State Level Recommendations

• Support continuing efforts to improve the efficiency and environmental performance of all advanced coal technologies,with the ultimate goal of achieving near zero emissions at a competitive cost of electricity.
• Support incentives directed only to certain advanced coal technologies in two “tiers.”
  Allow utility recovery of costs for Tier 1 and Tier II project development studies.
• Allow utility recovery of costs for studies of the carbon sequestration potential of existing and potential plant sites.
• To address higher costs and operational risks, allow pre-approval and full-cost recovery for Tier 1 and Tier II projects, provided appropriate steps are taken to manage costs and risks.
• Expedite permitting for Tier 1 and Tier II projects, while maintaining full public participation and the protection of human health and the environment, including consideration of the full range of impacts of associated infrastructure.

• Consider the establishment of a forum for interstate negotiations that match consumer states and generator states to develop and provide funding for major interstate clean energy projects. Collaborate on the design of a variety of incentive mechanisms, such as rate base, sales/severance tax forgiveness.
• Encourage Western state trading for appropriately defined environmental attributes as agreed upon by the participants. Such a framework can be extended in the future for any environmental attribute. This approach will facilitate compliance reporting by load-serving entities that are required to comply with state-adopted renewable portfolio standards.
• Work for the implementation of state-level incentives to reduce the program costs for energy efficiency and clean energy technologies through economies of scale and consistency across state programs.
• Continue regional collaboration on clean energy policy, linking efficiency, clean generation and transmission.

• Provide for a five year extension of the federal IGCC tax credit and propose a five- to ten-year tax credit program for carbon capture and sequestration.
• Increase federal support and tax incentives for the construction of multiple pilot facilities that demonstrate IGCC using Western coal at high altitude in the Western United States.

State Level Recommendations

• Create incentives for and promote energy efficiency levels that go beyond the standard energy efficiency codes for new buildings, commercial construction, appliances and equipment.
• Expand those energy efficiency programs that have proven effective in promoting best practices in industrial energy management and combined heat and power.
• Encourage electric and natural gas utilities to invest in all cost-effective energy efficiency measures using best practices for utility energy efficiency and conservation programs.
• Work with state PUCs to establish energy savings targets; provide utilities with necessary cost recovery; consider performance-based incentives, and eliminate disincentives to utility investment in cost-effective energy efficiency measures for their customers;
• Upgrade to state-of-the-art efficiency building codes and appliance standards (for products not yet covered by national standards) and provide support for code implementation through education, training and enhanced building inspection and enforcement.
• Establish public sector procurement programs for ENERGY STAR and other types of high-efficiency appliances and equipment.
• Give fair credit for power plant emissions reductions in environmental review of CHP projects.
• Decouple utility revenues from throughput and ensure that electricity rates are not discriminatory to CHP.

• Facilitate the creation of regional market-transformation organizations for energy efficiency modeled on the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance.
• Encourage Western state trading for appropriately defined environmental attributes as agreed upon by the participants. Such a framework can be extended in the future for any environmental attribute. This approach will facilitate compliance reporting by load-serving entities that are required to comply with state-adopted renewable portfolio standards.
• Work for the implementation of state-level incentives to reduce the program costs for energy efficiency and clean energy technologies through economies of scale and consistency across state programs.
• Continue regional collaboration on clean energy policy, linking efficiency, clean generation and transmission.

• Encourage timely adoption of updates to the national appliance efficiency standards.
• Encourage Congress to extend current tax incentives for 10 years for innovative energy efficiency technologies.

State Level Recommendations

• Support well-designed comprehensive integrated resource planning and procurement rules that weigh the full costs, benefits and risks (including environmental) of various resource options for public and investorowned utilities. Planning should integrate consideration of supply-side resources, demand-side resources and transmission needs. Planning and procurement rules should be transparent and allow full participation of the public.
• For emerging clean energy technologies, provide regulatory incentives such as full and accelerated cost-recovery.
• Evaluate and develop appropriate incentives/policies that recognize the non-energy benefits of renewable energy projects, particularly the environmental and waste management services provided by biomass projects. If utilities are the entities selected to provide supplemental support to the renewable project, they should receive full cost recovery for such activities.
• Standardize the process for procurement and infrastructure planning/integration for clean energy technologies (long-term Power Purchase Agreements permitting, interconnection).

• Develop and accelerate mechanisms for clean-energy regional markets, such as the Western Renewable Energy Generation Information System, which verifies and tracks regional renewable energy generation.
• Consider the establishment of a forum for interstate negotiations that match consumer states and generator states to develop and provide funding for major interstate clean energy projects. Collaborate on the design of a variety of incentive mechanisms, such as rate base, sales/severance tax forgiveness.
• Encourage Western state trading for appropriately defined environmental attributes as agreed upon by the participants. Such a framework can be extended in the future for any environmental attribute. This approach will facilitate compliance reporting by load-serving entities that are required to comply with state-adopted renewable portfolio standards.
• Work for the implementation of state-level incentives to reduce the program costs for energy efficiency and clean energy technologies through economies of scale and consistency across state programs.
• Continue regional collaboration on clean energy policy, linking efficiency, clean generation and transmission.

• Extend the long-term (10 years) production tax credit and investment tax credit across all clean energy technologies; provide for partnership sharing of tax credits for certain entities, such as tribes; extend and raise the cap on new clean energy bonding authority
  for nonprofits (public power) and Native American tribal authorities; and raise the cap on the residential investment tax credit to $10,000.
• Provide long-term (10 years), adequate funding for energy efficiency and clean generation and storage technology RD&D, Energy Star programs, state-based clean energy initiatives.
• Encourage federal agencies to collaborate and work with states and Western regional organizations on siting of new generation and infrastructure facilities, consistent with sound, sustainable environmental practices.
• Support power marketing administration studies of opportunities to integrate wind.
• Encourage long-term (20-years) and large forest-health contracting, collaboratively determined, using a science-based assessment of the resource to allow for biomass resource development.

State Level Recommendations

• Ensure that targeted energy efficiency, CHP, and other demand-side resources are incorporated into state transmission planning.Ensure that utility interconnection policies best facilitate the use of a wide range of clean energy resources.
• Urge utilities to assess available transmission capacity and opportunities to make better use of the existing transmission systems.
• Encourage the elimination of rate pancaking (separate transmission payments to multiple line owners for delivering electricity) and offer short-term transmission services and products (such as "conditional firm" [firm transmission service during months of the year when it is available and some reduced level of service during less available months of the year]).
• Encourage the implementation of cost-recovery mechanisms for transmission, such as state transmission authorities, and provide for state and utility review and participation in regional transmission planning processes.
• Consider the establishment of tiered standards of review for prudency and the application of incentives for transmission expansion costs. They should feature a lower standard for screening studies and planning, a moderate standard for permitting and the acquisition of rights-of-way, and a higher standard for construction costs.
• Work with companies to ensure transmission is expanded in advance of generation to enable the modular development of location-constrained, clean and diversified resource areas to meet cost-effective renewable portfolio standards, and resource planning goals in an environmentally sound manner.
• Work with utilities to establish policies that reward, not penalize, appropriately sized facilities for local load and voltage support.

• Continue regional transmission planning efforts, including establishment of energy transmission corridors that facilitate wheeling of energy from clean energy sources and an open season process by project developers to demonstrate demand and value for new transmission projects.
• Urge Power Marketing Administrations to offer short-term transmission services, such as “conditional firm.”
• Synchronize regional transmission planning efforts to resource acquisition plans of load serving entities (LSE) and plans of generators.
• Urge FERC and PUCs to form joint panels on transmission cost recovery that would explicitly consider risks and the need for incentive policies.
• Coordinate multi-state review of transmission projects by developing common principles for cost allocation and cost recovery, and adopt a common Western procedural process that would identify and coordinate the applications, forms, analyses and deadlines.
• Consider the establishment of a forum for interstate negotiations that match consumer states and generator states to develop and provide funding for major interstate clean energy projects. Collaborate on the design of a variety of incentive mechanisms, such as rate base, sales/severance tax forgiveness.
• Continue regional collaboration on clean energy policy, linking efficiency, clean generation and transmission.