, are some – a handful of issues that tribes across the US and Alaska have asked me to touch on briefly, because of – for a variety of reasons, in part because some of those programs are sunsetting, and they are critical to energy development of all kinds, on tribal lands in particular, some of the tax credit subsidies that apply to renewable energy. And then we're going to cover some late-breaking news, both on the executive order that came out yesterday from the administration, and some of the specific language that will direct where EPA is going to be heading over the next several years in its efforts to retool what was the clean power plant, and then we'll talk about a couple of pieces of legislation and some activities in the House and the Senate.

So one thing before we begin, and Randy, thank you for reading my bio. The one thing I do want to emphasize is that the Office of Indian Energy is a – an office that does not do its own projects here for the department. We fund and provide technical assistance for projects that tribes bring to the department, and they cover all nature of projects, coal, oil and gas, a variety of renewable energy, utility formation, strategic energy planning, and everything in between. And tribes don't need to be in a particular place or have experience with energy development to come seek our assistance. There's a very straightforward technical assistance application on our website, which I have at the end of my presentation, and you have from prior presentations.

But I wanted to make that point, because as you'll hear in some of the remarks I'm going to give today, we're getting a new direction on fossil fuel development, and it's a very exciting time, that we may see some doors open in that regard that could have potentially huge financial, economic ramifications for tribes across the US.

So let's start with the most recent activity, and that of course was yesterday. The executive order – if you could go back to the – just reverse one slide for me – entitled "Promoting Energy Independence and Economic Growth." And then we're going to jump into HR 210 and Senate 245 to give you a flavor of what's actually moving, okay? Next slide.

So if you haven't caught up with yesterday's news, and I know this is – this is coming at you pretty quickly, the first part deals with the emphasis on certain energy sources, and it reads that, "The heads of agencies shall review all existing regulations, orders, guidance documents, policies, and similar agency actions that potentially burden the development or use of domestically produced energy resources, with particularly attention to oil, natural gas, coal, and nuclear energy resources."

So one interesting thing right there is it doesn't single out fossil fuel, but it does ask the agencies to pay particular attention to those particular resources. So it is in its – in this version, the new administration's all of the above policy, at least at the executive order level. Next slide.

So several – in passing this or in promulgating the executive order yesterday, there were several previous executive orders that were revoked, and those are listed here, including EO 13653, "Preparing the US for the Impacts of Climate Change," a variety of executive orders on carbon pollution standards, mitigating impacts from natural resource development, and the Presidential memorandum of September 21, 2016, Climate Change and National Security. Next slide.

So in addition, regarding the Climate Action Plan, the following reports were rescinded, and that included the President's Climate Action Plan, the Action Plan Strategy to Reduce Methane Emission, and CEQ's final report entitled, "Final Guidance for Federal Departments and Agencies on Consideration of Green Gas Emissions and the Effects of Climate Change in National Environmental Policy Act Reviews." Next slide.

Again, continuing on the Clean Power Plan, Section 4a of the executive order on review of Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan and related rules and agency actions, directs the EPA administrator review, and if appropriate, as soon as practicable, take lawful action to suspend, revise, or rescind the "Legal Memorandum Accompanying the Clean Power Plan for Certain Issues," which was published with the Clean Power Plan. Next slide.

There are components of the executive order that deal with the costs of carbon, the social costs of carbon, in particular, including the review of estimates for carbon, nitrous oxide, and methane. And the Interagency Working Group on Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases was directed to be disbanded. Next slide.

Section 6 of the executive order, in this, there are some corollaries in some of the legislation that we'll get to in a few minutes. This basically lifts the ban on coal production or proposes to lift the ban on coal production on federal land, stating, "The Secretary of the Interior shall take all steps necessary and appropriate to lift any and all moratoria on federal land coal leasing activities related to Order 3388." Next slide.

It goes on to discuss direction to Interior about rule making, and specifically includes a order to suspend, revise, or rescind the final rule on, "Oil and Gas: Hydraulic Fracturing on Federal and Indian Lands," and there are other related rules. But we highlighted that one in particular, because it is an issue of the oil and gas producing tribes throughout the primary formation areas in the US. Next slide.

Okay, so I wanted to start with that to respond in part to questions that we get now pretty much on a daily basis on what are we seeing, what activities are we hearing about and being asked to respond to. And of course, this executive order and the agency action that will take place as a result of it, you know, will obviously result in numerous proposals which have their own legal processes to go through. So it will be some time before we may see definitive, final rules in response to the executive order. But that gives you a pretty good flavor of where the order is coming from, and what it envisions to try to enhance oil and gas development, both on federal lands, on Indian lands, and throughout the US.

Now I wanted to shift gears to talk about two pieces of legislation that were introduced at the beginning of 2017, one which is moving, one which is in committee. I'll just spend a minute or two on HR 210, because this is the – this is the bill that was introduced by Representative Don Young from Alaska, was referred to committee on January 3, 2017, and that's where it stays. The title of that bill is the "Native American Energy Act."

And what it – if you contrast HR 210 with Senate 245, you'll see there are two very different approaches that the Senate has taken and the House has taken in trying to stimulate energy activity on tribal lands. HR 210 is much shorter, much more concise, and deals with only a handful of subjects, but subjects that have been issues of significant debate and time and cost in energy development on Indian lands.

And what it – it starts out by trying to update and revise and streamline appraisals undertaken by the Department of Interior on Indian land. And it does that by a variety – or proposes to do that by a variety of mechanisms, including putting very short and black and white time limits on Secretarial review and action for appraisals conducted for or by an Indian tribe, and puts some teeth in where if the Secretary fails to approve or disapprove a particular appraisal within a certain amount of time, it is deemed approved.

In addition, there is, under Section 4 of HR 210, there are some interesting proposed limitations to – and amendments to NEPA. We have seen these come before Congress in various forms in the past. And so this isn't really a new concept, but it's new in this particular bill. And this deals with who can actually appeal a decision by an agency, a major federal action under NEPA, regarding energy activity on Indian lands, and limits that review to certain stakeholders residing within the area, including the effected tribe. For those of you on the phone that work in NEPA and practice in that area, you'll know this is a marked departure from what is otherwise a – you know, a fairly open, but a standing requirement nonetheless, under NEPA, but fairly broad and nationwide. And of course, it proposes that regulations be enacted to support those changes to NEPA.

There are also proposed changes to judicial review. Cases have to be brought, for example, in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, and they have to be resolved as expeditiously as possible, but in any event, not more than 180 days after the cause of action is filed, and they have to be filed quickly after the agency action is complete.

So you'll see the approach that's being taken there is to deal with some of the legal challenges that have occurred relating to energy development, and in particular, looking at some of the judicial functions of NEPA.

In Section 6 of HR 210, there is a proposal for a tribal biomass demonstration project, and that is similar to some provisions in Senate 245. And there are also sections relating to tribal force management demonstration projects, supporting tribal resource management plans, and some specific provisions dealing with leases of land on the Navajo Nation.

So as I said at the beginning, the one – the bill that is currently reported out of committee and proposed for action is Senate 245, and it is entitled "The Indian Tribal Energy Development and Self-Determination Act Amendments of 2017." Now we've seen this bill in prior iterations for about the last – I'm going to say the last five sessions. Don't quote me on that, but it's at least been the last three to four sessions, and it's had different numbers, of course, and various sponsors of the bill. And of course, Senator Hoeven and Barrasso, McCain, Moran, and Heitkamp are the major sponsors of this particular bill.

So this is a broader bill, and what it proposes to do is something that has been long under discussion since the 2005 Energy Bill was passed, and the Tribal Energy Resource Agreement Concept was laid down in law, but remained unused for a variety of structural, conceptual flaws and issues that the TERAs had with them. So a big component of S 245 is to try to take a whack at correcting some of what Congress thought it got right in 2005, but clearly became points of contention since the tribes never picked it up and used it as the tool that Congress thought it would be.

Now of course, what has happened since that time is we've passed the HEARTH Act, and we have several dozen tribes that are – not only – that either have compacts or have compacts in negotiation under the HEARTH Act for energy development. And I think really the HEARTH Act has pretty much eclipsed and overtaken where the TERAs proposed to be back in 2005.

But we're – when I go through these bills, we're not offering any kind of opinion as to whether we think they're good or bad or whether we think they'll likely pass or not. But as tribes consistently tell us, they want as many tools in the toolbox as they can. So if it's worth keeping TERAs on the books, this particular bill proposes to try to fix some of those default – defects.

And there are a variety of ways in which they try to do that, including trying to streamline and make more effective the certification process of the tribe entering into the TERA. They are redefining tribal energy resource development organizations, or the bill proposes to do that. It proposes to provide a variety of financial assistance in lieu of activities by the Secretary, and streamlining the process for certification of eligible – a tribe in order to negotiate the TERAs.

Now there's some other very interesting provisions of Senate 245 that are also worth note, outside of the area of TERA reform, we'll call it, and those include some authorization for tribal energy development pilot projects in a variety of areas, again, including the biomass area, and forest management, and dealing with management plans.

As I noted I believe on our last seminar, Section 201 of Title II, Senate 245, also proposes to amend Section 7A of the Federal Power Act by including the term Indian tribes in what us lawyers call the municipal preference for issuance of preliminary permit or hydropower licenses under the Federal Power Act. And, you know, many – many of us in the Indian law community have always thought that Indian tribe should be read along the term states and municipalities. FERC did not share that position, and this proposes to correct that.

Without going into a long discussion of the municipal preference, it's an extremely powerful tool for which currently states and municipalities, and this mainly includes state-regulated utilities or public utility districts, can step in to a private licensing procedure and take over the license. And of course, they – if a state or municipal utility does that, there are still issues of just compensation that need to be dealt with. By merely taking over the preliminary permit or the license, that doesn't give the states, the municipalities, or now the tribes, a free project.

But what it does do is enable them to exert regulatory jurisdiction over that project, and essentially take over the ownership and development, and ultimately the license for it.

I mentioned there are provisions authorizing tribal biomass demonstration projects. A number of the tribes we work with are very interested in pursuing those. There is some authorization for continuing weatherization programs. There is also a much smaller section dealing with appraisals. It takes kind of a different tack than HR 210 on trying to kind of speed up the Department of Interior appraisal process. But they both essentially get to the same place, which is make them faster, make them more efficient, and provide some – you know, some end to the process, where the Department of Interior has to make a decision to grant, deny, or move on.

Similar to HR 210, S 245 clarifies the standing of leases of restricted lands on the Navajo Nation. It also has an extension of a tribal lease period for the Crow Tribe. And then it has a final provision dealing with the trust status of lease payments to try to avoid some of the problems that have cropped up in that area in the past.

So I know I'm moving very fast, and we have a few more topics to cover on my presentation. But that's a real quick overview of what's moved, what hasn't, with respect to Indian energy bills. Of course, a lot of the discussion now is being colored by the executive order that was issued yesterday. For those of you who remember the bipartisan energy bill that passed out of the Senate and Energy and Natural Resources Committee last year – sorry, in 2015, the information that we have now is that that bill and that Senate committee is most likely going to break that bill apart. And it was roughly a 500 page bill that didn't deal with just tribal or Indian energy issues, but was essentially a reform of the 2005 Energy Bill.

Well, given the various cross-currents and policy shifts that have – that are going on and the discussions around them today, what we understand is most likely to occur is that there will be various components of those bills that will be broken apart and moved in different time periods and in different locations.

So one thing I would encourage everybody who's on the call to do, if they have the opportunity to attend the National Tribal Energy Summit May 1st through 3rd here in Washington, DC, that our office is sponsoring, we're going to have several sessions, both directly from the elected members of Congress, as well as a Heard on the Hill session, that will update folks in greater detail as to what that pathway may look like. And of course, it's extremely important for tribal energy proponents, whether it's fossil fuels, renewables, or planning, what have you, to keep an eye on the non-Indian energy bills, because they will carry oftentimes significantly larger blocks of potential authorization and appropriation, and more potentially sweeping changes to the energy regulatory landscape.

So with that, we'll go to the next slide, and we'll cover a few topics that came in from some of our tribal webinar listeners and our Indian Country Energy and Infrastructure working group. And probably all I'll have time to do is cover quickly the first two, and those are some activities in net energy metering, and second, a reminder about where we stand today in the renewable energy tax credits, and where those are heading. Next slide.

So net energy metering has taken a very interesting evolution at the state level, which could provide a number of different opportunities for tribes, in particular as states look at aggregating energy metering, virtual energy metering, and advance their policies. Next slide.

And of course, we often stay in the lane of the federal primacy with respect to development of natural resources on tribal lands, but this is an area where we're going to see potentially beneficial crossover, where tribes can, if they choose to, negotiate and participate in some of these state policies, whether they are generating their own electricity or whether they're trying to serve customers on lands that may be either through allotment or through whatever historical processes, are not exactly contiguous. There's some very interesting policies being developed to try to be pro-consumer, but of course, that includes or certainly should include the tribes as consumers as well.

So basically, just so everybody's on the same page, what are we talking about in net energy metering? It's basically generating one's own electricity, putting some of or all of that back to the utility for credit. It is driving other policy to decentralize energy generation, and we think that for distributed generation, this policy will provide maybe not as much incentive as renewable portfolio standards did when they started years ago, but a significant boost in decentralized energy. Next slide.

So when we look at net energy metering, of course, the advantages, customer receives a lower monthly electric bill while still enjoying that reliability from the utility and from the grid. And depending upon the size of the system and state police, RECs can also be sold. The disadvantages could include larger upfront costs, more time getting up to speed around the curve of research, installation, maintenance, and the pricing of the systems. Next slide.

So what is this concept of virtual net metering? Well, like net energy metering, it's one owner account and several other accounts that are bundled together. We'll see how this evolves. I mean, currently, generally, these systems are where all the accounts and meters are behind the same delivery – service delivery point, but we're seeing some interesting conversations go on where there – it may make sense to juggle that a little bit. Next slide.

And again, the advantage of virtual net metering is it greatly expands the customer base of those who want renewable energy but can't afford the systems themselves. The credit allocation can be customized. And it increases economy of scale, which usually leads to lower project cost and lower monthly payments. Disadvantages include the shared/split credits may in certain cases not amount to what the particular consumer or customer had hoped. And there are still some tax wrinkles that need to be worked out in how this actually is applied. Next slide.

So aggregation. What is it? Well, it's where you have a one owner account and several aggregating accounts. There are different service delivery points, but if you can get all aggregating accounts being adjacent or near the owner account, and all meters belong on the same customer record, then you can get – this is in particular what some tribes are looking at who don't have immediately contiguous land, but may own parcels of land that are close but not immediately adjacent to each other, but it makes sense for their customers to all take advantage of the net metering from one particular utility that serves that entire territory. Next slide.

Okay. Again, I think that the advantages and disadvantages are very similar to the other – to the other net metering scenarios. Next slide.

And we're going to go, because we've only got a few minutes left and I want to turn it over to my fellow speakers, we're going to go forward now to the next subject, and you can refer back to these slides if you have any questions, either during the Q&A period, or if you have questions after this webinar presentation, feel free to reach out to me. My phone and email contact are at the end of the presentation. But we're going to go now – let's go through the slide deck until we get to the state – the tax policies for the – excuse me, the federal extension of the investments tax credit and the – thank you – production tax credit.

Now several of our tribes that we've participated in, you know, asked us to remind our audience and remind the – our constituents, all of the 567 federally recognized tribes, Alaska native corporations, which – the village and regional corporations and the tribes of Alaska, that may be thinking of a project that could use either the investment tax credit or the production tax credit, exactly where we stand with those today. Next slide.

So again, real quickly, the programs were put in place to incentivize renewable energy growth and the investment tax credits, based on the amount of investment in the project. Production of course is based on generation production from the project. Next slide.

So with respect to the investment tax credit, an extension was passed in 2015, extending the credit through 2019, before ramping down. And you see the slide here that has the various ramps. Twenty fifteen to 2019, 30 percent. Twenty twenty, 25 percent; 2021, 22 percent; and 22 and onward, 10 percent, and that's only for commercial.

Now of course, Congress can change this at any time, but this is the current situation. And if a tribe or a tribal energy development organization, a native corporation, were considering a project that was financing dependent upon or certainly could use the investment tax credit, it's critical to understand not just these amounts, because that'll affect the overall financing, but what you have to do to be eligible to capture these amounts with the in service dates and starts of construction. Next slide.

And here, we've just put a table together that basically shows you by technology how these – how these various – the ITCs will ramp down in the coming years. Next slide.

Okay. So with PTCs, we have a similar concept applied differently. And again, remembering that production tax credit is per kilowatt hour, inflation adjusted, for projects beginning construction on December 31, 2016 and onward, there's a certain amount of credit that applies for wind projects for the first ten years of operation. And the phase starts in 2017, with a 20 percent reduction, 2018 with a 40 percent reduction, and 2019 with a 60 percent reduction. Next slide.

So as we know from following the cycles of treasury passing and then sunsetting investment and production tax credits, the development cycle of projects on and off Indian land follows that cycle, and in the views of many in the investment community, creates a rather unpredictable investment climate. We don't know, given the political climate, exactly what the interest will be for changing this scenario, extending it, or letting it sunset. But we wanted to bring it up today to remind folks that it is in place, it does ramp down over time, and those timeframes are rapidly occurring.

So I am going to stop there to give my – the rest of the speakers time for their presentations. It's been a privilege, again, to help update you. And once again, please go to our website and take a look at the National Tribal Energy Summit, again, being held from May 1st to 3rd, here in DC at the JW Marriott, where we'll have much more in depth discussion on this and other subjects of importance to tribes for energy development. And Randy, before I will end, I'll note that we also have an important update about a change to next month's webinar, specifically related to pitching your project to investors and developers, that we're doing in particular to try to get people ready and primed for our matchmaking sessions at the national summit. But we'll talk about that at the end. Thank you, Randy. The floor is back to you.

Randy Manion:           Thank you, Doug, very much. And Liz, I have your slide deck up, and it's all yours.

Elizabeth Doris:         Awesome. Hi. My name is Liz Dorris, and I will be relatively quick. I'll try to wrap up in sort of 10, 15 minutes, to make room for speakers and questions. And I think Doug covered a lot of the really important national level work that's going on.

As Randy mentioned, I work here at the National Renewable Energy Lab, and I've been working with the Office of Indian Energy since about 2011, and really appreciate the opportunity to be here and kind of merge my work on this project also with some other work that I do on state and local policy, which is another part of my role here at the lab. So I'm thrilled to be here. So you can go to the next one.

This is the geographic boundaries of the United States. You'll notice that, oops – oh, come back. Thank you. The – you'll notice that Alaska and Hawaii are both in the wrong place, but they're both there, so that's helpful. So as Doug just described, the national level government, the federal government, puts in place a lot of the framework for how we talk about energy, particularly at the interstate level. There hasn't been a passed comprehensive energy policy in the US since 19 – or, I'm sorry, since 2007. And so what we're working with at the federal level are a lot of the regulatory actions that Doug talked about, and also the tax credits that he also talked about.

So if you got to the next level, and I think we'll talk more about partnerships as we go, you know, those tax credits, they can be, as he mentioned, you know, 30 to 50 percent of the project costs. And so it's definitely, if you're doing a large scale project, it's definitely worth at least looking into the pros and cons for you on partnering, so – with a partner with a tax appetite.

So if you then go down to the next level, and Doug talked a little bit about net metering, and I'm going to talk a little bit about the – about the construct at the state level here, states really have been a significant driver, and state policy has been a significant driver, for clean energy markets. They work in both sort of the market preparation area, which is removing regulatory barriers for projects to take off. They also work in the development area, which is setting up a policy construct that is supportive of different energy technologies taking off, which is, you know, is a highly regulated market. It is – it is sort of only tangentially related to the – to a free market. And so it's – states have set up policy like mandates to really support the development of different types of electricity and energy generation that are important to the other goals of the state, be those economic development goals or environmental goals sometimes, or the sort of larger-scale manufacturing – that's kind of related to economic development, kind of, and energy development natural resources kinds of laws.

And the reason I mention it is that if you go down to – don't – stay here on this slide. This is a map of the counties. And the third group that really has a role in energy development is – are these localities, counties and localities. And there are four groups altogether: federal, state, local, and tribal.

And so one of the things I wanted to point out is that the localities often focus on, as opposed to sort of setting a market up, they focus on facilitating that, so looking at permitting and siting, those types of things, for making sure that the community is on board with the development that's actually happening. So you'll see a lot of environmental justice types of ordinances at the local level. You'll see a lot of economic development ordinances, and a lot of visual and water safety ordinances as well.

So that's the kind of thing you see at the local level, and those are kind of the different layers of how the governments interact with energy projects at the state – at the federal, state, and local level. There are pros and cons to this construct, one of which is, you know, the pros are that there's a lot of opportunity for innovation when you have 60,000 – that's how many individual governments there are in the United – in the geographic boundaries of the United States.

You have 60,000 governments. The opportunity for innovation and creative thinking is really high. On the flip side of that, the uniformity of the policy environment is potentially much lower, and when you don't have certainty in your regulatory and policy environment, that often contributes to risk, as Doug was kind of alluding to, at the federal level, some risk on the part of investors.

So the climate is uncertain for how people will invest, and that is a big – when you're thinking about, if you go to the next slide, when you're thinking about policies or strategies that a tribe might take to maximize the potential for energy development, and I focus on clean energy, but energy development in general, you can look at how to reduce that uncertainty, given the construct that you're in within the state that you're working in.

So I'm going to talk – if you go to the next one, I'm going to talk today a little bit about what states are doing. I am going to – I'll talk about some solar financial incentives, which are the ones we get asked about the most, although there are other financial incentives. I'm going to quickly talk about aggregate net metering, because Doug sort of already covered it. And then we've been getting a lot of questions about how to integrate community solar programs. And so I'll talk a little bit about those, and then some other policy opportunities, and what we're – what we're hearing about and looking at in the future.

So if you go to the next one, just talking about the impacts of state policy, I mentioned renewable portfolio standards. So these are by far the sort of longest running mandates for clean energy in the United States. There are at least 29 states that have them now, and we know a lot about them, because we've had them since 1991, was the first one.

And so if we – and they've all been updated, so this is the current map here. And if you look down there at Hawaii, I'll use them – oh, well, I'll use them as an example, but it's a pretty extreme one. They have 100 percent requirement by 2045 that they put in place last year. And so you can sort of see they're all marked that way. And some of them have – if you look at New Mexico, you have 20 percent by 2020 for IOUs, and 10 percent for 2020 for co-ops.

So states set these up in different ways within their locus of control, and also within how the – what the – what the particular goals are of the state in terms of energy development, clean energy development in this case. So we know that they cover a large chunk of the retail market, and they've driven more than 60 percent of the renewable energy market since 2000. So states putting mandates in place for energy development has resulted in energy development within those states, which is an important aspect of this to keep in mind, if those are under consideration for you, or if you're in – if you're located within the bounds of a state that have an RPS that is relatively strong, that has driven a lot of market development, and there's probably opportunity there.

The other thing I wanted to mention about this before we move on is that they are – there are a lot of reports out, and they're in the notes of these slides, about the costs of RPSs, and illustrating that in fact we can now, because we've had them for so long, we can now clearly see that states with RPSs do not have higher cost electricity than states without.

So if you can go to the next slide, so there are a couple of different opportunities to take part in here for tribes. One is to look at the – if you're crossing state boundaries, to look at the different RPSs and markets that are there, and then take a look at how there might be markets developed that the states have kind of put in place. You could leverage some of those, and then negotiate, work with your state on the development on state lands which might be adjacent to you, and then also, I think in general, and I know this isn't – this isn't always workable, but having good contact with the state government, and particularly the regulators, can be really impactful in terms of – and this is, you know, phone calls, and reaching out, and relationship building, can be really impactful in terms of making sure that tribes receive the benefits that the rest of the state is getting from some of these policies. So that's a relationship building piece.

So if you go to the next piece, I'm going to talk a little bit more about other state policies. And you go to slide 11, which is the financial incentives for solar.

So we've seen a lot of states working on financial incentives for solar, and we wanted to take a look – one of the things we wanted to take a look at was sort of explicit inclusion of tribes within those incentives, because some of that ambiguity can lead to uncertainty, which increases risk on all sides, and can often – like we wanted to see if we could streamline the process for tribes a little bit in accessing those incentives. And so what's what we were looking for.

And as it turns out, there are almost 1,000 incentives programs. Only 48 of them explicitly include tribes. That is certainly not to say that tribes don't qualify for the other incentives. In fact, they probably do. They probably just did not mention it in the legislation. So – but there is uncertainty, right? So you'd need to look into it. The ones that are inclusive are spread across these 28 states down here below, and there are links to this information. We had a blog about this a while ago. And so there are links to that information down below in the notes as well, when you get the slides.

If you go to the next, there's a little bit of a summary. So Oregon, Massachusetts, and Minnesota are almost all of the state level – 30 percent, the biggest chunk of state level incentives. But there are no explicit references for the seven states with large tribal populations. So like I said, that does not mean that Colorado, California, Michigan, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, and Washington do not have incentives. It means that they don't explicitly call out tribes. So there are large incentives definitely worth looking into, but it's not uniform, and requires a little bit of investigation. And those are for solar. Go to the next slide.

So the – some examples of these programs. When I say incentives, I'm talking about rebates. So direct cash, right? Cash for the – for installing clean energy. And those are – it's a little bit of a blunt instrument, and it has to do with that being easy to transactionally provide to different governments. And so it's an easy program to implement, is how that should be said. But it's a pretty blunt instrument. So there are lots of – that's what most of them are. And then you also have performance-based incentives. So if you put in a facility and report to the utility what it is producing, it – they will give you an incentive for that. And then there are also – some states offer this – a lot of this comes out of the ARRA rotating or – I'm sorry, revolving loan funds. And so that's certainly worth looking for, if you're looking for a non-grant-based investment support system. So there – and Delaware is one of those. There's some more information on all these down below.

The next slide talks about the eligibility in these programs. So this is just sort of a breakdown of where we think that – I'm sorry, where tribes can be included in those. And the types of language we're seeing, I think if you look to the second to bottom line here, incentive available to any government, that's the kind of language that we're specifically looking for, any government, any customer, and any paying customer was another one that we saw a lot.

Of course, we would like to see – to reduce – to have the most certainty, we'd like to see tribal governments explicitly included in that state language. And so – just because that reduces uncertainty for investment a little more.

So if you go on, I'm going to go ahead and skip down to – I'm going to – these are all examples of clearer tribal eligibility, but we can skip down to aggregated net metering and community solar, so 17. You guys can look at these later, if you want. But they all – they're sort of examples of what I was just talking about.

So Doug talked about aggregate net metering, and so I have a couple of slides in here on that, but that's – I will skip through those, and I will stop at the map that he had on his slide, too, but was – didn't get to. The – I do want to talk about community solar, though, as an option for offsetting rental costs for energy, and as an opportunity for a different way to provide certain energy costs over time. You know, rooftop solar has been challenging in that while it creates jobs, it is more expensive than centralized larger scale solar, and it requires good rooftops, and sometimes that can be really challenging.

So just really quickly before I go on to community solar, I want to talk about this slide 19 with the virtual net metering allowed, or partially allowed. So there are 23 states now. This is up in the last few years. You know, I think two years ago I gave a talk like this, and it was like nine. So it's really moving quickly. This idea that you would be able to have solar on a facility you own and have it offset electricity on another facility that you own is a new-ish idea. It's certainly going gangbusters in California, and it's kind of spreading across the US. It is certainly – if you have, and you do, as tribes, sort of campus-style electricity generation and electricity needs, it is definite – and you live in one of these states, it is definitely worth looking into as an opportunity, because it can really change the economics of projects, and allow you to put solar where it makes more sense to you in your state. So if we – or, I'm sorry, in your space. I apologize.

So if we skip down to the community solar environment at slide 22, sort of in this same vein, states have been looking at community solar programs and how to support those for their constituents. And this is also driving a lot of the market, and probably one of the more important things that it's doing for the tribal application is bringing installers to those marketplaces and reducing the costs of installation at that – in those locations. And so having experienced installers can really help reduce your risk in putting one of these in.

So there are some mandated programs, a lot of kind of voluntary programs or pilot programs. Colorado, for example, has a pilot program right now in community solar specifically for low income. So these types of programs are happening all over the US, and we're seeing a lot of them. And I just wanted to mention that for community solar.

There's some data on the next slide that talks about how we're seeing an uptick in non-residential PV and community solar. So there's just huge amounts of this going in, and I think that's a really great opportunity for tribes, too, not just to provide their own electricity with community solar, but also as a – as possible for connecting with communities right outside that might also have an interest in developing solar resources, working together.

So the last slide on that has this – has a summary of the low and moderate income stipulations for states. We get a lot of questions about environmental justice and how to best support our lowest income communities with access to clean energy. And so I just wanted to mention if there were interested parties on the phone that those are also happening in several states. And certainly, this is increasing over the last two years, as we've seen an uptick in how to provide fair and just electricity to our lowest income populations.

So one of the interesting things I wanted to note on the next slide is that we're seeing a lot more housing authority participation. So both Rhode Island and Colorado are including how to support housing authorities in community solar development and virtual net metering development. And I think that's a really interesting potential opportunity for tribes, since the housing authorities play such a central role in the government in many tribes, that looking to those states as models for how that's done, or partnering with your state in getting that done, to kind of streamline the development of energy through the housing authorities I think could be a really interesting opportunity. So I just wanted to mention that.

There have been a lot – if you go down to slide 27 here, and I'm wrapping up. I realize that I'm over my commitment to 15 minutes. But we have some sort of the more traditional opportunities. These are some great success stories in the Office of Indian Energy, which of course _____ has provided a lot of the grants and the technical assistance support for some of these, as well as other federal agencies. It takes a village to get a large scale renewable project in, and I think certainly it takes a village on the federal side and at the tribal level.

So there's a lot of traditional development. I also wanted to call out in particular the off grid distributed PV deployment, which was run by the NTUA, the Navajo Tribal Utility. That really fit – one of the things I liked about that program and the support it got is that it really targeted a need that was specific to the tribe, and solved a problem that was really there, or at least partially solved, attempted to solve.

So those are just some of the more traditional things that we see. There's a lot of information about these on the notes of this slide.

So some opportunities I'm basically going to save for the next – what I would say, if I was speaking for five more minute, but I'm only going to speak for two, is reach out. When you're working, there are a lot of opportunities at the state and local level, in addition to the federal level, for identifying, streamlining, permitting, and getting in with – on other incentives that are going on at the state level for energy development, and – but having those relationships is critical.

So if you go to the sort of next – the slide 29, you can – you can see that we're – like I'm really emphasizing like talk to your utility and get – develop – start to develop that relationship. That is as simple as starting to call them up and having that relationship. I know there is – believe me, bad blood between consumers and utilities is not limited to tribal audiences. But I do think that there are a lot of people who are trying to move energy projects and economic development projects forward, and finding them, and developing relationships with them at the utility and state level I think can really help streamline some projects.

So that is all I'm going to talk about. I am – I am really honored. I hope that that is useful information for people on the phone. I want to thank Jeff Cooke for contributing. I don't know if he's on the line or not. But for contributing to the content in this presentation. We have a lot of policy reports. He's been looking at lot at how to better support tribal entities within state policy, and on the incentive piece, to remove that part of uncertainty. And so we have some stuff coming up on that.

And then, of course, please, if you have further questions, please go request technical assistance. That is an opportunity that is open for all tribes. So thank you so much for your time, and I will pass it along.

Randy Manion:           Thank you, Liz. And Jim, just give me a moment to get your deck pulled up. And Jim, it's all yours.

Jim Manion:               All right. Good morning to some, good afternoon to others. Jim Manion here with the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs. Listening to Doug talk about the federal opportunities, I think, or federal issues and challenges that are out there with some opportunities, kind of the 10,000 foot level. Drill down to the 5,000 foot level, and we got Liz talking about really what some of the states are doing. And I'm going to go a little bit further and talk to you about what we've done here in Warm Springs on one particular project. So this is more of a case study than it is – than it is anything.

So with that, we'll start with the next slide, and kind of give you an idea of where we are located, for those of you not familiar with Warm Springs and the reservation here. It's a – I think, as Randy had mentioned, a 650,000 acre reservation, centrally located in Oregon. We own and manage roughly 99 percent of the land, so it's not a fractionated reservation. So it really I think provides for the opportunity to explore some of these things that are coming at us across the nation, and I think as you saw in Liz's slide, there's a lot of states yet to move in renewable. But in our case, Oregon has taken a pretty progressive position in advancing renewable energy as something that we're looking at.

But in this case study here, we're talking about the first project that the tribes kind of undertook. So the next slide begins to kind of describe exactly what that project is. Looking at kind of now a section within that map that you just saw, and this is the – basically, the project – it's a little busy, but if you look at the – kind of the blue rivers, you'll see the three dam sites here, and we'll have pictures of them coming up shortly, that describe what it is exactly Warm Springs did here with the utility company back in early 2000.

So just kind of gives you the lay of the land. We've got three major streams that converge where there's a large hydro project, and then two subsequently downstream from that. So a lot of issues and challenges with regards to state and federal policy as you move through the ownership and management of these types of projects, and we'll talk a little bit about that here in the next couple of slides.

The next slide basically starts to talk about how is Warm Springs involved. And as I think we all know in Indian country, we declare ourselves a sovereign nation. So what does that mean to us? It basically means that we are a nation that has the authority to implement rules and regulations and laws and ordinances and such. And so with that, basically begin to shape what it is and how it is we will involve ourselves in projects that do touch tribal land bases.

The next slide basically talks about the other component within this project particularly, which is the regulatory agencies, knowing who they are, knowing how they are involved, both on the federal and state side. The reservation, as you'll see in a few slides coming down the road here, the project sits partially on the reservation. So with it being partially off, state does have some jurisdiction. The feds, due to the Endangered Species Act and the requirements that US Fish and Wildlife and NOAA have with regards to implementing management standards for a federally licensed project to come into play. So a number of – multiple number of regulatory agencies that do engage in this particular project, and most projects across the country, as it pertains to a federally licensed project.

So with that, the next slide begins to identify, okay, who it is and what it is that is – who it is and what it is at the table. Who are they? What authority do they have?

Warm Springs is in this case a co-manager with the state in regards to part of the resident fishery in the Deschutes River. Aside from the _____ fish, the migrating fish that are coming in and out, which the tribes have a relationship with the federal government on, as a trustee. The tribes are definitely sitting at the table as a co-manager with regards to what impacts has this project brought on the resource. This was a project that was licensed years ago, and during the course of time, that license came to an end, and gave everyone an opportunity to begin to look at what it is we are going to do for impact – managing the impacts this project has created over the course of its initial license. So the tribe sits at the table as a co-manager.

The next slide basically begins to also recognize the tribes are a licensee. And it got a little bit complicated, and we'll get into that, as the state and federal policy makers look at the tribes as pretty much a manager, but then soon discovered we're also a licensee.

So the next slide begins to describe what it is exactly the project consists of in this case, and it's the Deschutes River hydroelectric project. It was formed in 1950. And as I mentioned, one-third of the project sits on tribal lands, so it puts the tribes in a position of having to engage in resource management impacts and proposing mitigation measures. So the tribes basically became involved in the fifties with regards to allowing the project to be built, and then subsequently, what issues need to be addressed as a result of the impacts that that project has brought.

Half of the project sits on tribal land. The other sites within the – within the state boundary. The Federal Act provisions that are basically requirements within the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission relicensing process have really two big components for the tribes. One is compensation for use of land. The Federal Power Act exclusively identified tribal reservations as reservations that could not be condemned for the use of power production. And in this case, it was really – most cases, when licenses were issued to developers, the licensee who was granted that permission to build that based on the license they received from FERC, had the authority to basically condemn your property as a landowner and compensate you fairly for the inundation of your property.

In the tribes' case, they cannot do that, so they had to come and sit with the tribes and talk about use of the land and what it would mean to inundate it, and what the compensation would be for that. And then the other issue is 4(e) mitigation measures within the Federal Power Act. What measures are actually – or what resources are actually being impacted? And we'll talk a little bit about that as we get into the presentation.

And then there's also a state licensing process. The State of Oregon in our case issues licenses. I hate to admit it, but they do follow kind of the second – they are kind of the second seat. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Federal Power Act really dictate the majority of the terms and conditions. The state does issue a license that in our case, and probably in most cases with regard to Oregon State licenses, do and are – do comply with the license, and aren't inconsistent with requirements for the new license.

And then we have the Confederated Tribes, as I mentioned, as the landlord and licensee. So kind of a unique position in some respects.

The next slide kind of begins to show a picture of all three of the projects that we're talking about here. You have the upper project, called Round Butte Dam. It's the largest earthen dam in the State of Oregon, roughly – that powerhouse is about 350 megawatts of hydro production. The Pelton project, the middle of the slide, is the concrete arch dam that's three turbines that are roughly 35 megawatts each. And then the last one is the Rereg, the one the tribes put in.

The next slide begins to define exactly what that project – what the first dam looks like upstream. As I mentioned, it's an earthen dam, and has basically – this was constructed in '64. As I mentioned, the license was issued in '50. So this dam really followed the first dam on the project, which was the next slide, or is the next slide, which is the Pelton project, the Pelton Dam project.

That's a concrete/earthen dam, and was the one that was licensed in 1950, and completed in '58. Again, in this position – in this view here, the right side of the project is tribal land, if you will, on the right side of the river, or the center channel of the river, so from about the middle of the dam to your right is tribal land, and to the left is non-tribal.

And then the last – the next slide is the last dam on the project that was all licensed in – as one, which was the Pelton Reregulating Dam. And the powerhouse you can kind of see on the right with the three teepees representing Confederated Tribes, built that project in 1981, and became a co-licensee on the project with Portland General Electric, under the initial license that was issued. So it was a – kind of an interesting scenario, where the tribes and PG became basically joint licensees, and then had to move into the next phase of the project.

So the next slide talks about what happened during the course of trying to negotiate that project, compensation for the tribes. PGE is an investor-owned utility, so the majority of the energy that's generated out of this project really is transported into Portland, Oregon, or into the Willamette Valley, I'll say, and then kind of shipped northward into Portland, Oregon. So it's all pretty much serving the majority of the load needs that are in the Willamette Valley, from about Salem, Oregon, north into Portland.

So this project was owned and operated by Portland General Electric. The tribes entered into the picture basically in the eighties as co-licensee, when we built that powerhouse at the Rereg Dam. Attempted to negotiate, and really agreed to disagree, couldn’t come to what we thought were reasonable terms. So it really put us in the position of going to council and saying, we can't reach what we believe is a fair and equitable approach to compensation, and we'd recommend that we file a competing license and basically go for the entire project.

So the next slide begins to talk about what does that mean for the tribes, and how is it that we would approach this process? And it wasn't without careful thought. Many years prior to the point of agreeing to disagree with Portland General that Warm Springs had thought about what do we need to do to prepare ourselves in the event we can't reach an agreement with Portland during the course of – and this was in the early – or excuse me, the mid-1990s, that we basically started working with the tribal council and showing and kind of working with them to understand what our options are if we don't.

And so in that light, it became pretty apparent that with dual jurisdictional authorities, it was going to be a process where our resource agency and – our resource agency folks would be involved as co-managers, and the tribes would also be involved as a licensee. And so the tribal council basically issued a roles and status understanding memo for all of the folks that were involved in the relicensing. As I had mentioned earlier, both state and federal agencies are involved in this project. And they were somewhat perplexed with the fact that Warm Springs was coming to the table, not as just a resource manager, but also as a owner or developer.

And so we had to make sure we were very clear in defining how it is we were going to view it, and how we were going to manage that dual role. So it took on kind of a little bit of clarity to the folks sitting at the table, and what the tribal council did is basically said, "Jim, you'll take the development licensee's role, and then the manager for the tribes' natural resource branch will take the representative role for managing the resource and identifying the impacts."

So it was clear that there was a line drawn there between the two different interests, and this memo really helped I think – helped bring clarity and understanding to the agencies, both the state and the feds, with regards to how Warm Springs was going to – was going to sit at the table. And it was – it was a interesting process.

And before that memo came out, they weren't quite sure how to work with the tribes, because as we filed our intent to own the project, they said, you know, "This could be difficult for us to work with the tribes because of that." So the memo really did I think clear the path and clear the air and allow for the agencies to understand who it is they're talking to and what they're representing then they're talking to them.

So next slide basically talks about the regulatory environment. As I mentioned, it is a federally licensed project. The state and the tribe in this case both had Section 401 Clean Water Action quality standards that they could issue. The state was issued and delegated the authority to implement the 401 water quality standards. The tribes, in our case, filed to be what's called a treatment as state status with the EPA, and were granted the authority to implement clean water quality standards under Section 401 of the Clean Water Act.

So again, you've got basically two state entities that have their responsibility – two entities, one state, one tribe, responsible for implementing water quality standards on discharged water out of the project. So you had pH water quality, meaning pH levels, dissolved oxygen levels, and temperature levels. So the state and the tribes had to come together and work with the DEQ in this case, and the – and the state water resource branch to establish that.

The Oregon State Department of Revenue is involved, as the project does sit partially off reservation. And it's a centrally assessed asset for the State of Oregon for taxing purposes. And there was some work that had to be done there, again, for in this case the IRS to understand how the tribes were viewing the asset within the project, and how we would view taxation.

On the federal side, we had the Public Utilities Regulatory Policy Act, which basically was the act that got the tribes engaged in the development of hydropower production. Being allowed to come in and develop the Rereg, that last dam that was in the series of the three, was – without that act, the tribes wouldn't be able to participate or wouldn't be able to build the project and have it work economically. So that – there was that.

And then the Electrical Consumers Protection Act, referred to as ECPA, usually, was really the law of the land in terms of how you went about relicensing hydroelectric projects. And Warm Springs inserted language in there to ensure tribal lands, not just the Warm Springs land, but tribal lands, were treated differently when it came to how and what the act treated tribal entities.

So the process for relicensing, the next slide basically starts to talk about the development, scope, and approach on what it is and how it is. And I think I've gone over that earlier in terms of how the tribes viewed it. Understanding timelines, not just internal timelines, not just federal timelines, the state timelines as well. All timelines are critical in owning and operating and managing these kinds of assets. When you have permits that are issued from literally three different entities, you have the tribe that's the sovereign, the state is a sovereign, and the federal government as the issuing – issuer of the license. So all have their timelines. All have paths that you have to stay on and meet. If you don't, you're really not in a position to compete or to own.

So what the tribes did was basically started looking at the plan history and understanding what the compliance of the project was, so we had a good understanding of what those timelines were and what – and how they needed to be met in the future.

The next slide continues on the relicensing process, and basically as I talked I think a little earlier about understanding who is out there, what responsibilities they had, and what it was that we were expected to undertake as a – now I'm talking in the terms of a developer in those timelines there. I think I talked a little bit about the treatment of state authority the tribes had.

So having a clear understanding, I think, of not just the policies the states have, and the policies that the feds have. The legislation is another component that is critical to keep your eye on as you look at these types of developments, so as something doesn't change in the middle of the process. So understanding your landscape is pretty critical in ensuring that you're not being – you're not being undermined by some piece of legislation that could come about. So keeping your eyes not just on the policy level side, which is really kind of the – kind of more the administrative position on implementation of legislation.

So knowing where they're at is really important, but also knowing what may be being drafted. And in this case, you can kind of go back to the Electrical Consumers Protection Act statements that I made earlier. There was an attempt to really sway the legislation to allow for existing licensees to basically renew their license, and not give preference to anyone except for the existing licensee. And that's where Warm Springs was watching and inserted language that said, "Except for when it pertains to tribal lands," that the existing licensee will not be given preference if the tribe can demonstrate the need for the project.

So knowing those kinds of things are moving at all times is pretty important. So it takes a pretty good team to kind of follow all of these parts as they're moving, and staying within the timelines. So that's kind of the way we viewed it.

And then the next slide basically just reiterates I think a clear understanding of the issues that are out there. What are they? Who are the players? What are the impacts? Those are the kinds of things that I think the tribal council, who really at the end of the day makes the final decision, has to understand the landscape, has to understand what it is and where it is you're going. So it's critical that those kind of be – kind of be watched closely.

The outcome of that whole process really put the tribes and PG in a position of reaching an agreement to co-own the project. So the next slide begins to talk about that, really, the process for reaching the agreement with Portland General Electric, what the process was to kind of get there, again, making sure that not just the tribal council is aware of it. The membership, in our case here, the tribal council is very clear that the membership needed to understand where it is and what it is and why it is we're doing this. Agencies, of course, with their rules and regulations, have to be on board, the non-governmental organizations.

And in today's world, with NEPA, are very, very powerful organizations, and can put – can stop things pretty quickly when it pertains to off-reservation development. So having the non-governmental organizations involved, understanding what it is and how it is you're moving.

FERC of course has to approve anything that deals with the – a waterway, and our case, the Deschutes River was deemed a project that needed FERC approval. So keeping the group of the _____ regulatory involved and informed was really important.

The Public Utility Commission in our case for the State of Oregon had to approve the deal, when PG and the tribes reached an agreement for ownership, co-managing and co-owning the project, PUC, because PGE is a regulated utility, and had to have PUC approval. So in the end, the tribes retained its regulatory authority, and has partnered with PG, and issued – been issued a 50 year license for the project.

So the next slide begins to kind of just briefly go into just a picture basically of what it is that was done at the project here. This is the construction of the intake tower as a result of the new license at the Round Butte project. One of the requirements that the tribes had on the resource side was the requirement for a reintroduction of an _____ of the project. This is – the earthen dam around – you can kind of see behind this structure, that's where there's a 300 foot drop, basically they had on this project, 300 feet.

And what we had to do basically is build a tower to try to reintroduce fish, and we're well on our way to that. This has all been complete, and it's operational now. Reintroduction has started. And we're beginning to see some positive – some positive results of this power going in with regards to water quality standards downstream, and the reintroduction of fish above the project.

So bringing the fish home has been a priority for the tribes, and the tribes approached the ownership position of this in twofold fashion. One was the economic value, and if you kind of watched the market or were involved in the market in the early 2000s and the late 1990s, there was a energy price – energy value craze going on. Enron was basically manipulating the market and energy prices were going through the roof. Economically, it made sense before that manipulation of the market price, and changing of the value of this energy coming out of the project.

But the energy pricing that Enron had influenced definitely made the project economically feasible for the tribes to take an ownership position in. So that was one of the objectives. The other objective, and we had members on council who said they didn't care if this project didn't generate any money, and it reintroduced a harvestable run above this project, they would deem it a success in the tribes' view. And so that was the other priority that the tribes had, was making sure that we had designed and proposed to install things like this tower to address that issue.

So the lessons we learned, basically, on the last slide are to stay current, as I'd mentioned, on what's going on within your state and within the federal government, both within the regulatory agencies and on the Hill. Meeting with the membership and the leadership is really important. And getting clear direction I think so the team can focus on what needs to be done. As I'd mentioned, critical, knowing your timelines, understanding the organizations and their concerns, as I'd mentioned, with regards to not just state and federal entities, but the non-governmental organizations that are engaged in these processes now. That's very important, to keep them at the table, and understand what it is that their concerns are, and how you may be able to meet them.

So to wrap it up, as we talked with council, it's not all roses and big revenue. It's about taking on some challenges, taking on a little more business risk, and getting some reward when you make the right decisions, and then paying the price when you don't. And hopefully, you don't make the wrong decision too many times, because that isn't favorable on the economic side. So that's one of the things. But constantly looking at what are the things that are in front of us in terms of challenges, and then what landscapes are changing with regard to laws, policies, and management requirements for you and your – in your particular case, whatever that project may be.

So energy development on a large scale is not for everybody, but there is some – there's some value that we saw in it for two reasons, as I'd mentioned, resource management improvements, as well as economic. It takes a lot. Warm Springs had to go to the bond market and finance the acquisition of this purchase, when we negotiated with Portland General. So it put us – it put us into another area that we weren't familiar with, but had to kind of learn pretty quickly, which was how do you move in the revenue bond market and get financing for that?

So in wrapping up, I think one of the things that I'd like to emphasize that I think you've heard from Doug is the Office of Indian Energy – and Lizana said as well – is definitely out there and has some great partnerships with NREL in working with tribes and helping you understand what the landscapes are, what the challenges are, what the resource potentials are. Federal legislation has not been friendly to tribes. It just – and it makes it difficult for us to advance energy projects on the large scale, commercial scale side, with the incentives as they're structured.

So when legislation does come up and get presented, do engage, and make sure that the tribes have equal treatment when it comes to production tax credits and investment tax credits. Those are going to be I think a real driver for tribes to be in the ownership position instead of the landlord position. So keep an eye on those, and make sure that our – your representative in Congress understands that tribes need to have an equal footing in the opportunity world for advancing these projects on our own, building them instead of leasing land for them.

So I think the community solar projects are great projects for reducing your energy cost. It doesn't reduce your consumption, necessarily. It really shifts and reduces your cost if you can package it right. Again, state incentives are pretty critical to making that happen. But tribes don't need to be named exclusively, I think as Elizabeth was saying. They just need to be aware of what the policies are so they can take advantage of them. But that – those community solar – community energy projects and net metering projects are great for reducing your energy costs, and tribal government should really look at them. So that's my presentation. Thanks.

Randy Manion:           Thank you so much, Jim. And Jon Paul, just give me a moment to get your slide deck pulled up, and –

Jon Paul Romero:       Cool. Thank you.

Randy Manion:           – there it is. And it's all yours.

Jon Paul Romero:       Well, good morning, everyone, and good afternoon to everyone who's attending the webinar today. My name is Jon Paul Romero. I'm the executive director for Northern Pueblo Housing Authority, located here in Santa Fe County, New Mexico. I will be talking to everybody about a one megawatt community solar array project that we're doing in conjunction with Picuris Pueblo and the Department of Energy. Next slide, please.

Just a little bit about Picuris Pueblo. Picuris Pueblo is located up in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. It has about 300 members and 86 homes. Of the 300 members, only about 145 to 150 reside within the pueblo. The current governor is Governor Craig Quanchello, and the Lieutenant Governor is Wayne Yazza, along with six other tribal councilmen.

It's pretty far from any regional towns or cities for connection to economic development and jobs and stuff. So this project is going to be very, very essential to the livelihood of how Picuris Pueblo moves forward in the future. So next slide.

Here's a couple of pictures from the pueblo. They have a nice church. They still do a lot of harvesting and planting of vegetables. They have a lot of traditional events up there. They have a bison program that they use to harvest animals to feed their tribal members. Next slide.

So New Mexico is really progressive in renewable energy. By 2020, Mexico's renewable portfolio standards require that 20 percent of all electricity sold by investor-owned electricity companies and utilities and 10 percent sold by cooperatives comes from renewable energy resources. In 2014, the data that we had supplied 9.3 percent of the electricity generated in the state of New Mexico. Next slide.

So a little bit about solar industry in New Mexico. There are currently more than 99 solar companies at work through the value chain in New Mexico, employing about 1,900 people. In 2015, New Mexico installed 56 megawatts of solar electricity capacity, ranking 15th nationally. In 2015, $86 million was invested on solar installations across New Mexico. The 406 megawatts of solar energy currently installed in New Mexico ranks the state 13th in the country in installed solar capacity. There is enough solar energy installed in the estate to provide power to 93,000 homes.

Over the next five years, New Mexico is expected to install 1,392 megawatts of solar electricity capacity, ranking it 15th overall that time span. The amount is more than five times the amount of solar installed over the last five years. That's why it is very important for us to move this project along, so we can be part of that data that we're going to be using. Next slide.

Indian energy. Ten percent of the energy resources in the United States are located on Indian lands, which together occupy land areas the size of Texas, five percent of the US land area. Historically these resources have been developed – exploited for non-Indian uses, with Indians receiving only a portion of the potential benefit through leasing of the land. Tribes are starting to participate in energy project development and ownership. And this is a perfect example of how we were able to team with the DOE and Picuris Pueblo to develop a solar project that would specifically meet the needs of the pueblo and the electric co-op that we'll be tying into, which is Kit Carson. Next slide.

Indian energy tribal advantages. The ROW Policy Act of 2005, Section 1813, government/business incentives, funding, utility formation, sovereignty and regulations. Next slide.

As you can see by the map, the DOE has invested $48 million in 183 tribal clean energy projects valued at $93.6 million throughout the United States. And you can see through the map that we're looking at, it's mostly in the West and the Midwest where they have invested, just through the high land concentration of tribal entities throughout the United States. Next slide.

Barriers. Internal politics. Over here in New Mexico, most of the pueblos that we have – we have 20 of them – and in the northern part of New Mexico, we have 8. The government structure is that they change governors every year or every two years, so that can become problematic when you're dealing with a new governor who comes in who might want to do a different agenda. We were very fortunate that the governors that have been involved have been in office for the past three years, so there was a lot of continuity involved, so they wanted to move the project forward to meet the needs of the pueblo.

Energy pricing/investment. As you all know, when you do a solar array of this magnitude, since we can't store the power, we have to be able to sell the power back to electric companies or a cooperative electric company. The company we're talking about is Kit Carson. They were very receptive to renewable energy. And we were able to negotiate a nice purchase power agreement.

Complex project options. Funding, tax incentives, PPA, interconnection, those types of things. Next slide. You're okay.

So the Picuris Project, we have Kit Carson Electric. We were able to negotiate a purchase power agreement and the interconnection at $0.09 a kilowatt hour. That was a very, very good rate for Picuris Pueblo. Right now, Kit Carson is still entering into agreements with other entities to try to meet their portfolio, and that number has dropped down to about $0.06. So we were very happy and we were very lucky to get such a good deal with our PPA.

Tribal energy plan. We have 100 percent pueblo support. They have created a subsidiary called _____ that we'll be running the utility through. We have a ten acre project site.

NPHA's role, we're the developer. We're the administrators. And we'll be overseeing the project until it's completed, and then we'll turn it over to Picuris Pueblo, and we'll continue to support them through the duration of the project.

We had a BIA grant, and a DOE Clean Energy & Efficiency grant that we're using to help supplement the costs of this project.

At the end of the project, Picuris Pueblo will be the owner. They will be able to subsidize and pay for all of their members' electric bills, and also pay for some of the commercial buildings, and still have a profit at the end of the day, so they can continue to move forward with economic developments within their Pueblo. Next slide.

Why develop solar? As everyone knows, it's strategically one of the most advantageous ways to generate utility electricity and to help offset costs. Financial objectives, diversification, jobs, economic development, marketing, green renewable energy credits. Those are all things that we looked at when we developed this project. Next slide.

So solar is not new to Picuris Pueblo. We've done a couple of projects through NPHA and the cooperation and team partnership with Picuris Pueblo. We did a solar-powered fire station, first net zero building in New Mexico. Very successful. Next slide.

We also did a home for an individual to help offset her utility bills, and we also have solar power at the wastewater treatment plant, if you can see those two slides there. The thing is – that was brought up earlier, mounting solar on homes can be a little bit challenging. You know, sometimes the roofs are structurally designed for them. Sometimes the roofs are old, and it can cause problems. But these were two successful projects that we worked on.

So the initiative was to do something on a grander scale, and a one megawatt project was something that was planned and discussed with the tribal government at Picuris Pueblo, and we all agreed that was the best way to move forward in trying to develop renewable energy. Next slide.

So if you look here, this is a map of part of the area where we're going to be developing. Up in the upper right hand corner where you see the blue square, that's where the solar array field is going to be. And then we have to come down about a mile and a half to the substation that we'll be tying in. The blue line is indicative of the road, and the red line is indicative of the transmission line.

The funny thing is, where this is located compared to where the pueblo is, it's about a mile as the crow flies. So this solar array is going to be located in an area that is going to be unseen by the tribal members, and is not going to impact any of their cultural or tribal activities. Next slide.

Here is a blow-up of the site. It's ten acres. We had it cleared environmentally. We are currently doing the clearing and grubbing of the site, so we can start construction here in April. Next slide.

Here's another – this is actually a survey of the site. And we can _____ and you can see they have quite a bit of vegetation. It has a little bit of topography relief that we had to incorporate into the design. Next slide.

So these are the project phases. First, we started with a feasibility report to determine if the project was feasible to do based on costs and revenue projections. We had a solar study done. We did an environmental assessment. And we received a FONSI from the BIA for the project to move forward.

Next, what we did is we were looking at a couple of different scenarios to bring in an investor to take advantage of the tax credits. But at the end of the day, after we looked at where our timelines were and where we wanted to achieve, we decided to move forward where the Pueblo would be the ownership of the solar array since the get-go. So we went out for a design built procurement. We selected a contractor, and negotiated a contract, and it's currently in the design phase, which is about 30 percent designed. We're going to be breaking ground April 20th, and we have an anticipated completion date of – in early operation of August of 2017, and then, as you can see by the steps on the chart, we have the decommissioning planned for 25 years down the road, after we maintained our objective by tying back into the grid and providing solar electricity to Kit Carson, and then they'll enhance, return a nice check for revenue to the Pueblo Picuris.

So some of the challenges that we faced along the way were making sure the determination of the site and infrastructure was going to be adequate to offset the costs that were going to be implemented during the design and construction phase. Challenges up in the Picuris area, it's a very mountainous area. You know, we have long winters. So we had to make sure that we phased everything that we could enter into construction in a fair amount of time to get the construction completed, so we wouldn't be impacted by the winter months.

Like I said, the politics really didn't play a role into that this time, because we had – maintained continuity on the tribal council and with the governor and lieutenant governors that have been involved with the project.

I'd like to thank everybody for listening and participating today, and I'd stand for any questions if anybody had any.

Randy Manion:           Great. Jon Paul, thank you so much. And we'll go into the Q&A. We only have a few minutes for that. Let me see what questions we have, and we'll get started with that. Just give me one moment, please.

Okay, there's a question regarding can we get copies of each of the PowerPoint presentations? Yes, they'll be posted online along with this recording in about one week. And a follow-up email will be sent to all those that participated and all those that did not participate today with the link to both. And let me see what other questions we have real quick here.

Okay. Can a tribe put in place our own RPS internally, and have any tribes done this yet?

Doug MacCourt:        That's a great question. This is Doug MacCourt from Indian Energy. And I am not aware where they – where a tribe has done this. They may have, and Liz, you may be more up on that than I am. But there is certainly no prohibition from a tribe adopting a renewable portfolio standard, understanding that it will not affect anything outside the jurisdiction of the tribe, right? And there may be some questions, although I don't think – I mean, if we go back to the – some of the civil jurisdiction trilogies that are facing some challenges and some weakness, there may be a question of whether non-Indian residences within the exterior boundaries of the reservation could – how they might be affected by that.

But, you know, federal agencies adopt their own portfolio standards. They're not – they're not called portfolio standards. They're basically their own goals, and of course, they don't – they don't generally do that for the production and sale of electricity. They do it because they want to adopt a metric by which they can judge their own performance of using renewable power.

So there's absolutely no limitation on a tribe adopting their own RPS, with the understanding that, of course, it's not going to – it's not going to affect state regulated non-tribal customers outside the boundary of the reservation, unless, of course, they are currently participating and could elect to participate inside a tribal utility, and obtain the benefits of working with the tribe on that, which are certainly also an option.

So it's a fascinating question. I don't know to what extent a particular tribe has adopted an RPS.

Elizabeth Doris:         This is Liz. We haven't worked with a tribe on an RPS, nor am I aware of one, but I – we would like to. _____ _____ the options are.

Doug MacCourt:        Yeah. Right. Right. It's a – and I would recommend that that's a subject that you definitely want to get your tribal general counsel or attorney general's office involved in, and possibly outside counsel, as it relates to what kind of teeth – what kind of impact do you want that RPS standard to have, or how do you want it to apply? And it can range anywhere from like the kind of goals that agencies adopt for their own metrics, to driving some of the policies on the reservation and within the region that the tribe operates. So great question.

Randy Manion:           And I will say Lizana brought a group of us together last week, and in the documents we were reviewing with her, I did notice there were a couple that had some small RPS – I think one was 25 and another was 10 percent. I can't remember who they were. So they're out there. And I think they're part of their tribal goals that they – that they put together.

So with that, there's another question. Please address – and Doug, this goes back to a similar question last month. So – and it's a sensitive question, so feel free to just answer it as best you can. Please address how you see the current administration assisting or hindering the Office of Indian Energy's focus and priorities, especially as it regards to advancing strategic energy partnerships.

Doug MacCourt:        Right. Well, we don't have any specific direction at this point that talks about the program level, right? So in other words, we don't have any direction from the new administration that says they want to promote this particular program or they don't like that particular program.

I think that where this issue ultimately is probably the – going to have its first and most real permutation is in the – is in the President's budget, and the publicly available information on that that you can – you can see right now is in the document that's referred to as the President's Blueprint. And so if you wanted to get a sense of where the budget discussions are going, take a look at the science and energy program proposals in the President's Blueprint, and that'll give you a good sense of where all of the offices, like the Office of Indian Energy and other offices under the science and energy – we call it our undersecretary – are heading.

So that's what we know at the current time. And we should hopefully have much more information by the time of the summit, and we hope that tribes are interested in asking those questions as well, because you'll – we intend to bring the secretary and some other decision makers to those – to that summit, and to those discussions. So hopefully by May we'll have a little clearer direction.

Randy Manion:           Thank you, Doug. And that's it for the written questions. There are a couple of hands raised. We'll see if we can't get through one or two. Nancy Kellogg, you have your hand raised. I'm going to unmute you, if you want to ask our panel a question directly. And you are now unmuted. Okay. Nancy? Okay. Nancy took her hand down. So let's see if there are any others with a hand raised, and then – that looks like it.

So with that, I want to thank your speakers for their excellent presentations today, Doug MacCourt, Liz Doris, Jim Manion, and Jon Paul Romero, and Lizana. Also, I'm going to pull a slide up here for our next upcoming webinars, and the next one, "Pitching Your Project." And Doug, did you want to say a few words about that webinar?

Doug MacCourt:        Yes. Real briefly. Before I mention that, I will – I will mention one thing that takes us back to the very beginning of my presentation, and talking about the executive order. It – one of the panelists reminded me, and I was going to cover this, but I just – I realized I had too much in too little time, so I neglected to mention it.

But this is a state/federal conversation that's going on, and as a lot of people know, but if you haven't seen this, the governors of California, Oregon, and Washington, as well as the mayors of Seattle, Oakland, Los Angeles, Portland, and a handful of other major cities in those three Western states, have – and this is an area roughly 50 million people and almost a $3 trillion gross domestic product. They have decided to stay the course that was laid down in the template of the Clean Power Plan.

So – and that's – that was the model from the last administration's plan, to allow states to get going on their planning, and actually start making progress towards meeting those goals. So just to complement the information I did provide about the overview of the executive order, it should be known that a fairly large portion of the US in which there are a significant number of tribes, and tribes who are actively engaging their state, as the Blue Lake Rancheria folks have done so successfully, that we discussed on the last webinar, you know, they're finding benefit in those policies as those states continue to move forward in their carbon reduction, their cap and trade, and other related programs that were modeled after the Clean Power Plan. So just a brief note on that.

And what we are doing for the next month's webinar, and Randy, before we – before we sign off, if you would remind people the exact date and time of that, we are introducing a lightning round or matchmaking session at this year's summit, where we're teaming up with some of the nation's leading angel investors, as well as venture capital investors and lenders, to provide not only some substantive detail inside of the summit sessions – we're having a finance roundtable that has a really sharp focus on efficiency, on housing, and how energy solutions can dovetail into those efforts and initiatives, and how you can find money to actually fund those combined interrelated efforts.

But we're holding a series of matchmaking sessions on day two, May 2nd, that will run concurrently with the entire program. In order to prepare for that, our investment community leaders have recommended that we provide a typical survey that's used in – anyone, whether they're tribal or non-tribal entities, seeking financing, to approach an investor, and to approach the investor with the right kind of presentation and the right kind of answers to the questions that will come up in that discussion, so they can make progress and get to yes.

And we are going to hold next month's webinar around that topic of making the pitch and doing it right, and we're going to bring in some of these leading investors, again, on the angel or the – what is typically the pre-construction, the pre-development capital side, which is so – which is so often the most difficult and rare money to get to get your project kick-started, as well as the more institutional and venture capital investors, and the lenders, as well as developers.

So we're going to put a webinar session together, and it really will be very valuable, even if you don't attend the summit, because it's a topic that many of the tribes we work with around the country have asked us to put on the series, and help them learn how to – how to open doors in the investment and the finance community, and how to do it right the first time.

So that's our goal, and I think it should be a very exciting session. Of course, it's designed so that the people that do attend that, when they show up at the summit, they'll be – they'll have the right questions answered and the right presentation materials to bring and get a lot more out of the matchmaking sessions. But it should be a value to everyone, whether you attend the summit or not.

So Randy, if you would be so kind as to remind folks when our next webinar is, and we'll look forward to getting out some special information through our normal channels on that session.

Randy Manion:           Great. Thanks, Doug. And it's April 26, 2017, at 11:00 AM mountain daylight time. And that webinar, along with the others, are on the slide that's on the screen right now. And for more information on the summit or the webinar series or past recordings, you can just do an internet search for Office of Indian Energy, and their site quickly comes up, and you can access all this information.

And with that, thanks, everyone, again, for participating today, and we'll talk to you next month. Goodbye.

Doug MacCourt:        Thank you.

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