OREC Secures Some Benefits for Ocean Energy in New Energy Bill…But Tax Credits Must Wait Until Next Year

On December 19, 2007, President Bush signed into law the Energy Act 2007. OREC played an instrumental role in securing important benefits for the ocean and marine renewable energy industry, including: * Authorizing $250 million for Research, Development, Demonstration and Commercial Application to Expand Marine and Hydrokinetic Renewable Energy Production. * Authorizing the Secretary of […]

OREC Offers Support, and Constructive Comments on FERC’s Conditional License Policy

In November 2007, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued a Policy Statement announcing the Commission’s intent to issue conditional licenses for certain wave, tidal and hydrokinetic projects. The conditional license would enable FERC to approve the license, without waiting for other state and federal agencies to issue necessary authorizations. But the conditional license does not authorize any construction until […]

Update on FERC Pilot Project Process

On October 2, 2007, FERC held a public hearing and technical conference on a proposed expedited process for pilot projects. Carolyn Elefant, legislative and regulatory counsel for OREC, delivered an abbreviated version of these comments which will be filed with the Commission. In addition, you can view the full transcript of the FERC conference at this link. We’ve […]

Two Important MMS Developments

On Monday, November 5, MMS held an invitation only conference call to announce two important initiatives. Both Sean O’Neill, OREC’s President and Carolyn Elefant, Legislative and Regulatory Counsel, participated in the call. First, MMS announced that it has issued the Final Programmatic EIS for alternative energy development on the OCS. Back in May, OREC filed draft comments […]

Member News

If you’re interested in an update on some of our members’ activities (specifically, Ocean Power Technologies and the Pelamis Wave Compay, f/k/a Ocean Power Delivery, visit this post from my Renewables Offshore Blog. Also in the news is one of our law firm members, Stoel Rives, which announced the release of The Law of Ocean Energy, that you can […]

A Report on Our Website and Blog

OREC’s newly designed website and blog have been up and running since the spring, to rave reviews. Here are some things you should know about our site: –We installed an open source Google based calendar on the front page which lists activities and conferences of interest to the marine renewables community on the front page. […]

OREC Updates Events Calendar

At the home page of the OREC Website, we maintain a calendar of upcoming conferences of interest to the marine renewables, and broader renewables community. We’ve just stocked the calendar with upcoming events for the next twelve months, so take a look and see if anything interests you. And, if you know of an event that […]

Inslee Bill Support Marine Renewables

Thanks to the vision of Congressman Jay Inslee (D-WA) and the hardwork of lots of stakeholders, a bill has been proposed that would provide funding for marine renewable research and provide low interest loans to finance demonstration projects and study environmental effects. What’s unique about the Inslee legislation is that it acknowleges uncertainty about marine […]