In August Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act, a landmark climate and clean energy bill. Six months later, we’re asking: where are we now?
Read MorePlease Join us as The Tax Credit Revolution Webinar series continues on Thursday, November 3 at 12:00 p.m. ET.
Join us for a discussion on how the Inflation Reduction Act provides developers with new opportunities to redevelop brownfield sites as brightfields, by incorporating solar energy and energy storage technology.
Speakers:
Moderator:
To register, please click the button below to RSVP.
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Please Join us as The Tax Credit Revolution Webinar series continues on Monday, 19 September at 12:00 p.m. ET. This part will be co-hosted by K&L Gates and Marsh.
The Tax Credit Revolution: What You Need to Know About How the IRA Will Impact Insurance for Tax Credit Risks
Tax insurance provides renewable energy developers and tax equity investors with a cost-effective risk mitigation tool to protect taxpayers against the loss of renewable energy tax credits in the event of a successful IRS challenge. Join us for a discussion on how tax insurance has become a widely used solution to ensure successful financing in the development of renewable energy projects and how we expect coverage to expand in response to new considerations under the Inflation Reduction Act.
Speaker: Antony Joyce Marsh, Alisha Soares Marsh
Moderator: Elizabeth Crouse K&L Gates
To view all previously recorded The Tax Credit Revolution webinars, follow this link.
Webinar 3
08 September 2022
3:00 – 4:00 p.m. ET
Thank you to those of you who joined us on Friday for the second webinar in the Tax Credit Revolution series – What You Need to Know about the Wage and Apprenticeship Requirements. We hope you will join us for the third part on Thursday at 3:00 p.m. ET. You can register using the link below.
Webinar 3: The Tax Credit Revolution: What You Need to Know about the Domestic Content Requirements
This webinar will cover credits that will be increased when certain requirements are met. These vary from credit to credit, and will be discussed in greater detail in this program.
Speaker: Stacy Ettinger
Moderator: Elizabeth Crouse
To view recordings of the first two webinars, click on the event page links below.
Webinar 1: The Tax Credit Revolution: What You Need to Know about Structuring Opportunities, Direct Pay and Transferability
Thursday, 01 September 2022
Webinar 2: The Tax Credit Revolution: What You Need to Know about the Wage and Apprenticeship Requirements
Friday, 02 September 2022
By: Elizabeth C. Crouse, Elias B. Hinckley, Mary Burke Baker, Laurie B. Purpuro
On 16 August 2022, President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA). While not as expansive as the Build Back Better Act, the IRA has the potential to dramatically accelerate the energy transition in the United States. Features of the IRA include extensions and tweaks of several popular credits for renewable electricity, alternative fuel vehicles, and carbon capture, as well as numerous new renewable energy and fuels credits and a fundamental pivot after 2024 to renewable electricity credits based on greenhouse gas emissions of generation technology. In addition, new credits for manufacturing and recycling related to the renewable energy sector may help drive increased investment in American manufacturing. Further, the new direct pay and transferability techniques create opportunities for new financing structures and stakeholders.
To help our clients understand and benefit from these new tax credits, we have prepared a high-level summary for several key technologies, primarily in a commercial context.
On 27 July, Senators Manchin and Schumer announced a deal on the successor to the Build Back Better Act, which is expected to pass in the Senate on Saturday (6 August 2022) and the House the following Friday. This new legislation, called the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, includes US$370 billion in programs and tax credits to boost renewable energy production in the United States.
That said, page 644 of the draft includes language that ties federal solar, wind and offshore wind development to federal lease sales for oil and gas.
The Details
The section of the bill titled “Ensuring Energy Security” prohibits the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) from issuing rights-of-way (ROW) for wind or solar development on federal land unless an onshore oil and gas lease sale has occurred within 120 days before the wind or solar lease issuance. In addition, these wind and solar ROWs would not be allowed unless, in the previous year, BLM completed onshore oil and gas lease sales covering 2,000,000 acres or 50% of the acreage in which interested parties have expressed interest, whichever is lower. (Note: Wind and solar projects that impact federal land are authorized by ROWs.)
Offshore wind (OSW) is similarly impacted by this provision, as it prohibits the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) from issuing an OSW lease unless an oil and gas offshore lease sale of at least 60 million acres is held during the year before the OSW lease issuance.
The Impact
This section of the agreement is intended to force the Biden Administration to restart the regularly scheduled oil and gas lease sales that it has been cancelling since 2021, while at the same time allowing the Biden Administration to conduct fewer annual oil and gas lease sales than currently required.
The Mineral Leasing Act requires four onshore oil and gas leases per year; the language in this bill requires three onshore oil and gas leases per year, as a prerequisite to solar and wind development on federal land. BOEM offshore oil and gas five-year leasing programs require two offshore oil and gas lease sales in most years; this bill requires one sale per year, in order to allow solar and wind development on federal land.
Furthermore, the acreage requirements for oil and gas sales outlined in the bill are in line with previous sales. And for the onshore oil and gas lease sales, just in case BLM falls shore of the 2,000,000 acre requirement, they can sell leases for 50% of the acreage that parties are interested in.
The Compromise
This Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 is a compromise forged by Senate Democrats with the slimmest of majorities. The Ensuring Energy Security section is Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chair Joe Manchin’s way of requiring an all of the above energy policy for the country.
Author: Elizabeth C. Crouse
Treasury is having a busy week! This afternoon, the U.S. Department of Treasury released proposed regulations under Code Section 45Q. Code Section 45Q provides for a U.S. federal income tax credit of 10% or 20% for carbon oxide sequestration and disposal in secure geologic storage, used as a tertiary injectant in a qualified enhanced oil or natural gas recovery project and then disposed of in secure geologic storage, or utilized algal or bacterial disposition, chemical conversion processes, or other methods, as provided in regulations.
Read MoreJoin us on Wednesday, June 10, 2020, for a CLE presentation on “COVID-19: Perspectives for the “Next New Normal” for Renewable and Utility Companies.”
Companies are seeing unprecedented legal and business impacts due to the COVID-19 pandemic. These impacts are bringing about changes in strategy and how many companies approach their day-to-day business operations to adapt to this new business environment. This one-hour session will involve a presentation by the following K&L Gates attorneys sharing their perspectives on what to consider during the “next new normal.”
Moderator:
Panelists:
This presentation will include the evolving legal and business impacts of COVID-19 in connection with:
This webinar will contain a chat feature in which you can submit questions so that we may tailor this presentation to address your concerns.
To register, please click here.
By: William Keyser, Sandra Safro, Patrick Metz and Abraham Johns
On May 20, 2020, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (“FERC” or the “Commission”) announced that it will hold a technical conference to discuss the impact on the energy industry of emergency conditions arising from the COVID-19 pandemic. The conference will take place July 8-9, 2020 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Preregistration for the conference is available at: http://www.ferc.gov/whats-new/registration/07-07-20-form.asp. FERC will issue a supplemental notice that includes the conference agenda in a proceeding opened in Docket No. AD20-17-000.
The Commission plans to use the conference to assess the ongoing impacts that the COVID-19 pandemic is having on parts of the U.S. energy industry. While the Commission already enacted short-term regulatory relief actions for regulated entities, the conference will explore long-term options for safeguarding the nation’s energy markets, electric transmission system, natural gas and oil transportation, and future operation of energy infrastructure.
In addition, FERC intends for the event to serve as a public forum for the Commission and stakeholders to address the recovery of the industry from the COVID-19 pandemic. The event will afford the public an opportunity to receive high-level information about how COVID-19 may change the energy industry moving forward.
Among the topics the Commission plans to cover in panels and discussions are: (1) ongoing and future operational and planning challenges due to COVID-19; (2) operations, planning, and infrastructure development impacts anticipated due to the effect of COVID-19 on electric demand; (3) operations, planning, and infrastructure development impacts anticipated due to the effect of COVID-19 on natural gas and oil demand; and (4) anticipated issues related to access to capital, such as credit, liquidity, and return on equity.
Further information about the event will be posted on the Calendar of Events webpage for the event. K&L Gates will continue to monitor for updates from the Commission about the conference.
Please join K&L Gates’ Elizabeth Crouse on the Energy Storage Association’s upcoming webinar, Energy Storage, Trade and China, on Thursday, May 21 from 12:00 PM – 1:00 CDT.
This webinar will explore the key trade and national security policies that currently impact the ESS market in the U.S. and assess their potential impacts on future deployments, including:
• How might regulatory developments under the Executive Order impact storage?
• What might the future hold for tariffs?
• How do these processes play out in an election year?
For more information and to register, please click here.
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