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the program today, we go north

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to find the sun, clean power,

1:01

and our series breaking ground from

1:04

American public media. This

1:07

is Marketplace. In

1:17

Los Angeles, I'm Kyle Rizdahl. It

1:19

is Monday today, the 24th of

1:21

June. Good as always to have

1:23

you along, everybody. All right, this

1:25

is a thing you don't usually

1:27

do in storytelling, but I'm

1:29

going to spoil the ending here for you.

1:34

I'm looking at a field with some

1:36

trees and grass and all this jazz. Bob,

1:38

what do you see? What? Well,

1:40

what's it going to be? Yeah, I see Red

1:44

Lake's future. I see the

1:46

future of Red Lake being a

1:48

wholesale energy provider.

1:50

I see Red Lake citizens

1:55

getting jobs. I see

1:57

economic development. We

1:59

start. Just today with tape you're going to

2:01

hear again about the 22 minute mark because

2:04

I want you to keep that imagined future

2:06

in your mind. For

2:11

today's installment of our series Breaking Ground we're

2:13

looking at how the Inflation Reduction Act

2:16

is playing out in one particular place,

2:18

the Red Lake Reservation in northern Minnesota

2:21

in complicated and invisible and

2:23

even contradictory ways. The

2:28

IRA includes $720 million

2:30

specifically for tribal nations and native

2:32

communities as well as a change

2:34

to the tax code that

2:36

makes a ton of money available to tribes

2:39

for the first time. This

2:42

is a story about the intersection of

2:44

opportunities and obstacles that come

2:47

when the federal government tries to

2:49

expand its role in this economy.

2:54

Are you impressed with Red Lake so far? I

2:56

wish it was a little bit warmer. It's

2:59

60 degrees cloudy, windy, rain coming

3:01

any second. Red Lake

3:03

is less than 100 miles from the

3:06

Canadian border, Bemidji is the closest city.

3:08

The reservation is more than 800,000 acres, around 5,500 people live there. And

3:14

I'm standing with two guys in a

3:16

parking lot off the main road, schools

3:18

and fire department and the government center

3:20

nearby. So introduce

3:22

yourself, tell me who you are and what

3:25

we're doing here. Yeah, Robert Blake, I am

3:27

the owner of Solar Bear, tribal citizen of

3:30

the Red Lake Nation. Solar

3:32

Bear is the only native owned solar

3:34

developer in the state. And

3:36

I'm Ralph Jacobson, I guess

3:39

a veteran of the early solar movement.

3:41

I started my career in solar

3:45

in 1979 during the Carter years and

3:48

grew a business that I

3:50

sold to a utility two years ago. And

3:53

then I get to actually spend more time doing

3:55

interesting things like working

3:57

with Bob Blake at Red Lake. Ralph

4:00

works as a business consultant for Solar Bear.

4:02

We met in this parking lot because

4:05

this is where the path to that future, to the tape

4:07

that you heard up at the top of the show, begins.

4:11

This right here is the Red

4:13

Lake Tribal Government Center. This

4:15

is the first building that's

4:17

got solar on it. And

4:20

it's in the shape of

4:22

a eagle, which we say,

4:24

Megisi in Ojibwe. Ojibwe

4:27

is the official language of Red Lake.

4:30

And the government center was Bob and

4:32

Ralph's first solar project together. It's

4:34

a two story building and that eagle

4:36

is huge. Head coming off the top

4:38

of the roof, wings spanning little length

4:40

of a thing. Tell me about

4:42

solar and this building and why and how it

4:44

came to be. Okay.

4:49

The chairman had a real vision

4:51

for moving towards clean

4:53

energy. And early on, he

4:55

didn't know much about it, but he really

4:57

wanted the economic development to start during

5:00

his watch. A note here

5:02

about the economy at Red Lake. According

5:05

to 2022 census data, less

5:07

than half the people here had jobs and less

5:09

than 5% had

5:11

a bachelor's degree or higher. People

5:14

in Red Lake can't always pay their utility

5:16

bills, which is why Ralph was brought here

5:18

almost a decade ago to see if they

5:21

could install solar and lower those energy costs.

5:24

Is there a way we can go up on the roof

5:26

and look at the panels? Can we do that? Absolutely. Yeah,

5:28

we can do that. Thanks. Hey,

5:31

hey, hey, hey, Barb,

5:33

we got to go up to the rough. Thanks,

5:36

Barb. We

5:38

got the right person. We just like that. Getting out of a

5:40

car in the parking lot. Barb

5:45

is the tribal chairman's executive assistant and

5:47

we followed her into the government center

5:49

to climb a few flights of stairs.

5:52

And then she helped us unlock the hatch, pulling it

5:54

down from the ceiling. Find

5:56

the height up there. Be careful. She

6:03

wasn't kidding it's steep. It

6:05

beats going up the ladder but not quite much. Yeah,

6:08

alright, there you go. You get

6:10

a good feel of the breeze. You get

6:12

the breeze off the lake. Yeah, after rain

6:14

the lake smells great, doesn't it? Pretty

6:19

strong wind up there, we're standing behind the eagle's

6:21

head. You've

6:23

got to get a picture of that. There's

6:26

a view of Red Lake itself in one direction,

6:29

the powwow grounds in the other. Bob

6:31

put together a team of tribal members and

6:33

installed the solar panels up here six years

6:35

ago. It cost about $130,000 back then. Ralph

6:39

Jacobson actually crowdfunded that money.

6:43

Why solar? What is it

6:45

about clean energy that makes you say that's an opportunity

6:47

for this tribal nation? Because a

6:50

lot of our cultural teachings are

6:52

rooted in environmental stewardship. A

6:55

lot of our cultural teachings teach us to

6:58

take care of Mother Earth. One

7:00

of the guys told me when we were done

7:02

installing this project, they said, Bob,

7:05

this really feels good. If

7:07

that could bring that type of pride to

7:10

this one individual, what would that

7:12

look like across the country,

7:14

in tribal country, where we

7:16

have the highest disparity rates

7:18

among alcoholism, drug addiction, missing

7:21

murdered indigenous women. And

7:23

that's when I started thinking to myself, could

7:25

renewable energy help solve a human health crisis

7:27

that I believe has taken place in

7:30

tribal country? Bob

7:37

grew up in the Twin Cities, but he came up to

7:39

Red Lake Nation all the time, spent his summers here. And

7:42

his hope is that Solar Bear can be a

7:44

model for other tribes and that building solar panels

7:46

and the jobs and the revenue that come with

7:49

it can improve their lives. We

7:52

thought that it was casinos that were supposed

7:54

to do this. Now, the

7:56

casino industry is a billion dollar

7:58

industry. But

8:00

the energy industry is a trillion dollar

8:03

industry. And I start thinking to myself,

8:05

Native people, we are in the wrong

8:07

industry. Keep going with the trillion dollar

8:09

industry. Talk to me about

8:11

the economic development benefits for the tribe.

8:14

If you grow your business and the

8:16

solar industry, you know, because because if

8:18

COVID taught us anything, a lot

8:21

of casinos were teetering on bankruptcy

8:23

during COVID. But here's the thing.

8:26

The sun shines every day.

8:29

Those are pennies dropping in the bucket and

8:31

those pennies add up. We

8:36

left the roof, went back down the hatch. I'm

8:39

just going to spot you as you figure out how

8:41

to do that. Radio host and

8:43

three producers killed and fall down stairwell. No?

8:48

They fell on Bob Blake. We

8:50

used to be a lying backer, so he caught them. The

8:56

future of solar at Red Lake, what

8:58

comes after rooftop projects like this one,

9:01

is the government in this economy.

9:07

The Inflation Reduction Act has an opportunity

9:10

to go from crowd funding solar panels

9:12

on one government building to

9:14

the millions of government dollars that are available

9:16

for a project more than 200 times bigger.

9:20

Utilities scale solar 15 megawatts

9:23

that can power the entire reservation three times

9:25

over. Investment

9:29

of that scale comes only

9:32

from federal dollars, but

9:34

that opportunity always comes with

9:36

obstacles. First,

9:41

though, you have to get the word out that

9:43

the money is there, which is where Pilar Thomas

9:45

comes in. She's a

9:47

lawyer at Quarles and Brady Practices in Tribal

9:49

Energy and Economic Development. I'm

9:52

also a member of the Pascua Yaqui

9:54

tribe, which is based here in Tucson,

9:56

Arizona. And I've

9:58

been in Indian energy for a long time.

10:01

probably for about 20, almost 20 years now,

10:03

both as a lawyer and worked

10:05

at the Department of Energy for four years

10:07

under the Obama administration in the Office of

10:10

Indian Energy. I love doing my job, love

10:12

working with tribes and tribal enterprises and others

10:14

who want to work with tribes. Pilar

10:17

spent a lot of time talking about the Inflation

10:19

Reduction Act, 26 U.S.C. 6417 in particular,

10:24

elective payment of applicable

10:26

credits. Doing

10:28

that in layperson's talk, please, not lawyer talk.

10:32

And why it's so important. So

10:36

there's two parts to the tax code that

10:38

were changed, that were critical. We'll

10:41

walk you through the changes because the

10:43

details here really matter. So

10:45

industry, the for-profit renewable energy

10:48

developers have been relying on

10:50

tax credits to fund these

10:53

projects since they were developed

10:56

in the early aughts. Tribes

10:58

have never been able to do that. I'm

11:02

going to play that last bit one more time because

11:04

this is where the change comes in. Tribes

11:07

have never been able to do that. Tribes

11:12

are non-taxable entities in the language

11:14

of the Internal Revenue Service. And

11:17

no taxes means no tax

11:19

credits, which means tribes have

11:21

basically been locked out of those benefits. So

11:25

let's imagine building a $10 million

11:27

dollar solar project with tax credits.

11:33

That $10 million dollar project would

11:35

get a $3 million dollar tax

11:37

credit. Basically

11:39

it buys down the cost of the project

11:42

economically. So what was a $10 million dollar

11:44

project is really now a $7 million

11:46

dollar project. Essentially a 30%

11:48

discount. So

11:51

tribes were never able, because

11:53

they don't get tax credits, because they

11:55

don't pay taxes, they were never able

11:57

to get that economic benefit. help

12:00

buy down the cost of a project.

12:04

Buying down the cost of a project is

12:07

how things actually get built. And

12:11

here is the change in the inflation

12:13

reduction. Since

12:15

tribes don't pay taxes, they get

12:17

a direct payment instead worth whatever the

12:19

tax credit would be. It's

12:21

called direct pay. So

12:26

back to that $10 million project. So

12:29

a tribe can now take

12:31

the $10 million and now get a $3 million

12:33

payment from Uncle

12:37

Sam from Treasury. And now

12:39

again, it only costs the tribe $7 million. In

12:41

the past it would have cost them $10 million.

12:44

On top of that, the IRA also

12:46

increases other tax credits available to

12:49

everybody. So if you

12:51

meet certain incentives, you can get up

12:53

to 70% back. That

12:56

now goes from a $10 million project to a

12:58

$3 million. Because Uncle Sam will write you a

13:00

check for $7 million for your 70%. So

13:04

that will incentivize a lot of

13:06

clean energy deployment on tribal lands.

13:10

This is what government in the

13:12

economy looks like. Incentivizing

13:14

projects that meet federal

13:16

goals and that otherwise

13:18

probably wouldn't get built. But

13:21

getting there to those future projects

13:24

is a difficult and complicated

13:26

process. More

13:29

on those obstacles from Red Lake Nation

13:31

coming up after the break. Thanks

13:57

for watching.