Tino called today to report on their meetings with DOE last week.
Tino,  Dennis Langley, and their outside lawyer Jim Slattery met with Bill  Richardson and DOE staff to discuss the "sole source" procurement approach to  DOE's obtaining an alternative power supplier for Kirtland AFB and Sandia.
Tino reports that Richardson signed off on the sole source approach, subject  only to DOE review of the final contract to assure its consistency with the  public interest.
Tino believes that the combination of significant Native  American involvement in the overall deal structure along with a power price  that is lower than DOE's current PNM rates will satisfy the "public interest"  standard.
Slattery is set to begin discussions with DOE next week on the overall  structure of Dennis' proposal.
I am surprised that Dennis would go this far  before hearing from us on the economics, but Tino made it sound like the  initial discussions would be fairly general--i.e., to explain to DOE that the

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