Native Case Studies

Decades of fire suppression have left the national forests overgrown, littered with dead branches, leaves, and pine needles, and vulnerable to catastrophic wild fires. Global climate change has prompted an interest in sources of electricity that emit less carbon dioxide than coal. Those two factors come together as the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs decide whether to build a facility that uses woody materials (“biomass”) to generate electricity. The case explores some of the environmental, regulatory, and economic factors the Tribes might want to consider in their decision making process.