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A legal update from our colleagues Michael O’Connell and Stephen Kelly:

The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) on November 29, 2011 published proposed regulations for leasing tribal and individual Indian trust land for business and residential uses. The comment period runs through January 30, 2012. It will take the BIA some time to review and…

The CUB Policy Center, in partnership with the University of Oregon School of Law,  will be holding its inaugural policy conference: Smart Grid: Today’s Regulation and Tomorrow’s Technology, on Friday, October 21, 2011, at the University of Oregon White Stag Block (70 NW Couch St., Portland, OR 97209).  The luncheon keynote speaker will…

For those who like to pay close attention to developments in the energy storage industry, take a look at Stationary Electricity Storage, which collects and presents articles about storage industry news, noteworthy projects, and other topics.  It’s well organized (with articles filtered by category, storage provider, organization and location), offers a free daily newsletter and looks like a…

On August 15, 2011, Great River Energy (GRE) issued a request for proposals (RFP) for community-based energy development (C-BED) renewable energy resources.  Eligible energy technologies include: wind, solar, hydroelectric of less than 100 megawatts, biomass, municipal solid waste, landfill gas and anaerobic digesters, and hydrogen produced from any of the previous resources.

In announcing the…

Yesterday, President Obama announced that the U.S. Departments of Agriculture (“USDA”), Energy (“DOE”), and Navy (“USN”, and together with the USDA and DOE, the “Agencies”) will invest up to $510 million over the course of the next three years to support advanced drop-in aviation and marine biofuels to power military and commercial transportation. This is a…

With the end of 2011 drawing near, many renewable energy developers are seeking to qualify their projects for the Section 1603 cash grant.  Developers continue to try to understand the complexities surrounding the grant requirements, especially the determination of when projects are considered to have met the “beginning construction” requirement.

On August 24, I’ll moderate a Law Seminars …

My collegue Michael O’Connell issued the legal alert below on a recent significant Interior Board of Land Appeals decision concerning the intersection of tribal cultural resources and a BLM geothermal lease application:

The Interior Board of Land Appeals (IBLA or Board) decision, Earth Power Resources, 181 IBLA 94 (May 12, 2011), deals with BLM action on a geothermal lease application in Nevada. Citing National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) section 304, 16 U.S.C. § 470w-3, BLM withheld from a geothermal lease applicant an ethnographic study of Ruby Valley that identified a tribal traditional cultural property (TCP) important to an Indian Tribe and disapproved the lease application in order to protect the TCP. The Board overturned BLM’s decision and remanded the case for further action.Continue Reading The Bureau of Land Management, Tribal Cultural Resources and Renewable Energy Development

California’s AB 2514 directs the California Public Utility Commission (CPUC) to determine appropriate targets, if any, for load-serving entities to procure viable and cost-effective energy storage systems. If the CPUC decides that targets are appropriate, it is supposed to set dates for achieving those targets.

As a follow up to an AB 2514 workshop held…