Randy Manion: —and welcome to the ninth webinar of the 2017 DOE Tribal Energy Webinar Series. Today's Webinar "Opportunities for Tribes to Work Together." I'm Randy Manion, today's webinar chair and manager of Western Area Power Administration for Noble 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 Program's website, along with copies of today's PowerPoint presentation in about one week. Everyone will receive a post-webinar e-mail with the link to the page where the slides and recording will be located. Because we are recording this webinar all phones have been muted for this purpose and we'll answer your questions at the end of all the presentations. You can ask your question in two ways: you can submit a written question at any time by clicking on the Question button located in the webinar control bar on your screen and type in your question, and then I'll also unmute you if you have your hand raised. So we'll do the questions at the end of all the presentations.
And we'll try to keep the webinar to no more than two hours, so let's get started with opening remarks from Lizana Pierce. Ms. Pierce is a Senior Engineering and Deployment Supervisor 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 results and Tribal Energy Project grants and agreements. She has more than 20 years of experience in project development and management and has been assisting tribes in developing their energy resources for the last 18 years. She holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Mechanical Engineering from Colorado State University, and pursued a Masters of Business Administration through the University of Colorado.
Lizana, the virtual floor is now yours.
Lizana Pierce: Thank you, Randy. Hello, everyone. I join Randy in welcoming you to the ninth webinar of our 2017 series. This webinar series is sponsored by two US Department of Energy organizations. The first, Office of Indian Energy Policy and Programs, or Office of Indian Energy for short, and the Western Area Power Administration.
First I'd like to tell you a little bit about the Office of Indian Energy. By legislation the Office of Indian Energy directs, fosters, coordinates, and implements energy planning, education, management, and programs to assist tribes in energy development, capacity building, energy infrastructure, energy costs, and electrification of Indian lands and homes. To provide this assistance our deployment program works within the department across government agencies and with Indian tribes and organizations to help tribes in Alaska native villages to overcome the barriers to energy development.
Specifically, our deployment program is composed of a three-pronged approach consisting of financial assistance, technical assistance and education to capacity building. And this webinar series specifically is an example of one of our education capacity building efforts. The webinar series part of the Office's efforts to support fiscally responsible energy business and economic development decision-making and information sharing amongst tribes is intended to provide attendees with information on tools and resources to develop and implement tribal energy plans, programs, and projects. Also to highlight tribal energy case studies and to identify business strategies tribes can use to expand their energy options and to develop sustainable local economies.
Today's webinar, "Opportunities for Tribes to Work Together," will highlight some of the opportunities the tribes have to collaborate with each other in the power industry. The first two presentations will provide an overview of organizations in partnering opportunities, and the third will provide an overview of the VW settlement and the nearly $55 million set aside for tribes, and the eligible mitigation options and the next steps under that settlement.
Another opportunity you may be interested in is the USDA's High Energy Cost Grants. This won't be discussed on this webinar, but we do have additional information on our website under Current Funding Opportunities at www.Energy.gov/IndianEnergy.
We do hope this webinar series is useful to you and we welcome your feedback. But before I turn this back over to Randy I did want to invite any tribes interested in hearing case studies or tribal projects to consider attending the Office of Indian Energy's annual program review. This review will be held November 13th through the 17th in Denver. The information on registering and hotel accommodations are on our website, again, www.Energy.gov/IndianEnergy.
And with that I'll turn it back over to Randy. Thank you.
Randy Manion: Thank you, Lizana. And I'll introduce our other speakers now. Our next speaker is Glenn Steiger. Mr. Steiger is currently the Executive Consultant for the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority, where he provides professional oversight to NTUA's Major Generation Power Supply and Transmission initiatives. He was previously the general manager of Alameda Municipal Power, that's in California. And he's former general manager/CEO of Glendale, California, also water and power, where he transitioned the utility through the integration of smart grid technology, water and energy efficiency.
Mr. Steiger previously led the Massachusetts Municipal Full Cell Electric Company as general manager and CEO. Before joining Massachusetts Municipal he was general manager of Imperial Irrigation District, also in California. In addition, he served in several leadership roles at Jersey Central Power and Light, culminating in leading the Utilities Industry Restructuring Activities as vice president of corporate and competitive affairs. Additionally, Mr. Steiger has provided energy engineering and strategic regulatory consulting services to utilities and major energy consumers in the Southwest, and internationally recognized water energy nexus and smart grid consulting services to utilities in Australia, Brazil, Thailand, China, and numerous European countries.
He was honored by Grid Week with its 2010 Excellence in Smart Grid Deployment Award and by Intelligent Utilities magazine as one of 2011's Movers and Shakers. And Mr. Steiger holds a Bachelor's Degree in Civil Engineering and a Masters Degree in Engineering Management from New Jersey's Institute of Technology. Additionally, he has completed advanced executive management work at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business as a licensed professional engineer. And Mr. Steiger was appointed by New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman to the New Jersey Economic Development Commission. In addition, he served on the board of Public Power, Inc.; that's the American Public Power Association subsidiary, and as president of the Southern California Public Power Authority, and was a board member of the Western Electric Coordinating Council and served as chair on both the California League of Cities and the California Municipal Utilities Association Water Committees.
And then I'm going to also introduce our other speakers right now. Following Mr. Steiger we'll hear from Leonard Gold. Mr. Gold was the founder of the Utility Strategies Consulting Group, LLC, which he owned until December of 2016. Mr. Gold has more than 40 years of utility and consulting experience. He has a Bachelor of Science Degree in Electrical Engineering from Northeastern University in 1972 and a Master's of Science Degree in Engineering Science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1975.
He is currently the president of the Arizona Tribal Energy Association. Mr. Gold assisted the Ak-Chin Indian Community with the formation of its tribal utility authority, Ak-Chin Energy Services, and for 25 years he was the power consultant for Ak-Chin Energy Services. And Mr. Gold also assisted the Gila River Indian Community with the formation of its tribal utility authority. In April of 2012 Mr. Gold became the general manager of the Gila River Indian Community Utility Authority and continues to serve in that role.
And then our final speaker today will be Andy Bessler. Mr. Bessler joined the Institute for Tribal Environmental Professionals at Northern Arizona University in March of 2013. Mr. Bessler served as ITIPS project director for National Tribal Air Association, where he provides National Tribal Air Association air quality policy analysis and logistical support in order to empower tribes around the country with a strong voice and air quality and climate change policy. He previously worked for the Institute for Tribal Energy Environmental Professionals Tribal Clean Energy Center, organizing solar energy workshops and writing clean energy grants for tribes.
Prior to coming to the Institute for Tribal Environmental Professionals, Mr. Bessler worked for more than a decade with tribal communities as an organizer for the Sierra Club, coordinating campaigns to protect sacred lands and curb climate change. He has served as the Paatuwaqatsi Run Committee, helping the Hopi Community organize a powerful annual ultra-marathon on Hopi, called the Paatuwaqatsi—and that means "water is life" Run. Mr. Bessler holds an Applied Cultural Anthropology from Northern Arizona University and has traveled extensively in Western Africa, Mexico, Europe, and the US.
And so with that, Glenn, just give me a moment to get your slide deck up and we'll get started.
Okay, Glenn, it's all yours.
Glenn Steiger: All right, Randy. Well thank you very, very much for that introduction; I appreciate it. And I thank everyone on the call for allowing me to speak on a topic that I am strongly a believer in, and that is strength through partnerships and affiliations.
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And that's just me and that's what we're going to talk about today. So what I'd like to do is just go over the agenda of what I'm about to talk about. I'm going to give you a little bit of an overview of Navajo Tribal Utility Authority, or NTUA, and then I'm going to get right into what I consider to be the crux of this discussion from my perspective, and that is how could a tribal utility gain strength through affiliation. And I'm going to go through a number of different issues in that area. I'm going to talk about the available affiliations that would be available for tribal organizations, utilities, and so on to gain strength; talk a little bit about why NTUA has joined organizations and what that's done for us; and then go through the national organizations that are available, regional, statewide, and then finally some other possibilities, either outside of organizational partnership, but still available to gain strength in numbers.
And then finally about the downside. You know, we always all talk about the upside; there's always a downside to everything, so let's address it.
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NTUA is a multi-utility provider to the Navajo Nation. We have six utilities: electric, water, natural gas, wastewater, renewable energy, and communications.
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We were created in 1955. We're a non-profit enterprise of the Navajo Nation. I think that's important to point out. We are a 27,000-square-mile entity, which stretches into three different states. We have seven district offices.
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This gives you a sense as to where we are in the scheme of things. And as you can see, we have a fairly large footprint, mostly in Arizona, also, however, into New Mexico and up into Utah. As with many, many tribal areas, we have a high unemployment rate, almost 50-percent; 38-percent of our residents are below the poverty line.
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As I mentioned, we have seven district offices. This just gives you a sense of where our district offices are located and how we're spread out throughout the nation.
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And then finally, just to give a sense as to our organizational structure, because I think it's important to understand that we are in fact a very integral part of the Navajo Nation, and if I go from the bottom up on this slide, the NTUA is run by an NTUA management board, which is comprised of primarily Navajos, but not all, that have for the most part a background either in energy or utility management and issues, and it's a very dynamic board and it operates fairly independently from, and as we move up the chart from the Natural Resource and Development Committee part of the Navajo Nation Council. We are an integral part of Navajo Nation, as I mentioned, but I think it's important to note that the management board operates very, very closely with our management, and while it's not completely independent from Navajo Nation, much of the policy that we operate under is provided by the management board.
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All right, this is, in my opinion, as I mentioned earlier, the crux of my discussion, and that is how can a tribal utility gain strength through affiliation. And what I've done, as we've stepped through these slides is categorize them into what I call the tier one, tier two, and tier three priorities. I'm going to start with what I consider to be tier one: power supply.
Power supply is a key reason to affiliate, to join groups, to become part of various entities that can assist in power supply and leverage the critical mass of a number of different participants. And as we move down through my topics here, power pooling.
Power pooling is critical for smaller entity, whether they're tribal entities, municipal entities, co-ops, really doesn't matter. Power pooling has created a very integral advantage for smaller utilities to be able to trade off energy and capacity needs when it either has too much or too little. For example, if we took a utility that had a 20-megawatt allocation of power and it was part of a power pool, each month it could trade off with some of the power pool members if in fact it didn't need all of its 20 megawatts, but one of the other members did. Conversely, if it needed more than 20 megawatts one month it could also gain additional allocation from one or more of the other members that had access capacity in that month. It allows for flexibility, it allows for a sense of continuation in terms of having available power and not necessarily being locked into take-or-pay.
Power purchase agreements. In a similar vein, it's much, much easier to affiliate with a joint action agency, a generation and transmission group with power purchase agreements. The affiliations allow for participation in much larger projects than would normally be available to a smaller utility. Again, if a utility needs 20 megawatts or even 4 or 5 megawatts, it's going to have a very, very difficult time finding an allocation that small on its own. However, a power purchase agreement along with a number of other participants in a project can allow for that and it makes it easier and far more cost-beneficial.
In a similar vein, new generation. I've been involved with many new generation projects that have had multiple owners, multiple small owners, be them tribal, municipal, cooperative, or other public power districts that all buy into a much larger project. It allows you to do that when you're affiliated with a group that can share the risk on projects like that, because large generation projects have a large amount of risk associated with them.
Again, renewables. And depending upon the size of the utility you may or may not be able to either build or buy into a renewable project on your own, but as part of the group you can do that. As an example, and you heard earlier in my bio that I ran the municipal power system for Massachusetts, in doing so we had a number of very, very small members which we provided in all of these various configurations. A dozen of those members wanted a renewable project, so we developed a win project that allowed the very smallest of members, very, very small, that had capacity of 10 megawatts or less, that were still able to join into a much larger wind project that they would never have been able to do that if they weren't part of the overall joint action agency.
Keep in mind, ancillary services are key and required in most cases for power supply. It's much easier to get ancillary services like bar support, alded support, frequency, maintenance through a group rather than trying to do it on your own.
Contract development and negotiation; I can't say nearly enough about how important that is to do through affiliation, especially for a small utility. A small utility can get eaten up with the legal requirements and costs associated with contract development, but when a group is doing a group contract with the same four corner requirements it's much more beneficial, it's doable for a small utility, and that's really one of the major benefits of being part of a larger group.
Shared risk. Shared risk is really important, and if you go through all the topics that I just mentioned, each one of them for the most part has a risk associated with it. It's a lot easier to share the risk on a larger project with 10 or 20 different members of an organization than it is going it alone. Obviously going it alone provides a significant risk on large projects and can actually put a utility in a very, very difficult situation. So shared risk is one of the benefits of affiliation.
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Again, what I call the tier one priorities is transmission. And as we go through the various paces of transmission, if any of you have ever sat through planning sessions for transmission site-ing or transmission rooting, you know that it can be arduous and it can take forever, and it's a drain on resources. Having this type of planning done through a larger group, A, puts you at the table with the bigger players, which are generally the larger utilities; the RTOs, many of the other organizations that are associated with transmission planning. The smaller utilities, without being affiliated with a larger group, generally are not afforded part of that planning process.
Similarly, allocation—transmission allocation is key obviously to the viability of any utility. And whether it owns it or allocates it or buys capacity throughout a transmission system, doing it on your own is very difficult, very costly, very time-consuming. Doing it through a group is far easier, and again, has the strength to be able to ensure that all the various aspects of transmission allocation are looked at. And in a very similar vein, development also.
Regional transmission involvement is difficult, it's again, time-consuming, it's complex, and it can create a cost that just kind of pop up out of nowhere. If you're not part of the discussion and at the table it's very, very difficult to do that as an individual player. It is much, much easier to do that and make sense as part of an overall group that has a seat at the table for an RTO issues and involvements and gives, again, the leverage to assure that the smaller utilities issues are being heard.
Again, with a balancing authority there are many, many issues. Most utilities are going to have to face some kind of involvement with balancing authorities. Whether it's their own, probably not. Or a major balancing authority from the case of California, with the California ISO, there are constant issues that need to be dealt with, negotiated. And again, being part of an affiliated group puts you at the table.
Just as with power supply, the contract development and negotiation phase is easier, it's far less resource-draining, it's less costly, and assures that no issues are missed as part of a group.
And then I just put flow analysis, and that's something that you generally don't think of, but when you look at development of any kind of significant transmission initiative it's key that flow analysis be done. And small utilities do not have the ability to do that. And the affiliation with transmission groups and other groups that have the resources to do that and can, again, share the resources throughout the membership make perfect sense to do so.
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Now I'll come down to what I call the tier two priority. Not that it's not important; it's very important, but my opinion is that once a utility has solidified itself through affiliation on power supply and transmission then the next important thing is influence. And its influence in all the areas that I've mentioned here; legislative and regulatory probably being the most important of all of these. As we all know, legislation continues to change depending upon where you are. When I spent many, many years in California I was always chasing legislation and regulatory issues and never quite was able to keep up. It's tough enough to do on an individual basis from a utility perspective. It's almost critical to be part of an influence group, whatever that may be. And I'll talk a little bit later about the various groups that are available to do that.
But in order to have, again, the seat at the table, the critical mass to be able to make a difference and have your voice heard for legislative and regulatory initiatives, it's essential, in my opinion, for small utilities to be part of larger groups. And that also applies as we go down the list here through technical issues, financial issues; you know, a large issue for municipal utilities these days is the continuance of tax-free financing. That's a very, very critical issue, it's always on the table, and can have major impacts. Influence in these areas, critical.
Environmental, I think we all understand how that continues to change. And again, depending upon the political atmosphere at any given time, that can change overnight, as we've seen very recently.
And then finally, for new technologies it's always good if you can, and again, this is what I call a tier two priority, so new technologies may not be at the top of the list for a lot of small utilities, but they're there, and eventually we all have to face them. As you've noticed, in my background I spent a lot of time with smart grid, AMI, micro grid technologies for small to mid-sized utilities, and eventually we'll all deal with the newer technologies. So being part of an affiliation group allows the group itself to be part of that without this individual utility having to spend an overly large amount of time trying to understand what they are.
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And finally I come down to what I call tier three, and tier three would be additional services. Not any less important, but certainly from a priority standpoint these can be phased in over time and yet have great impact on smaller utilities, whether it be group purchasing through a cooperative type of organization, or just through partnerships with other utilities. Many, many utilities do that throughout the country, very, very successfully, and create major purchasing benefits in doing so. And tied very closely to that is group inventory, where utilities find a central location, for the most part where inventory can be stored and shared among various members.
Energy services, and I've been involved with a number of different organizations, joint action agencies and so on, that provide energy service consulting services for energy efficiency for smaller utilities that don't have the ability to have separate departments and separate resources for the energy efficiency initiatives. Demand response in a similar vein. Distributed generation. Affiliated groups can provide these kinds of services if the members want it and if the members want to pay for it. But generally the cost associated with an affiliated group to provide these types of services is far less than it would be for an individual utility to do so.
And then what I have found more and more recently becoming more popular with smaller utilities is the sharing of technical assistance, primarily IT, and to a lesser degree, but still very important, AMI and smart grid services. In many cases joint action agencies and generation and transmission groups are now starting to provide these services on a centralized basis to their members. It is far less expensive for their members that can't afford it, either through having their own group or through consulting groups that they'd have to pay for. Plus it provides the most current technological advancements, it provides cybersecurity initiatives well over what a smaller utility could provide in and of itself.
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And then finally, and this is key to many utilities, and this is where the larger nationwide affiliation groups have found a benefit to providing for their members' training, both from a technical standpoint and an operational standpoint, and education. And the education is, again, very, very important; it's at a very less-expensive manner than if an individual utility were to send its staff to various schools or various private training and education seminars. The larger—and I'll talk again in a minute about the larger groups on a national basis—can and do provide training and education and most members have found this to be a critical piece of their membership dues.
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Access to financial markets and assistance. I can't stress how important that is. I'll address that again a little bit in another minute specific to each group.
Funding opportunities. Funding opportunities that you may not be aware of on your own, but you could find out and be assisted through affiliated groups.
Access to pension and 401(k) programs. NRECA, for example, provides these programs for its members.
Scholarship programs. The larger organizations traditionally provide scholarship programs to their members, and in some cases subsidies. American Public Power Association provides subsidies for new technologies.
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So what are the available affiliations? Well, there's national industry associations, there's regional organizations and compliance groups, statewide organizations, joint action agencies, generation and transmission organizations, tribal organizations, and application associations and collaborates.
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So why has NTUA joined our organizations? Information exchange, if for nothing else. We are able to get information from our fellow members of organizations that we may not be able to get through the normal journals or blogs or just the type of information that we get on a daily basis, just to have some discussion with other tribes, in the case of NTUA, what they're doing. They benefit from what we're doing. And other members that are not necessarily tribal, to find out what is going on in the industry.
Provide national exposure to what we're doing. Okay, we've just built a 30-megawatt solar project here on Navajo Nation and we've been very, very pleased to get lots of national exposure on that. The downside is we still have 15,000 families on the Navajo Nation that have no access to electric or water service, and we feel that is a national issue that needs continued exposure at that level.
Education and training, as I mentioned, we use that to the maximum. Power supply; we do our power supply through a joint action agency, much of it. Transmission involvement in a similar vein. Financial assistance, which we get through NRECA. Regulatory influence, we are in a number of different organizations that provide regulatory influence and have helped us ahead to where we are today. And I come back to networking information exchange. I began and ended this slide with that because it's so important.
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What are the national organizations? Well, a couple of them that are very important is the American Public Power Association, or APPA. It's available to pretty much all tribal utilities. It has over 1,200 members. It also has subsidiaries; Hometown Connections is one of their subsidiaries that provides services directly to the members and it provides purchasing benefits to its members. The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, or NRECA, again, available to many and most tribal utilities; over 900 members, it too offers specific services to its members. As I mentioned, one of them being Touchstone Energy, which is a major marketing arm of NRECA.
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Some of the regional organizations that are important to be part of. For example, here's the Western Electricity Coordinating Council, one that I have been involved in for a number of years and has great influence on transmission, and to a lesser degree, but more and more, energy imbalance throughout the West. That is always a good organization, that type of organization, to be part of, or at least to sit into the meetings. You don't have to be on their board, you don't have to be on their committees, but you can certainly be a part of their meetings and understand what's going on.
Regional transmission organizations, as I mentioned, the RTOs. Transmission planning organizations and associations, again, that gets a seat at the table, because otherwise as a small utility it's very difficult to do that. Energy marketing organizations. Energy imbalance organizations, which would now be becoming a major issue here in the West, we need to be at the table, or at least understand what the issues are so we can prepare for them.
Hydroelectric associations were a part of, for example, now the Hoover allocation. And it's important to understand how that can affect and benefit a utility, and especially a tribal utility. Scheduling associations, and I believe you're going to hear a little bit more about that later.
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Statewide organizations. I'm going to really hammer home on a couple of these. The public power joint action agencies are really important. The tier one and the tier two priorities that I mentioned, power supply transmission and influence, this is where the rubber meets the road in public power joint action agencies and in the cooperative what's known as G&Ts, Generation and Transmission Groups. I can't stress enough the importance of being a member of these groups if at all possible, because they provide those tier one and tier two services.
Municipal utility associations, in some states they are extremely influential. California, for example, they're very, very influential in the legislative and regulatory arena. Inter tribal councils, irrigation district associations; even though it's water, in most cases water and power are integrally connected with those associations.
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And some other possibilities, and I just throw these out because they're out there and it's possible: community choice aggregation, multi-tribal aggregation, even community solar. These allow small utilities to, again, come together and provide services without major investments. 'Cause the investments associated with some of these aggregation initiatives are full less than full-blown utility development. And so if need be, we can talk about that later, answer questions and so on, but I just want to throw them out there. Purchasing co-ops, as I had mentioned earlier, and training institutes.
While APPA and NRECA provide significant training, it's also possible for smaller utilities to band together and create their own training institutes. Again, I did that; in Glendale, California I took a bunch of municipal utilities and we formed our own training institute.
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So how about the downside? As I mentioned, there's always a downside. But the downsides are far outranked by the upsides, but the downside is there's a cost. Every one of these affiliations that I've mentioned have a cost to them; whether it's a membership, whether it's a cost allocation, there's a cost associated with it. But you have to always take a look at what are the benefits that come out of that cost. But there's definitely a cost, so you can consider that a downside.
Compromise. What do I mean by that? Well, if you're in a joint action agency, not every one of the members are going to have the same issues or the same requirements or the same thoughts, policies, and so on on various issues. So it means that in some cases there has to be some compromise on various issues. That could be a downside.
Unified legislative and regulatory positions, that happens occasionally and can get in the way. And again, it comes into the area of compromise, how do we handle that; and again, we have to decide do we want to still be part of a group that is so far out of where we stand on a position. Generally that's not the case.
And then finally shared risk. There's the upside to the risk, as I mentioned. By sharing the risk there's a downside too, because you all have to remember that there's a cost to everything, particularly in the power supply and the transmission area, and it means sometimes it's going to cost a little bit more or there's going to be a little bit more of a risk, because we have multiple members. It's a downside, but a minimal downside.
So finally I'd like to end this, my piece of the webinar, by saying overall the benefits far outweigh the downside risks. And I am a big believer in the power of affiliation and partnership.
So, Randy, I'd like to turn it back over to you.
Randy Manion: Thank you, Glenn. Excellent presentation And, Lenny, just give me a moment to pull your slide deck up.
Leonard Gold: Certainly. And just while waiting, just to let everyone know, I've worked with a number of tribes investigating utility formation over the last 20-some-odd years. And in 2012, on behalf of the Department of Interior through the Indian Energy and Economic Development Department I prepared a handbook on tribal utility formation. So in terms of forming tribal utilities I'm certainly well aware of how that is done, the challenges that are associated with that, and that leads to what Glenn just spoke about in quite detail about joining or participating in organizations, especially for small tribes and tribe utilities. So it's just tribes that are interested in energy issues; you don't necessarily have to have a tribal utility authority in order to be interested in energy issues and look for and find organizations that you can participate in.
If you'll go to the next slide, Randy.
Randy Manion: There we go.
Leonard Gold: Thank you. So I'm going to talk today similar to Glenn's presentation, who is and what is GRICUA, as we pronounce it, provide some examples of organizations, talk about why GRICUA has participated in these, and particularly go through several of them that GRICUA has done.
So if you'll go to the next slide.
GRICUA is an authority of the Gila River Indian Community. We provide service to five districts plus a portion of one other. There's seven districts actually in Arizona. And there's a map here that shows you the way the service is divided up. We serve approximately 2,800 customers and within the next six months we'll be adding about another 700. Our service area is much smaller than NTUA; we only serve 500 square miles, but we have 1,400-plus miles of 12 kV distribution line, 85 miles of 69 kV and we have eight 69 kV to 12 kV substations. Our peak demand is about 36 megawatts and our staff is made up of 28 employees.
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So I'm not going to go over all of them because Glenn touched on these, but you have the national organizations that he talked about. On a regional level here in Arizona there's two organizations, one is the Arizona Tribal Energy Association, which I'll talk about in more detail. And then there's the Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, and GRICUA is affiliated with both of those.
Again, on a regional basis we have non-tribal associations, which is the Southwest Public Power Association, which is a joint action agency for power purchasing. We affiliate with the Irrigation and Electrical Districts of Arizona organization, the Colorado River Energy Distributors Association, and there's another one, Integrated Resource Scheduling Association, which I'll touch on briefly for each one of these.
So if you'll skip to the next slide.
So again, I think similar to Glenn ended his presentation with pros and cons, I started by saying the benefits are there's strength in numbers, you get to keep up to date on issues, you share information, you share costs, and there's lobbying. What's important about the organizations is you're able to leverage the dollars that you have to access to meetings, information, and to have a voice in what's going on.
One of the cons about joining some of the organizations is they don't understand tribal issues. And that's one of the reasons why the Arizona Tribal Energy Association was born, is that those members discovered that they were part of national organizations or regional organizations, but there came times when they would have to say, "Don't include us in your comments, because we don't agree with those because those don't represent the thoughts and feelings or issues or tribes. And then of course there's a cost associated with membership.
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So as I said, GRICUA joined the organizations in order to leverage the costs—the funds that they had available and to do it. Part of the reason we did it, we did it for employee benefit services. At the time that GRICUA was established, way back when—GRICUA was established in 1999, their initial staff was three members. So it would be pretty hard to set up employee benefit services and programs without joining.
Information gathering, power purchasing, as Glenn talked about, as well as transmission, and then advocating for tribal issues, and then talking about operation and maintenance. GRICUA, one of our primary focuses is making sure that the infrastructure that serves our customers is up and running and is in good condition and that requires us to go out and talk to a lot of other entities and find out what they've done, and learn and gain experiences from them.
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And I think that goes too for tribes joining. Whether you have a tribal utility or not, you can obtain information and get knowledge about energy issues, and that can help to lead to making decisions as to what you want to do. As an entity the tribe may have a utility serving them, and it's not the tribal utility. But does the tribe participate in issues that are related to energy? Do they participate or do they get involved in rate cases? Every time the utility that's serving a tribe goes in for a rate increase, that affects the community members, that affects the tribal members and what they can do.
So these are opportunities to learn how to get involved with rate cases and how to have an impact on doing that. And as I said, you know, it's the rates, the reliability, a lot of times a tribe will look to form a tribe utility because they are having poor reliability. The incumbent utility says, "Well, we're not going to spend this much money on the tribe, on the reservation" as they would somewhere else. And tribes have to be vocal and stand up for their rights, and get the attention of the cooperative governing body or the state regulatory entity to make sure that they're treated fairly.
Next slide, please.
So one of the groups that I had mentioned earlier was the Southwest Public Power Agency. And that is made up of public power as well as three tribal utilities. And so here's one of the things we talk about, in joining organizations you have to partner in the utility business. Just like in many other businesses, you have to partner with non-tribal entities and you have to develop those working relationships. And SPPA offers services such as purchase power planning, risk sharing, and scheduling and services for the members.
Next slide.
GRICUA joined the National World Electric Cooperative Association. We got national information. We also use them for our pension plans. We use them for board and staff training. GRICUA has a five-member board and all of our board members are participating in taking the training to become what they call, they provide Certificates of Board of Directors Training, which gives them information. We are also sending staff to those staff trainings, so they have training for managers, they have training for technicians. So we use that. They provide reports and studies.
And one of the benefits I find is that there's a way for you to gain contact with your peers and ask questions, and other cooperatives and other communities around the country will be able to respond to your questions and help you to address issues that are coming up that you may be handling for the first time as a small utility.
Next slide, please.
The Arizona Tribal Energy Association. So this is an organization that GRICUA was one of the founding members. It was formed back in 2006 to fill a void, and that was that there was the last of the voice of tribal organizations to focus on tribal energy issues. We were involved with several regional organizations and they were taking a stand on some things, but they were focused more on it from the irrigation and electrical districts that were their primary members, and not on it from the tribe line side of it.
Tribal Energy Association is open to all tribes, whether you're a tribal utility or not a tribal utility, but just interested in energy issues. And we are—we promote, as it says there, you know, we promote the members' interests, we work with organizations such as the Western Area Power Administration. We work with the Inter Tribal Council of Arizona; we work with the Department of Energy to address tribal energy issues. We provide written comments based upon our members' input to this, and are active in making sure that—at least we try to make sure that there's tribal voiced on these issues.
We are going to be having a website up and running next week, and it would be—the website is www.Tribal-Energy.org. We hope to have it up sooner, but we're anticipating it will be up and running next week, and that will provide more information on the organization and the activities that we have.
Next slide.
The Inter Tribal Council is an organization that GRICUA participates with as well. It was formed in 1952 and it provides for the tribal leaders a forum for coming together and talking about all kinds of issues. And through the Arizona Tribal Energy Association we have participated with ITCA, we've brought energy issues to the tribal leaders and gotten their input, and then they also would provide direction back to us, saying, "Please provide this information" or they would make comments and we would get the Inter Tribal Council to actually weigh in on energy issues, which was very helpful, because they have a strong voice in Arizona.
Next slide please.
There's a group, the Integrated Scheduling Association, was formed back almost 20 years ago, when GRICUA received an allocation of hydroelectric power from the Western Area Power Administration. And it was formed to help schedule and pool the resource, which is, again, what Glenn talked about in terms of the benefits of association, to be able to schedule your resource such that when you can't use it someone else does, and when you need more you can buy it from them.
And so GRICUA as an organization looks to the different associations that are out there, finds those that it can benefit from, finds ways to leverage its dollars so that it can make the best decision it can. In some of these organizations there's always meetings going on continuously, and quite frankly, if I try to attend every organization's meeting I'd probably be on the road 300 days out of the year. So by joining these organizations and having individuals that can go to the meetings, come back, report to the group, it makes it more efficient and we become more effective in being able to get our voice out there and also stay on top of issues and not find out after the fact that there was an issue and that we could've had a chance to maybe move the issue in the direction that would be more beneficial to the tribal utility and tribes in general.
Next slide.
So we'll be taking questions, but I just wanted to kind of let you know that GRICUA is always willing to share information and help other tribes with energy related to questions. We'd be happy—I'm taking calls, and whatever we can do to help, we will do that, just ask _____ GRICUA help forum option. The other tribe utilities in Arizona, NTUA as the owner of the utility authority, both were very helpful to me and to us here at Gila River.
And finally, just to plug that the Arizona Tribal Energy Association will be having their annual meeting on January 25, 2018. And again, more information will be available on the website, or you can contact me and I will provide information.
And, Randy, with that I'll return control back to you.
Randy Manion: Thank, you, Lenny. Excellent. Andy, just give me a moment to get your slide deck up.
Okay, Andy, it's all yours.
Andy Bessler: Great. Thanks. Yeah, my name is Andy Bessler. I'm the Project Director for the National Tribal Air Association, and we're based out of Northern Arizona University here in Flagstaff, Arizona at NAU's Institute for Tribal and Environmental Professionals. And really kind of hearing the other presentations, this really is kind of a good example of the results of what happens when tribes do work together in an association and get results.
So next slide.
This is a story of really a justice for the air and how tribes helped provide a settlement to the United States to affect the law that was broken by automaker, Volkswagen. So I'm going to talk about the overview of the VW settlement and how this came about and talk about the National Tribal Air Association's involvement in the context of tribes helping tribes. And that really is exemplified in NTA's VW Settlement work group. And I'll provide some time for questions and answers here after my presentation.
And this is just a photo of a meeting that we had. So from left to right is Ann Marie Chischilly, ITEP's Executive Director. Next to her is Carolyn Kelly, who is the NTAA group lead on the VW settlement, and she is from the Quinault Indian Nation in Washington State. Next to her is Gina Allery, who is the Deputy Director of the Department of Justice's Office of Tribal Justice. And then next to her is Wilfred Nabahe, who is NTAA's Chairman, and he's the environmental director for the Colorado River Indian Tribes in Arizona.
So next slide.
The National Tribal Air Association was founded in 2002 with a grant from EPA's Office of Air and Radiation. NTAA's mission is to advance air quality management policies and programs consistent with the needs, interests, and unique legal status of American Indian Tribes and Alaskan Natives. So currently we have 124 federally recognized tribes as members of NTAA. And someone had mentioned ITCA, or Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, and they are also members.
So NTAA is governed by an executive committee, and that's a photo of the executive committee meeting in DC In March of this year. These are environmental and tribal leaders for tribes from all over the country; two from each EPA region, including Alaska. So this executive directs myself, as staff, to really provide a strong voice for tribes on air quality policy and climate change policy with EPA and other federal agencies.
NTAA was started as a way to help EPA dialogue with tribes when developing air quality policy. EPA maintains several partnership groups on several media, such as water, solid waste, and we're really the partnership group for air. So that's kind of how the National Tribal Air Association fits in with this national dialogue on air quality.
Next slide.
And as I said, this really is a story of how justice for the air is coming forward. Back in 2015 a university actually found that Volkswagen was using these defeat devices in their software to fool emission control tests for diesel vehicles. And EPA's lab in Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, confirmed that this was true in fact, and Volkswagen was breaking the law. They were violating the Clean Air Act by installing these defeat devices, basically to improve performance in diesel vehicles by polluting more, but then when the vehicles would go into these emission tests it would switch onto a cleaner burning system. So they'd get performance on the road and pass the test in the labs, and that's breaking the law.
So it initiated a criminal case and a civil case, and in January of 2016 the US Government actually sued. VW, to their credit, was very forthcoming and actually was cooperative. They admitted that there were these problems and worked to make it right, and they really have. So in February they reached an agreement that included a $3 billion settlement that was part of a larger $14 billion settlement that allowed VW car owners to switch out the vehicles. The $3 billion settlement really was to mitigate the environmental damage that Volkswagen had caused by allowing excess pollutants to go into the atmosphere.
So this really is a story of bringing justice to the air and how tribes helped with that.
So next slide.
So this is the cover page for the settlement that was filed with the courts. Judge Breyer, Charles Breyer in California presided over the case. So the Environmental Mitigation Trust Agreement for Indian Tribe Beneficiaries was filed with the US District Court of California on September 9, 2017. And just a few weeks ago it was effective, so when they filed it with the court they sent all these copies off to Germany and all the other states that were involved in this case, including the California Air Resources Board, got all the signatures saying, "Yes, we'll agree to pay you billions of dollars. Here you go." And they turned it over to the courts. When those signed copies were filed with the court on October 1st it initiated what is called the trust effective date, which essentially triggers the actions of depositing money with the trustee, Wilmington Trust, and allows Wilmington Trust the authority to start to hand out cash payments to tribes and states to help mitigate the environmental damage. So this settlement is active and it's really exciting to see this actually get started.
So next slide.
So just an overview, you know, when something like this happens at the scale that it happened it really had a big impact. So I really enjoy this little slide here of the VW Hindenburg, because it really had a big impact on VW; they had to pay billions of dollars out and they're still—a couple people went to jail. They're really dealing with the repercussions of their actions, so this kind of lays out essentially what happened. Several automakers, including Audi and Volkswagen, that are collectively under Volkswagen, were guilty and included in the settlement. And as I said, the settlement resolves allegations that Volkswagen violated the Clean Air Act by selling over 500,000 vehicles, both 2 and 3-liter vehicles with defeat devices. And the settlement really is framed around how to fix that violation.
So the $3 billion settlement—it's just under $3 billion, it includes a tribal allocation sub account of almost $55 million, for all 567 federally recognized tribes to fund a trustee-approved environmental mitigation plan. So I'm going to talk a little bit about what that means.
Next slide.
So basically over the next six to ten years tribes will have the ability to claim beneficiary status with the trustee and the courts, and also submit environmental mitigation action plans. They are very focused. You can't just ask for a bunch of money and the trustee will send it to you. You need to have a very specific plan in how you're going to spend that money. And it basically falls onto these categories of either retiring or replacing the engines or entirely new vehicles for these different classes of vehicles. So these include—and they're all diesels. So all diesel school buses, semi trucks, freight trucks, ocean-going vessels, ferries, forklifts, and also there's an odd category of locomotive switcher—locomotives for like switchyards. So I don't know many tribes that have trains, but that's covered in the settlement as well.
The other final option is the DERA option, and DERA stands for Diesel Emission Reduction Act, that Congress passed and set up funds the EPA administers to provide grants to states and tribes to clean up dirty diesel equipment essentially, diesel generators, backup generators, those kinds of things. Up in Alaska a lot of Native villages have diesel generators to produce power, and so they can access this settlement by using the DERA option, and that's basically submitting DERA grants through EPA that a portion of the VW settlement can be used for.
So how this environmental mitigation actions are developed by tribes is really kind of the meat and potatoes of how tribes can access this $55 million.
Next slide.
What's really interesting and probably interesting to this audience as it relates to energy users is that 15-percent of any environmental mitigation action plan may include funding for zero-emission vehicle infrastructure such as car charging stations, port charging stations for large ocean-going vessels, and also truck stop electrification. So you reduce semi trucks using their diesel engines by heating the rest stop areas with electrified so they don't have to turn on their diesel trucks. So 15-percent of a total mitigation action plan can go towards this.
So this is really exciting. We've heard presentations from different companies that are really gearing up for this national settlement. You know, each state is going to get a chunk of this $3 billion settlement as well as the tribes. So we really see a national surge of interest in electrified vehicles, car-charging stations, things like that. We did get a presentation by a company called ADOMANI that has a partnership with Blue Bird, the school bus company, and they have really exciting work to electrify these school buses, that can put in these large batteries. So if, for example, a school district has five school buses, they can apply for funds to replace those school buses with electric engines. And essentially if you have a charging station at the school, they're electrifying those school bus batteries all day, and you can actually work with the utility to sell off some of that excess electricity through the storage and the school bus batteries.
So there's a lot of opportunities here for developing some pretty creative and innovative fleet vehicle strategies.
Next slide.
So as I mentioned earlier, Wilmington Trust, which is a bank out of Delaware, is the trustee. And so when the trust effective data was established on October 1st, there was a large bank transfer from the court that was holding VW's money when the settlement was finalized in the court, and that money has now been transferred to Wilmington Trust. So they have a bunch of money sitting in the bank, ready to hand it out. So we're working with Wilmington Trust to make sure that tribes have adequate information to submit their paperwork and understand how to submit the paperwork. And they're also the trustee for all the states and territories, including Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands get some of this settlement funding as well.
So Russel Crane at Wilmington Trust is the main contact for tribes, and I included his e-mail address there. So if you are a federally recognized tribe and want to engage in this VW settlement just e-mail him and say, "Hey, I'd like to get information." Wilmington Trust is having webinars on how to access their online platform that will be used to—they'll be used by tribes to submit paperwork. They have to get signature cards and make sure the tribal reps are who they say they are, and so they have security systems in place to make sure that the funds transferred to the tribes are done correctly and you can start that process.
Tribes have until January 1st—I'm sorry, January 2, 2018 to submit mitigation plans for funding for this first year. They will—as I said, this is a six-year settlement, so funds will be available all the way till 2023 and tribes will have a funding cycle based on September 1st of each year. So you'll have to get your mitigation plan in by September 1st if you want funding for that year.
The website is not live yet, but this is the website address that Wilmington Trust set up. Part of the settlement requires them to have a public-facing website. When a tribe does submit an approved mitigation plan and is funded it will go onto the website. So you'll get to see how this money is spent. It's all transparent and public, so all the states, all the tribes will have their mitigation plans up on this website and you'll be able to see that. I think it's really important because you'll be able to get ideas on who's doing what, and that will be a good resource.
Next slide.
Thanks. So as I mentioned earlier, the National Tribal Air Association set up a VW Settlement work group, and really it's an opportunity for our member tribes and other tribal leaders that are interested in engaging in the settlement to work on it. And, you know, this is a place to share information and learn about important resources. So as I mentioned our lead is Carolyn Kelly, who is an air quality specialist with the Quinault Indian Nation in Washington.
We hold monthly calls and our next call is going to be on Thursday, November 2nd at 2:00 PM. So my contact information, you can contact me if you want to be on that call, and we're going to be talking about how tribes can access the settlement, and what we're learning from the trustee about how they're going to operate the settlement for the next six years.
It should be noted, so there's essentially $55 million set aside for tribes, all 567 federally recognized tribes. The trustee is going to ration out that over the six years by six. So essentially $6 million to $9 million will be available each year based on how much is spent. So for the last two years, for example, half of the total settlement will be available in the last year, and the sixth year all of what remains will be available for tribes. If there is funding available after the six years they will continue the settlement for tribes for ten years. So if there are funds remaining tribes will be able to access it.
I just wanted to point out that the workgroup really has provided regular communication with the Department of Justice and EPA regarding the settlement. This was really a large historic settlement in that tribes have really had a large role. And we hope that this is a template for how tribes are involved in other national supplemental and environmental projects that the federal government implements. For example, the automaker, Fiat Chrysler was notified by EPA of a notice of violation for a similar defeat device violation earlier this year. And we're hoping that if a similar settlement comes about that this is a great template for how it works.
Next slide, please.
This really is kind of what the National Travel Air Association's VW Settlement workgroup has produced in the year and a half pretty much that we've been involved. Early on, when we first learned about the violation that VW had caused, NTAA partnered with another partnership group the EPA operates, called the National Tribal Air Support Center, which is air quality monitoring equipment support center is more on the technical side and NTAA is more on the policy side. But we sent a letter to the EPA administrator in 2016 saying, "Hey, if there is a settlement tribes should be included, and distribute funds to tribes for any supplemental environmental project that is related to the VW settlement."
And we were told within EPA that this really had a big impact and they were like, "Oh yeah, that's right, tribes should be involved in this." So we're happy to hear that. And during the consultation period, during the public comment period this workgroup was involved in providing comments. So we've been involved in consultation calls, we've requested information that we've passed onto tribes. We've also expressed concerns about aspects of the settlement. For example, on the DERA option there's a match requirement that tribes have to put up a certain percentage of the funding themselves. And we said, "Well, that's kind of silly. If there's all this money available in the VW settlement why don't they just use those funds to cover the match?" But EPA has really followed the letter of the law as it relates to DERA and that match is a requirement that Congress put in there, so they're sticking to their guns on that.
So we've provided some important dialogue on some of these key issues. Also we got some real concrete improvements in the settlement for tribes. For example, there is funding set aside for the establishment of a tribal advisory council, so that as the trust moves forward and issues come up, that tribal advisory council can both advise the trustee and alert people, say, "Hey, here's an important issue that you need to understand, take heed." So this tribal advisory council is going to get set up within the next year and provide I think an important role for the rollout of the settlement.
What's important to note is that someone had mentioned that, you know, some of these folks really don't understand tribes, and I think Wilmington trust has a steep learning curve in working with tribes, and hopefully this tribal advisory council will help educate them about the unique nature of tribes. Especially some of these villages in Alaska, and larger tribes, smaller tribes; there's a great diversity of all 567 federally recognized tribes that this trustee is going to have to learn to work with all of them. So that's what the workgroup has done, and we continue our work.
Next slide, please.
So some of you may remember Jerry McGuire, now is the time to show me the money. So there's $54 million sitting in the bank. Tribes now have the ability to access those funds to help bring justice to our nation's air quality. So there's NOx pollution that were put into the atmosphere in violation of the Clean Air Act, and tribes have the ability to help make it right by basically improving air quality through reduction of diesel vehicles, either through replacing, or repowering, or replacing new vehicles. I'm really excited about this because car-charging stations, electric vehicles, that infrastructure work really does need to happen to make electric vehicles really function well in this country. And so one thing that I'm really excited about is states and tribes have an opportunity to partner on, for example, if there are highway systems that impact those states and tribes, those VW settlement funds can be used to establish car charging stations.
One thing I didn't mention is VW is actually funding a separate private electric vehicle infrastructure project called Electrify America. And states and tribes can also access those funds, but it's more of a private funding source through ElectrifyAmerica.com, is the website that VW set up to do that. And they're really looking at more an urban highway systems and providing car-charging stations for those.
So as I mentioned, I did put up the website again. If folks want to include that, it's not live yet. I was told it will be live on November 1st, and that will be an important source for you to access all the data or the information you need for the settlement.
One of the other things that the VW Settlement workgroup got was the establishment of a technical assistance provider and the Institute for Tribal Environmental Professionals was identified as the technical advisor. So here at ITEP we'll be helping with that and establishing a tribal advisory council, as I mentioned. So the trustee will have information on how to access that as well as on ITEP's website. NTAA—you can access that through NTAA's website as well.
As I said, the first round of funding closes for tribes on January 2, 2018. And NTAA actually—on our VW Settlement workgroup web page we have a checklist or a roadmap essentially on what you need to do to try to get those in by January 2nd. There's several different steps. It's a bit complicated, but it's realistic. So there's a checklist that we have on our website that you can look through to figure out what you need to submit when. And as I said, if you don't make the January 2nd deadline, tribes can apply for the next six year on an annual cycle around September 1st until the year 2023.
Next slide, please.
So in terms of NTAA's next steps. As I said, the workgroup will continue in providing resources for tribes and really fostering partnerships with the states. NTAA has an active partnership with another association, called the National Association of Clean Air Agencies, which is a state equivalent of NTAA. And they've been really active in the VW settlement as well, and we have ongoing dialogue with them. They've created a great website called the VWSettlementClearinghouse.com. That's a great resource for states and local agencies. But it's a great resource.
We'll be holding monthly calls, as I said. The next one will be on Thursday, November 2nd at 2:00 PM Eastern, and I invite you to join. And you can contact me if you'd like to join that call. And as I said, ITEP will be providing one-on-one support for tribes, offering training videos and informational webinars in the coming months to ensure the tribes have all the help they need to submit these environmental mitigation plans.
And finally I just want to say it has been pointed out on this call that joining affiliated groups is important, and joining NTAA is certainly your option. And actually there are no downsides. It's free to join NTAA; there are no membership dues or fees. So it's open to all federally recognized tribes and there is information on NTAA's website to join NTAA. So I urge you to do that.
Next slide please.
And as I said, if you fail as bad as VW did you're bound to be teased, so I found these fun VW ribbings on the Internet. So we can make a good turn from this bad fail by automaker Volkswagen, and I'm really glad the tribes are part of the solution. And I think it does show that when tribes help other tribes there can be meaningful action that results. And tribes' involvement in the VW settlement I think is a good example of that.
So as I said, if you want to join NTAA or learn more about the VW settlement by joining our next VW Settlement workgroup call, my contact information is there on the screen and I'll stick around for any questions that you guys may have. But thanks for the time; I appreciate it.
Randy Manion: Thank you, Andy. And give me a moment to find out what questions are currently being submitted to us pull up our Q&A slide. I'm going to leave up our speakers' contact info here as we go through the Q&A. Also I'll remind everyone that we will have this recording posted on Office of Indian Energy Policy and Programs website, along with these slides in about a week. And with that I think we have some questions.
A couple of questions for Lenny and Glenn. Can you define JAA and G&T?
Glenn Steiger: All right, this is Glenn. I'll take a crack at it. Joint Action Agency, which is a JAA, essentially is—and it can take a couple of forms, but if you think of it very basically as an organization that does purchasing either through power purchase agreements or through ownership in generation plants, or in pooling—power pooling. But it's an association that can provide these services for multiple members. It also—some of them have the ability to finance, to bond, depending upon the size of them, where they can go out and actually buy generating facilities or transmission facilities on behalf of their members. And that's a joint action agency. They also have the ability to provide a number of the other services that I mentioned in my presentation.
G&T is generation and transmission organizations. They generally are associated with cooperatives. The joint action agencies are generally associated with municipal or public power organizations, although they both operate in a very, very similar manner in terms of being power suppliers, transmission facilitators, and in some cases owners. So, Lenny, if you'd like to augment that, I'd be happy to turn it over to you.
Leonard Gold: Just I think one comment. A joint action agency is something that is authorized under is authorized by legislation of the state, at least here in Arizona, and I believe in most states, that they authorize a joint action agency to act as a quasi-governmental body and it has the authority to do certain things granted by the state. And Arizona for the longest time they had certain joint action agencies, but put electric utilities—so utilities weren't able to form a joint action agency, so they actually got to get the legislation changed to do that. Whereas a generation—G&T is formed by its members and can't do that—as I understand it, it's not something that is legislated by the state.
Randy Manion: And this was a two-part question: how does a tribal utility join a joint action agency or a G&T?
Leonard Gold: Too, membership of a joint action agency was just a matter of we were part of the group that was working to formulate this organization, this Southwest _____ Power Agency, to enter into purchasing power. And as part of that effort it was decided that they needed to form a joint action agency. And originally the legislation that was passed did not include the ability for tribes to become members of the joint action agency. And we took—we became actively involved in that and changed the legislation so that it allowed for tribes to become members.
So the way that you would become it is you would petition to the group and the group would evaluate whether or not to accept you as a member if you met whatever their qualifications might be and whatever funds or requirements they had for payment to become a member.
Randy Manion: Excellent. Thank you. Andy, a question for you. Are vehicle conversions to CNG or LNG eligible for funding?
Andy Bessler: Yes, they are. It covers electrification, CNG, propane, and other alternatives. So I think you can work with the trustee on specific plans, but options one through nine allow for alternative fueled vehicles: hybrids, propane, and CNG, as well as all electric.
Randy Manion: Yeah. And are the match requirements defined at this time?
Andy Bessler: Yes. They're all covered under Appendix D2 in the settlement. So for example, for government-owned vehicles, which are owned by the tribal government; they're 100-percent the trust will cover the replacement amount 100-percent. If they're non-governmental owned vehicles they'll cover up to 40-percent for a new diesel, up to 25-percent for alternative fuel vehicle, and there's a few other details. But in terms of the match requirement, that's really under the DERA option, and those are all covered under, as I said, the rules operating DERA.
Randy Manion: Okay. That was—
Andy Bessler: I think that was the—helped with that question.
Randy Manion: Yes. Thank you.
And then back to Lenny and Glenn, many types of affiliations were described. Which are valuable and open to tribes who do not have a tribal utility?
Leonard Gold: I know that you can become a member of Arizona Tribal Energy Association. I believe you can become an affiliate member of some kind for the American Public Power Association. And I believe that the NRECA has some kind of associate or affiliate membership. I haven't looked into that in a long time, but I believe that those do, in terms of on our, you know, the regional basis, like the Southwest Public Power Agency is one that I don't think they've thought about having someone join who's not a tribal utility, because the benefits of that organization are really in the purchase power, like Glenn had spoke about, transmission, spooling of transmission in search of power. So I would say they haven't thought about entertaining that kind of arrangement. I don't know, Glenn, if you have some thoughts on the others.
Glenn Steiger: Yeah. Many of the statewide municipal utility associations will allow affiliate membership for tribal organizations that aren't utilities. And there are a number of other industry organizations in a like manner that will allow affiliate memberships. So many of the groups that we've talked about will allow affiliate memberships, you know, that don't require you to be a utility. To be a full member many of them would require you to be a utility. But for the most part as long as it's an affiliate membership, nations and tribal organizations not utility-related can join.
Randy Manion: Okay, great. Thank you. Lenny, how does one obtain a copy of your tribal utility case study guidebook?
Leonard Gold: If you just send me an e-mail I can forward it on to you. Simple as that.
Randy Manion: Okay. Great. Andy, can you verify the e-mail address or Russel Crane? Apparently it had an I in it, which may be a different spelling of Crane.
Andy Bessler: Yeah, I don't have the PowerPoint up in front of me, but yeah, it is short for Russel Crane, so it's [email protected]. Yeah, there's no I in RCrane, so sorry about that.
Randy Manion: Okay. And I'm going to unmute the phones for anyone that has a hand raised and wants to ask our panel a question directly. So raise your hand, click your Raise Your Hand icon and I'll unmute you. I'm scrolling through the list now, looking for any raised hands. And then again, if you have any other written questions feel free to submit a written question and we'll get that before we close out.
I don't see any raised hands. Let me go back to see if there's any other written questions. Doesn't look like it.
So, gentlemen and Lizana, thank you so much for your participation today. Excellent presentations. I'm going to go the next slide here that's going to show our final two webinars for the year. We are putting the 2018 tribal webinar series together, so please e-mail me or Lizana with any of your 2018 tribal webinar ideas or topics and we'll take those into consideration. And, Lizana, any closing comments for the group?
Lizana Pierce: Again, thank everybody for your presentations. And those of you attending, we welcome your feedback. You're also welcome, tribal representatives, to attend our program review. I think it gives you a huge oversight on renewable energy and energy development across Indian country. So with that, thanks, everybody.
Glenn Steiger: Okay. Thank you. Bye-bye.
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