 Thank you all for joining us today. My name is Jessie Stoller. I'm a policy associate of the Environmental and Energy Study Institute. We're thrilled to be convening a group of experts on the issue of economic redevelopment in coal country this afternoon. Today we'll be discussing, can coal country thrive in a clean energy economy? The decline of the coal industry has had tremendous negative impacts on the communities and individuals supported by the coal industry. Today's speakers will discuss some of these impacts on the economic and social opportunities that an energy transition presents. While the clean power plan is expected to create a net increase in jobs from renewable energy and energy efficiency, these jobs will not neatly replace coal job losses. Policymakers, environmental groups, and citizens have a duty to assist affected communities with transitions to new economies that can support stable employment and community redevelopment. We have a great lineup today. Our first speaker is Tara Ritter. Tara is a program associate for climate and rural communities at the Institute of Agriculture and Trade Policy. Tara's work centers around climate change, adaptation, and rural communities through community level dialogues and nationally through the rural climate network. I'm going to turn it over to Tara now. Tara? It's likely that the clean power plan will move through the courts. And either way, there are many states, which are the navy blue ones on this map, that have pledged to move forward with clean power plan implementation either way. The clean power plan works on a state-by-state basis. Each state was assigned an emissions reduction goal based on a variety of factors, including its mix of energy generation resources, its potential for energy efficiency and renewables deployment, and costs and feasibilities. You can see how steep each state's assigned goal is on the map here. And each state has until 2018 to create its own state implementation plan to meet its goal. And this flexibility could and probably will result in very different plans from state to state. As states are forming their plans, it's important to remember that rural America and coal-dependent communities have long produced most of the nation's energy supply. And this reality is not about to change nearly three quarters of the land area in the United States' rural. And this land will continue to produce our nation's energy. And that's one of the many reasons why it's critical that the clean power plan integrates rural perspectives. In addition, rural communities, which include those in coal country, will be disproportionately impacted by climate change. A few reasons for that is that natural resource-dependent economies like agriculture, forestry, and fishing will be hard hit by extreme weather events and climate change. And the rural poverty rate is also higher than the national poverty rate, 18% in rural, compared to 15% nationally. And rural housing stock is older and less energy efficient on average. So rural residents tend to spend larger percentages of their income on energy. And that'll only be exacerbated as heating and cooling needs are even greater. And finally, transportation needs are different in rural communities. Homes and businesses are further apart, and public transportation is often lacking. And with when extreme weather blocks roads or causes more weather-related wear and care, rural residents will be among those most heavily affected. So these reasons just give a brief snapshot of why rural communities will benefit from action on climate change in the long term. But rural perspectives and realities need to be deeply heard and included in the development of climate policy to make sure that it's a smooth transition in the short term as well. So there's the question of how states can create implementation plans for the clean power plan that do the least amount of harm to coal-dependent communities. And I'll talk about this from a few different angles, but first being jobs. According to an analysis from the Economic Policy Institute, the clean power plan is estimated to create 120,000 jobs in 2020 from energy efficiency projects and construction of new generating capacity. And in that same year, it's estimated that 24,000 jobs will be lost from a reduction in coal-fired electricity generation. So that equals out to a net gain of 96,000 jobs. And that being said, a net increase in jobs doesn't mean that every displaced worker is going to get a new job. It's not going to be a one-to-one transfer. And that reality is not a reason to delay the transition to clean energy because there's so many reasons that that's necessary, but it is a call to provide as much job retraining as financial support as possible for the communities that are going to be most affected by the transition. I know some of the folks speaking after me are going to touch on federal and other initiatives that can provide this type of assistance for coal-dependent communities. So I won't touch on it too much, but I will say that as states create their implementation plan, you must ensure that proper supports, either financial or job retraining, are in place to assist the communities that will experience the most disruption. The next aspect I'd like to touch on is energy costs. The EPA has estimated that household electricity bills will decrease by an average of $8 a month by 2030 under the Clean Power Plan. This estimate assumes that energy prices per kilowatt hour will rise slightly at first, but that energy efficiency improvements will decrease the energy demand overall. And then when you pair that with the falling costs of renewable energy, it's likely that household energy bills will remain stable or even decrease as time goes on. This is really important for rural residents because like I touched on just a minute ago, when you look at averages, rural areas have lower housing quality with lower energy efficiency, and rural households also spend larger percentages of their incomes on energy. The Clean Power Plan offers a critical opportunity to close this gap, but only if it's done in a way that targets energy efficiency improvements in rural communities, including the coal-dependent communities that will need the most support to help keep the energy bills low in those places. One way of doing that is to ensure that states participate in the Clean Energy Incentive Program, and that's a part of the Clean Power Plan that offers matching funds for states that take early action on renewables installations and energy efficiency projects. Projects under the Clean Energy Incentive Program can fall into two categories, the first being wind and solar projects that are done anywhere, and the second being energy efficiency projects that are done in low-income communities. The communities impacted by coal-fired power plant closings or capacity reductions are prime candidates for these energy efficiency projects, and that could help lower energy costs for the residents of those communities. The third piece I want to touch on is the benefit of preserving our rural natural resources. The Clean Power Plan is an opportunity to move away from the current energy drivers that damage the rural natural resource space in a variety of ways. That being said, it's really important again to mention that coal has powered our country for years and it's provided critical economic opportunities for many rural residents, but rural communities also deserve safer and less polluting economies and an improved quality of life. In addition, the coal industry is already struggling. Clean Power Plan completely taken out of the picture. Prophets have declined in recent years, partially due to the glut in sheep natural gas from the fracking boom, but also renewable energy costs are rapidly falling and in a lot of cases they're already cost competitive with fossil fuels. Also, a study by Headwaters Economics found that even though fossil fuel extraction creates enormous wealth, most of that wealth leaves the region where the extraction occurs, so it doesn't provide a lot of net benefit to the communities that are housing the fossil fuel mining or power plant or whatever aspect it may be. The Clean Power Plan aims to establish an energy system that will not only protect the rural natural resources, but it can also help avoid this boom and bust cycle that has historically hurt rural communities. So moving on to solutions, the good part, at IETP we think dialogue is critical and we've seen success of in-depth deliberative conversations on climate change in rural communities. We've run a series of rural climate dialogues that have convened residents in three rural communities throughout Minnesota and each time the participants who they hold diverse perspectives and views on climate change, they've emerged with adaptation plans to retain and improve community resilience in their area of the state. If you'd like to learn more about the rural climate dialogues, there's a ton of information that I can provide, so please reach out to me after the webinar and I'd be happy to share. A couple of other things is that states should recognize that rural areas will generate much of our clean energy future and they should let rural input heavily inform their planning processes. So as an example, Minnesota is holding listening sessions in rural communities throughout the state and that is a really good practice to ensure that we're gathering the perspectives that we need. We also think states should participate in the clean energy incentive program to help weatherize much of the aging rural building stock and states should also create their own assistance program for workers and communities that are most directly impacted by the transition to clean energy. This is of course no UVC task and it's not a specific task either. It'll take a lot of innovation and a lot of different avenues, but I know that the speakers after me have examples of some programs that are in place or being put in place and some case studies where things have worked out well so far. The last thing before I hand it over that I'd like to emphasize is there are already rural groups addressing this intersection between climate change and rural. I put the website here for the Rural Climate Network which is a group of organizations, about 50 organizations across the country working on rural climate resilience and a lot of us that are on the webinar right now, IATP, EESI and NATO are all members of the Rural Climate Network and there are many others doing great work as well. So please feel free to read the new report on the Clean Power Plan, visit the Rural Climate Network site or just reach out to me with any questions and with that I'll pass it on, thanks. Thanks Tara, that's a great introduction I think for everyone today in terms of not only the Clean Power Plan but these energy transitions in general. So our second speaker will be Julie Lawhorn. Julie is an infrastructure program analyst for the Appalachian Regional Commission. ARC is an economic development agency of the federal government and 13 state governments focusing on 420 counties across the Appalachian region. ARC's mission is to help the Appalachian region achieve socioeconomic parity with the nation. I'm gonna turn it over to Julie, thanks. Great, thank you so much and thanks for the invitation to share some information with everybody today. This is Julie Lawhorn and today I'll be sharing an overview of the basic elements of ARC's portion of the Power Initiative for Appalachia. First I'm gonna give a little bit of context and then I'll share some more of the details related to this opportunity geared at economic development and workforce opportunity for coal impacted communities. A little bit of background and context the ARC's portion of the Power Initiative is part of a larger and broader initiative from the Obama Administration to provide worker training and job creation to strengthen the health and retirement security of mine workers and their families to accelerate the cleanup of hazardous abandoned mine lands and to spur the use of some advanced technology. So for today I'm gonna speak a little bit more focused on the portion which is the ARC and EDA collaboration for a economic development opportunity that we're calling Power 2016 Power Initiative. So you'll hear me referring it to that in those terms. The other federal agencies that are coordinating and collaborating with us are probably too many to list but they include the USDA, the Department of Energy, Department of Interior, Department of Commerce and the EPA as well. In this initiative there is approximately $45 million through ARC and approximately 19 through the Economic Development Administration, EDA, to go out to support implementation efforts in those areas that have been impacted by the downturn in coal. And this is illustrated by Tara's previous points which I won't go into too much detail because she hit these earlier. This slide addresses the question of how did we get here? There have been significant changes in the past five to 10 years that have really accelerated some of the changes in the coal economy and Appalachia and in the US as a whole. The way that we generate and consume electricity as many of you know has changed the demand for coal and generation has fallen, natural gas has picked up and these trends are greatly impacting the coal communities across the country. We have this slide to share with folks to think about the definition of a coal-impacted community and you can think about them in these general buckets. A coal-impacted community are not just the towns that have experienced the economic distress from the downturn of mining and power plant closures but they also include the towns and the regions that support that supply chain. This could include the transportation networks, the companies that make and sell mining equipment and parts for coal power plants and all of the support services as well. I don't have the URL on here but there's recently some research that's been prepared for us that is on our website at www.arc.gov slash power and on the right side there's some pretty robust data on some of the shifts in production and in coal-fired power plants and some information on the supply chain as well. And if you'd like to dig a little bit more into that, please do visit that website and check out some of that data. I'm not the researcher so I can happily point you in the right direction if you have more questions about that. Again, I won't belabor these points but we know that we've experienced significant job losses in Appalachia and across the country and in the Appalachian region alone it's been around 23,000 coal mining jobs just between 2011 and 2015. So I'm going to take the next couple minutes and share with you a few of the specific details related to the opportunity that's available through ARC and EDA right now and I will refer to it as an FFO. You often hear it called an RFP or NOFA. Those terms are interchangeable but it's the power initiative opportunity and this is coming from the administration's priorities and goals that are related to the power plan across all the agencies that I mentioned earlier. It's about diversifying economies. It's that economic transition that Tarot is mentioning. It's the interest and the intent to create new jobs in new or existing industries and trying to attract new sources of investment as well as preparing and developing the workforce to be ready for these new and existing jobs. So ARC with this opportunity we focus on these priority areas, a competitive workforce. This means or could include workforce training to help those who need jobs qualify for quality and in-demand jobs and to support both new and existing businesses, access to and use of an application of broadband communications, fostering entrepreneurial activity. This requires a whole lot of support and collaboration and partnership across a lot of different agencies and institutions in a region and these we see as very necessary in order to support a healthy entrepreneurial ecosystem. And then there's also a focus on growing industry clusters, both new and existing. So although I know that there's probably a lot of interest from folks in natural resources and energy on this webinar, but this opportunity is not just limited to those sectors. It's open to those assets and those opportunities that you might see in a region that could include not limited to but some of the assets that some regions might be around the healthcare industry or perhaps manufacturing or perhaps natural and cultural resources and other things that regions might be looking at as their new strategies for economic transition. And just kind of finding that it looks like I lost my connection, but I can continue to speak for maybe one or two more minutes to advance my slides, that's fine, but I'm on approximately slide number nine. I'll just give a little bit more detail if it's of interest to folks. There's definitely more detail on our website. This opportunity is available for local development districts, nonprofit organizations, city, county, states, Indian tribes or consortiums of Indian tribes, institutions of higher learning and other units of local or state governments. What we're looking for, what the implementation grants can fund are going to be transformational projects and initiatives that are regional, that are collaborative, that are fairly large scale and that are definitely outcome driven and accompanied by significant leverage. There is also a technical assistance opportunity that's out there for some communities that might need some help or additional capacity with writing the grant or to get ready for this opportunity that is also on our website. And I will encourage folks, and again, oh, looks like I'm back online here, I would encourage folks to check out some of the information that we have and communicate with us if you have a potential idea or collaboration. There might be folks in the field that are working on similar areas and we're happy to do introduction and let folks know of existing interests and partnerships that might be out there. There is an application process, some steps are up there. This is an opportunity that's going to be available on a rolling basis. So we are seeking pre-applications now. The FFO was released on March 17th and we are happy to answer questions at the end of this webinar by email at power at arc.gov. And again, I apologize for the technical difficulties. I've been knocked out, but I am able to view the screen now. I'm going to turn it over to the other folks on this call who I'm really excited to hear from because they can bring the perspective from the community and from the businesses and from the folks that are working on the ground to do some of this transition work and to do creative, innovative, community-driven solutions to thinking about the economic transition. So with that, I'm going to turn it over and take questions at the end. Thank you so much. Julie, I'm sorry for that technical difficulty we have there. All of the presentations will be available on EESI's website tomorrow, so you can check back there for both the recording and presentations. Hopefully that will be our only technological glitch here today. So next up, we're going to hear from Brett Schwartz. Brett is a program manager at the National Association of Development Organizations Research Organization. The NATO Research Foundation is the nonprofit research affiliate of NATO, and Brett designs and facilitates trainings, workshops, and peer exchanges to support economic and community development in small towns and rural communities for a variety of audiences. I'm going to hand it over to Brett at this point. Thanks. All right, well, good afternoon, everyone. Again, this is Brett Schwartz with the NATO Research Foundation. I'm so glad to be a part of this conversation today about the future of the Coral Eye region. I'm sure that many of you would agree that the prevailing popular narratives around coal communities and rural Americanism are often, unfortunately, pretty negative, but I think all of us on this call really know the tremendous potential for these places that exist in their people, landscapes, their natural resources, and small towns and cities, and all of us have the opportunity to come together and really think big as we rewrite that narrative that's out there about the future of coal countries. So here's a quick rundown of where I hope to go during my short presentation today, and just as a caveat, my area of work is on broader quality of life and economic development issues, not specifically clean energy projects, but I think there's certainly overlapping elements to all these approaches, particularly to powerful opportunities for smaller places. I think the underlying theme to all of our presentations today is about how best to tap into local assets and capital to really position rural places to be able to choose their own identities and destinies rather than simply react to outside forces and changes. So I want to give just a quick background about my organization and our approach to these issues, not as an advertisement, but rather to help set the frame about the discussion for how we're addressing economic diversification and co-reliant regions. So NATO is a membership association of the country's 520 regional development organizations, or RBOs. And RBOs might be called different things in your region, such as councils of government, economic development districts, regional planning commissions, or other local names. And they're all multi-jurisdictional planning and development agencies that work at the regional level to improve local governments and communities of promoting economic and community development. And they do this through place-based strategies and the areas of housing, transportation, infrastructure, disaster resilience, workforce development, and a host of other initiatives. The majority of our membership serve small metropolitan and rural regions where RDOs are particularly important to provide technical assistance and general support with planning and GIS and business development strategies and other sorts of guidance to small communities and towns that may not have the resource or expertise to do so on their own. So I really encourage you as you're moving forward with this work to reach out and engage with your local regional development organization that you haven't done so already. And if you're unsure about which RDO serves your region, please get in touch with me, and I can try to help connect the dots. You know, they're really a tremendous resource in rural places around the country. So the shift in the coal industry and changes in the energy sector more broadly are definitely front-page news these days, both nationally and internationally. And Tara and Julie gave fantastic perspectives on the current situation. And I completely agree that a mix of factors have led to the decline of coal processes across the industry. It's a combination of market shifts, the rise of renewables, changing consumer preferences, and regulatory impacts that have all contributed to the landscape that exists today. So these maps that you see on the screen, which we're prepared by our friends at the National Association of Counties, show the truly national impacts of the coal industry, and this kind of echoes Julie's comments earlier. So on the left there, you can see the number of coal producing counties throughout the country. And then on the right, you can see the counties that rely on coal-fired power plants for energy. So once you add in those transportation routes and networks and other coal-related supply chain industries, you have a very wide reach of impacts millions of people and many businesses and industries. So the social and economic impacts of the downturn in the coal industry are well documented, and each state or county has its own story to tell about the loss of high-paying jobs for coal miners, as well as the loss of those indirect jobs that are either tied to the industry or in the service and retail sectors in coal communities. You know, we're seeing tax bases shrinking, which are having impacts on schools, infrastructure and municipal services. And, of course, we have to consider the compounding social effects on poverty and health disparities which have plagued many of these places for generations. And then finally, something less tangible but no less important is the impact on community pride that comes with the decline of coal. You know, we're seeing places whose sense of identity have been tied to coal since their founding or feeling lost and disconnected. So given these social and economic impacts of the decline of the industry and the national scope of the issue with support from the U.S. Economic Development Administration, NATO and the National Association of Counties partnered to design and carry out the Coal Reliant Communities Innovation Challenge. And this program ran from September 2014 and wrapped just last month. And as you can see on the screen there, the goal of this effort was to boost the innovative potential of places dependent on the coal industry that are seeking to grow and diversify their economies, create jobs and explore emerging opportunities. And the centerpiece of this challenge were three workshops, which we held across the country that brought together teams from counties and regions for a three-day intensive training that consisted of peer exchange, presentation, small group discussions, and opportunities for teams to develop an implementation roadmap that consisted of goals and deadlines, specific assignments for who we carry out next steps. And so we held workshops in Pikeville, Kentucky, Charleston, West Virginia, and Grand Junction, Colorado. And here's just a quick look at the places that participated in this experience over 200 people and 23 teams. So here on the screen you see just a few of the themes that were covered at the workshop through presentations and group discussions. And I think at the heart of all these conversations were really about communities looking at what local assets they had and finding opportunities to capitalize on those assets. You know, their history, culture, natural resources, Main Street, and most importantly, their people and the talents and skills that they offer. So I do just want to take a second to talk a bit more about the regional resilience angle. You know, we view this overall diversification effort as part of supporting larger regional economic resilience strategies. NATO and many others have taken a fairly broad approach to defining resilience as the ability to anticipate, withstand, and bounce back from any type of shock or disruption that faces a community or a region. And this, of course, includes natural disasters or hazards, but also includes the closure of a region's employer, changes in workforce, or the decline of the critical industry, such as coal. And these impacts, as you know, are particularly acute in rural and smaller places, which have less resources and a less diversified economy. I just wanted to mention that, you know, while today we're talking about coal, we could be having similar conversations about steel, timber, furniture, textiles, or paper mills. Like you see there on the bottom corner of your screen, that's an image from the last day of work at the Verso Paper Mill in Bucksport, Maine, which closed after 84 years of operation back in December 2014. So that closure put 600 people out of work in a town of 5,000, which is truly a devastating blow. But we believe that the strategies and opportunities explored through these diversification strategies are definitely replicable in all sorts of places with transitioning economies. So I want to stay on time here, so I'll move quickly through the slide, but I think that these are kind of four critical ingredients that you need to mix in as you're developing your diversification plan and can talk about these a bit more later if you're interested. But what I really want to do is take a few moments here to share a few quick snapshots of examples from around the country of what local communities and regions are doing to diversify their economies in response to changes in the coal industry. And all these stories are just the tip of the iceberg for what many of these places are doing to strengthen their local economies through their new partnerships and collaborations. So let's take a quick look here, and we'll kick things off first in Giles County in Southwest Virginia, which participated in the Innovation Challenge workshop in Pikeville, Kentucky. So Southwest Virginia is one of the handful of areas that has approval from the FAA to do specific research and fiber testing for unmanned aerial vehicles, which are better known as drones. And by partnering with the local community college, an entry-level drone coding course is providing a platform for displaced workers and others with an opportunity to become involved in this emerging industry. So these efforts are attracting interest in Fortune 500 companies and drone applications and manufacturing, and I think what this really shows is that when a coal miner loses his or her job, he or she doesn't also lose the skills that they've developed over the years. They bring with them an opportunity for retraining and new industries and sectors. Additionally, Southwest Virginia has also embraced the possibilities associated with its outdoor recreational economy, its trail systems and cultural offerings. And here tourism and outdoor rec aren't being looked at as just a service industry, but as something that can really be tapped into to attract future residents, families and businesses. The next jump down to the bottom, we've got Middlesbrough, Kentucky, and this is a community that has received technical assistance through the federal government's Local Foods Local Places Initiative. Local Foods Local Places is a partnership of a variety of federal agencies, including EPA, USDA, DOT, Appalachian Regional Commission, and many others to support communities through developing food systems and other place-based efforts to improve economic development and health outcomes. So there's a lot happening in developing a trail system to connect the downtown to the Cumberland Gap National Historical Park, which is located nearby. The creation of a business incubator for local artisans and using local food as an economic development strategy. But for me, what's really exciting in Middlesbrough is what's happening at the intersection of healthcare and downtown redevelopment. The Appalachian Regional Healthcare System was looking for affordable downtown space in Middlesbrough, and as a result, has established the satellite offices and historic buildings in town. It's also been referred from chronic diseases, obesity, and opioid abuse. So bringing more healthcare opportunities to the downtown is a really critical need in providing social services to residents. And at the same time, it's also bringing new energy and vibrancy to the main street. So finally, this is kind of trying to create a great community, which could also help attract more doctors, nurses, and healthcare professionals to the region as well. So it's serving as a real catalyst for future development. I've got two more snapshots I want to share with you, and I'm going to continue next with Miss Keegan, which is in western Michigan, and they participated in our workshop in West Virginia. So Miss Keegan might not come to mind immediately when you think about coal, but this region has been impacted by the downturn and the coal extraction. Miss Keegan is the largest natural deep water port in west Michigan, and she's about one million tons of freight passed through each year. But unfortunately, consumers' energy has announced an upcoming coal fire power plant closure on the lake, so we'll bring the port of Miss Keegan's tonnage below the minimum requirement for dredging that's required by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. There's a big ripple effect. And as a result, with support from EDA, the Economic Development Administration, the West Michigan Shoreline Regional Development Commission, and the Michigan State University are exploring the potential for what they're calling a deconstruction cluster in Miss Keegan County. So this effort is assessing the feasibility of collecting debris from abandoned and bledded structures in the Great Lakes regions and repurposing and recycling them into new marketable products so that can be shipped via the port. So this would include things like asphalt shingles, linoleum, framing wood, gypsum, and other debris, and exploring a second life for them. So it's really very early in this process, but I think it's a tremendous opportunity to really take what's been a drain on the community and bled it in abandoned buildings and transform that into a real asset to support economic development. Then finally, we have Northwest New Mexico, which also participated in our West Virginia workshop, and this region has lots of efforts underway, including job fairs for displaced workers and developing a rapid response team to be on site during layoff announcements. This region is seeking to capitalize on its natural assets and culture through its adventure tourism, its phenomenal community of native jewelry artists, and a charm of its small western main street towns. So this region is really looking at all opportunities that are available to use its local economy. And we hosted a webinar actually a few weeks ago which featured Dave Hinkle from the Northwest New Mexico Council of Governments, and one of his powerful quotes that resonated with me, he said, you know, in an extractive economy, we can never begin to diversify soon enough. And so a lot of places like Northwest New Mexico are trying to play catch up with what's happening on the ground, but they're doing their best by having a multifaceted approach. So to start wrapping things up, I just wanted to share this quote from one of the participants at our Innovation Challenge workshop. And he prepared for the future because we don't know what the future holds for the colonist street. And it's really in this kind of proactive forward-thinking spirit that we've addressed these diversification and economic development issues, and we hope that you are as well. You know, it's also the responsible thing to do. You know, adding more tools to your region's economic development toolbox can only serve to strengthen your local economy and improve the quality of life for this and future generations. So for more information about the Innovation Challenge, and our partner at the National Association of Counties, please check out the following links and explore the hashtag Ready to Diversify on Twitter, which has some other great resources. All the materials from the workshops are posted online to take a look. And Nicko actually just a few days ago released a phenomenal podcast on their website about diversification strategies. It's definitely worth about 20 minutes to listen to. So yeah, so that's it from me. Thanks again for having a listen afterwards with any of you who are interested in our work and approach to supporting smaller places as they face economic transitions and new challenges. I don't know if I tell you this is hard work, but it's also important work. By forging common ground across stakeholders and communities, we can make this challenge a real opportunity for achieving long-term prosperity in rural America. So thanks again. I look forward to the conversation and turn it back to Jesse. Great. Thank you, Brett. I'm going to start with the questions from the folks in these communities and some of the really interesting things that are starting to develop. And we've already got some great questions coming in. If you wanted to start typing in questions, we'll collect them as they come in and ask them at the end, or we can also save them for the end. So finally, our last speaker is Hannah Vargasen. Hannah is the Business Development and Energy Project Manager for the Conservation Fund. Hannah manages the National Capital Investment Fund's Energy Initiative, Economic Development in rural Appalachia through Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. She develops energy-related products and services, coordinates technical assistance sources, and underprivileged loans and markets across the Virginians and western Maryland. I'm going to turn it over to Hannah. Thanks, Jesse, for the introduction and the opportunity to speak. All right. We're advancing. I'm going to drill down a little bit today. Talk about our work on the ground and then to let you know where we're going, have some food for thought at the end. So, I am the Energy Project Manager at Natural Capital Investment Fund, where our mission is to catalyze environmentally sustainable development by providing affordable, flexible capital and advisory services to small and emerging businesses. We work primarily in central Appalachia and the southeast. NCIF is a Community Development Financial Institution a CDFI term that some of you may recognize, and that means that we're certified by and get support from U.S. Treasury to promote access to capital in economically disadvantaged communities. We're affiliated with the Conservation Fund, as Jesse mentioned. That's another nonprofit organization working nationwide to solve conservation challenges by balancing economic and environmental goals. Hence, our commitment to a triple bottom line, meaning we strive to achieve financial, social and positive environmental impacts through all of our projects. A shiny example of an NCIF portfolio company is Firefly Creamery and Market in Garrett County, Maryland. You can see the picture in this slide is from a ribbon cutting in celebration of their new solar panel installation. Firefly sources raw milk locally. They pay their producers more for milk with higher nutritional content. Then they provide quality well-paying jobs in their Creamery and in their storefront and with these solar panels and other energy efficient upgrades they're offsetting the environmental impact of operations. NCIF finance the installation and we also help the business obtain several grants for their energy work. And blending together flexible financing with technical assistance services like that and then leveraging the support of a broad network of partners is our model. And this hilarious picture is a good representation of that model. So this is our president and CEO on the left one of our third party technical assistance providers, a CPA in the middle on the right, a county EDA director. And this is another recent ribbon cutting ceremony for a solar installation at a hotel in Harper's Ferry, West Virginia. The first solar powered hotel in the state. And work like this wouldn't get done but for a robust approach to project development. These guys would probably hate to know that I was sharing this picture but I think it's great and what's better is that it lives on forever online. And because these slides are available for reference moving forward, I'm going to flip through the next few pretty quickly these slides that break down our products and services. So we make senior and subordinate loans between $50,000 and $2.5 million with select microloans of course. And our terms are based on risk as well as impact. We provide a broad range of services of TA services that serve as a business development tool but also to ensure desired outcomes and success of our borrowers. And we often partner with other lenders and service providers to put together the best mix of resources for our TA clients and borrowers which are not mutually exclusive. Our technical assistance isn't reserved for borrowers and we provide advisory services that don't always result in a loan. So because we win when we achieve impact not just win or just because we make a loan. And the energy initiatives at NCIS is a good example of that philosophy. With this program NCIS is working to advance the alternative energy economy from both the demand and supply side. So we fundraise for and facilitate energy assessments provide post assessment TA like grant writing for small businesses and then of course financing for qualified borrowers as well as service providers. So here are a few examples of our energy related portfolio companies. In the top left you see a groundbreaking for countertop solutions that we handle here in West Virginia. NCIS contributed to a financing package and provided TA for an energy efficient and renewable powered expansion of that company. We were one of four lenders in that project including a bank the SBA and West Virginia EDA going to show that we get creative to get things done here in Appalachia. On the bottom left you have the West Virginia first state capital building in Wheeling, West Virginia. This was a energy efficient historic renovation using historic tax credits as well as a USDA program as credit enhancement. And then the rest here are a range of alternative energy companies or companies in the energy value chain that we support through working capital. There's Piedmont biofuels from Central North Carolina Charleston Clean Energy in Charleston, West Virginia FLS Energy a major solar installer out of Western North Carolina and HSC industrial supply company from Central West Virginia. And so energy related projects whether they be the implementation of alternative energy technologies or supporting alternative energy companies those projects offer a perfect opportunity to attain triple bottom line returns. But we have a pipeline issue here in Appalachia not enough projects. And so here are some contributing factors to a weak pipeline. Energy prices in this region are relatively low so they have not been an effective driver of energy improvements. Small businesses our primary market are experiencing eroding profit margins and that limits their ability to invest in capital improvements. The policies and politics in the region either explicitly restrict clean energy investments or they disregard incentives commonly available throughout the rest of the country that make alternative energy investments attractive. And then finally a limited pool of skilled service providers like energy auditors and companies actually implementing alternative energy improvements. And furthermore we need more low cost capital in support for capacity building that's so important to building the pipeline in this region. And then you have a little bit of a perfect storm brewing in Appalachia which was sort of touched on earlier energy prices are low and the building stock is so degraded that energy costs across the region are fairly moderate. So for better or for worse energy prices are starting to increase but when that increase is significant energy costs will be untenable and so the need is huge and the opportunity is great. You might have even heard that Appalachia is the next great investment opportunity. The picture in this slide on the right is again that first West Virginia solar powered hotel and it's actually the third largest array in the state now. And so this is an example of the kind of work being done without broad support and broad incentives with private investment in this region and so you can just imagine what could be achieved with real substantial resources. And so to answer the question about providing a clean energy economy yes, the multiple benefits of energy efficiency and renewable energy can make for a just and sustainable transition in the region if we can start to get at these barriers and opportunities. So with that I invite anyone working in the space to reach out with insight or possibilities to collaborate with NCIS and I'll turn it back over to our host for Q&A. Great, thanks Hannah. Really interesting to see both the opportunities but also some of the challenges that you all are facing in these local communities. So we're going to switch now to question and answer but before I launch into Q&A I wanted to just give a quick introduction to a program that some of you might be interested in that's here at EESI. It's very relevant to the communities that we're discussing today particularly in terms of as we're talking about older housing stock and potential for high energy bills. So this is our on-bill financing program. On-bill financing is an ongoing initiative aimed to help families reduce energy, cut energy bills and improve home comfort always no upfront cost to the customer. EESI accomplished this work by working with utilities to establish on-bill financing programs. The utility or partner organizations pay for home energy upgrades only to be repaid through a monthly charge on the recipient family's utility bill. So we're not going to go into great detail on this program today but for more information you can visit our website or reach out to the email address that you see listed on the slide. So I'm going to turn to question and answer. We have already had several questions come in and I hear some of you saying that you're having trouble hearing me. I'll try to speak up. So please keep that feedback coming if you still can't hear me. So this question is specifically for Tara in terms of the you mentioned 24,000 job losses are computed for coal country and the question is are those ancillary job losses does that include ancillary job losses related to fossil fuels for instance in these various regions or is that really only looking at the industry itself? Yeah, with that 24,000 job that includes is just operations and maintenance in all fossil fuels which includes natural gas but doesn't include construction or extraction or anything like that so that's how that number was calculated. Great, thanks. There was another question that came in on clean coal utilization technology. So today we're talking primarily about renewable technologies but do you all see that as a potential technology whether that's through carbon capture and sequestration or other mechanisms do you see that as a potential for economic redevelopment or not and if not why? So I can actually touch on that from just from EESI's perspective we're not actively working on clean coal utilization technologies at this point. I do know that it is a priority of the administration. The Department of Energy does fund a lot but at this point we still haven't seen a lot of installations because the costs are still very high and I know that the Department of Energy has said that the costs are coming down for carbon capture and sequestration there's a lot of interest in that area but we're not really seeing those projects being installed at this point in time. So the next question in terms of we had a question on employment opportunities for cleanup of coal damage sites the question is many coal communities do not or will not have the monies for cleanup due to bankruptcy or other issues and are there opportunities in this area? This is Julie. I think there's probably several ways to address that question. I can't speak specifically to all the intricacies of the bankruptcies at this point because there's a lot of balls in motion with some of these more recent announcements but to point to some of the activity that we see in our region and perhaps other folks can chime in. There are some emerging interests in doing productive uses of of mine lands in various ways. So there are interesting projects popping up where folks are testing and scoping and gathering data to see about the use of the site for development purposes for renewable energy applications and I've even seen some folks using mine land for some agricultural and natural resource production related activities for the restoration specific and reclamation and cleanup damage site. I might not be the best one to speak on that but I can certainly if someone wants to reach out to me directly I can point you in the right direction for some folks who are more involved in those activities. A quick example too I guess and this is Brett I didn't mention earlier I guess the first picture on my title slide there was actually an image of the Prestonburg Recreational Complex which is located in eastern Kentucky and that's actually located on a reclaimed strip mine and there's a recreation complex there's baseball fields football fields there's a golf course so really interesting to kind of see the recreational and sports and community benefits that we've had from these reclaimed mines and I guess one other thing through our coal innovation challenge workshops we did have actually some representatives from a few of the utility companies participate in the process both from Consumers Energy in Michigan and those from the Shercoe plant in Sherbrooke and County Minnesota and that was really inspiring to see and I know that's not the story across the board but there are four thinking representatives and companies working on this with the community being good stewards of the community because of those relationships so there are examples like I said of the coal companies really working and working together with residents and stakeholders and other representatives to really touch the plant together and figure out future uses of the land of the power plant structures as well and piecing together to bring some opportunities so hopefully you're able to kind of forge those working relationships with the companies as well. Great, thanks. There's a question here about policy drivers which Hannah mentioned or lack thereof of policy drivers in terms of thinking about how to drive that forward. Have you all thought about strategies or opportunities in terms of what kind of policy to develop in this space to help these communities? This is Hannah. I wanted to let other folks have a chance to go first since I already mentioned it but what I'm thinking of when I say there are lacking policies or policy barriers to doing this work for example I'm thinking of the state energy portfolio that doesn't have a place for efficiency and renewable and there's no states or in many of the states we work there's not a state tax incentive which has been a major driver of alternative energy projects in other regions and we don't have clear language around net metering for example for solar projects which is hanging on my thread and politically could be taken away at any time so that's just what I'm dealing with every day and then almost the other speakers want to chime in now. Great thanks Hannah and I do know that the Representative Rogers Reclaim Act I believe a lot of that actually got picked up in the power initiative that Julie talked about so there is some activity but as Hannah mentioned it's sort of uneven at the state level when you have renewable portfolio standards in some states and other states do you have this sort of uneven landscape in terms of the drivers for specifically renewable energy efficiency developments? We also touched today on job training and I was wondering if anyone of the speakers could talk a little more about types of job training programs that are out there whether that's for renewable energy or other sectors and kind of what some of the potential there is or if there has been challenges there as well. Yeah that's a great question I'm sure that Brett and Hannah and Tara probably have some examples there I think the answer is sort of a tricky one because it depends on the region and the assets of where folks are looking to train and retrain workers for new and emerging opportunities so that's sort of a very broad statement but the region is so well our region is so broad and diverse that it might be hard to pinpoint but I can highlight a few examples that we've seen particularly in New York there's Alfred State University where they have done a pretty robust curriculum to look at their existing programs in home building so electrical and HVAC and other kind of building trades and retrain and adapt that curriculum for emerging opportunities technology and smart controls smart houses energy efficiency and renewable applications so taking it a step further to be able to be nimble and to be appropriate for where they see the building train going that's Alfred State in New York State and we see similar efforts in Kentucky with there's some community colleges that are looking at doing some similar training for smart building and energy efficiency training at the community college levels we see a lot of leadership from those community colleges in the region that are really looking at where the industry is going and where they need to pinpoint their resources to work with businesses and the private sector to be able to get the folks with the skills ready for the jobs that are emerging or could be there and then I think on the other side of sort of workforce training is also the support for entrepreneurial activity and small business development and growing up those small and mom and pop kind of initiatives that we see emerging across the region and across the country and this one go ahead I'll talk next okay I was going to say that the one program that I do know of because this is something that I've tried to dig into and have struggled to find enough programs and that's why we're putting out the call more and it's always hard to say what you want more of when you don't have a lot of specifics to point to but I know that there is one that is the department of energy runs called solar ready vets and it connects veterans to the solar energy industry and so provides training as far as being PD system installers selling the system things like that so that's one program that I've heard of through the department of energy I was just going to mention that yeah there's another one that's a great one there's another one that does training former mine workers I believe to become line workers so I think there's I can't remember the exact name of it but that's kind of trading folks from going from the mine to utility level work there's other folks in our region that are looking at using out of work folks to do deconstruction and rehab and preservation and then construction work as well so kind of leveraging some of the skills and going into that area a lot of folks are also looking at agriculture and food systems as an emerging area so again I think it's there are some shining spots and it sort of depends on where you're looking and what sector you're looking at but if you get me talking long enough I think we could dig up quite a few examples for you I think that's really important distinction Julie that you make that specific sectors because when you talk about workforce development you can do training but there has to be a market for those workers so if you're going to train them in let's say alternative energy versus you know fossil fuel extraction but you don't have that pipeline I talked about then you know it's just a dead end and so I think Scholar offers a great opportunity probably a highlight because the type of power that those workers are used to the power of their systems is similar to solar and the big equipment they're used to that's great but tourism and agriculture might offer a better alternative but it doesn't pay the same so I just raised more questions and I brought in an egg cliche but that's just my perspective sorry to interrupt you Brett no that's fantastic that in terms of you know the challenges you know as many of us know a lot of these are very high paying jobs in the coal mines that are being lost and the trick and no one's found the magic bullet yet obviously is you know how do you find something that could replace that level of salary and benefits and that's been a real challenge that we've seen and perhaps the market will shift as we look forward to some of these other energies coming online but that is a real concern with a lot of folks that are leaving their counties or regions you know going out west perhaps out to North Dakota or Wyoming kind of following the next boom there searching for those types of salaries that existed in the coal mines for example in Appalachia so that's certainly a challenge but on the other end I would just add that I think how we talk about these issues is really critical and important and language is so valuable and you know we could talk about the number of unemployed coal miners opportunities we have for managers and electricians and welders and drivers you know that have these skills that they've developed through this experience so I think how we kind of frame these issues is that a lot of people out of work or is it also we have you know really untapped potential in other areas and as we talked about how do you plug in those skills or developing skills to the demands that would come down the line so really good conversation there Great thank you I have some questions that I came up with in terms of looking at you know this isn't just about jobs it's about identity because these are as you said you know these new jobs may require moving outside of the community or very different jobs are they the same type of jobs are they stable in terms of you know benefits are good union jobs for a lot of people and so it is quite a challenge and requires action on multiple fronts we're just about out of time here there was a couple of small questions that we're not we did not get to but if you have any further questions I'm sure that any of the speakers would be happy to talk to you offline or you can reach out to myself at Jay Stollark at EESI.org and you can also just find us on our website and I want to thank our speakers again so much for giving their time and expertise to us today and again all of the materials will be available online tomorrow and you can see the link right there on your screen so thanks everyone and have a great day bye