ROSEBUD, S.D. – The nonprofit Intertribal Council on Utility Policy has
acquired a majority interest in NativeEnergy on behalf of its member
tribes, COUP and NativeEnergy, the leading national marketer of Renewable
Energy Credits and greenhouse gas offsets, recently announced.

The conversion of one of the country’s leading renewable energy marketers
into an American Indian-owned business marks the next step in the Plains
tribes’ historic effort to power America with Native wind and fight global
warming.

The equity investment will give the COUP tribes direct access to the retail
market for the renewable power and RECs that their wind farms will
generate. The sale of RECs is critical to the successful development of
wind farms on the Plains reservations.

In the past, COUP has looked to NativeEnergy as a wholesale purchaser of
wind RECs. Participating in the retail sale of RECs through NativeEnergy
will bring additional revenues to the COUP tribes, as well as access to
NativeEnergy’s loyal customer base. These revenues are vital to build
sustainable economies for the tribes, in harmony with tribal cultural
beliefs.

“This is a great day for Native American people everywhere because we are
demonstrating that living in harmony with our Mother Earth is not only good
for the environment, it is also good business,” said COUP President Patrick
Spears, a member of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe. “We congratulate
NativeEnergy on their success on behalf of the COUP tribes’ wind
development efforts, and appreciate the demonstrated integrity of their
management team. The strategic fit could not be better. We look forward to
bringing in more tribes as equity participants and taking NativeEnergy to
the next level,” Spears said.

One of the initial strategic goals of the acquisition is to facilitate the
development of an 80 megawatt distributed wind project, hosted in 10 MW
“clusters” at eight different COUP reservations. In addition to providing
enough clean energy to power more than 23,000 homes, these wind farms will
also create jobs and revenue streams for the tribes from the sale of
electricity and the RECs. This initiative follows the success of the
Rosebud Sioux Tribe’s wind project, the first 100 percent American
Indian-owned and operated commercial-scale wind facility, which was built
with significant support from NativeEnergy’s customers.

Wind turbines generate electricity that would otherwise have to come from
polluting power facilities on the regional grid, preventing carbon dioxide,
a leading cause of global warming, from entering the air. These reductions
in CO2 emissions are among the environmental attributes that comprise the
RECs.

Since its inception in 2000, NativeEnergy has focused on promoting tribal-
and farmer-owned projects that help tribes and rural communities develop
sustainable economies based on the generation of clean, renewable energy.
“We will develop a transition and growth plan for the company that will
create Native American ownership, management, and staff opportunities and
allow NativeEnergy to continue to build and access the market for tribally
generated renewable energy, while continuing our support of
“off-reservation” renewable projects in partnership with the COUP tribes,”
said President and CEO Tom Boucher.

NativeEnergy’s existing stockholders and management team will stay with the
company, with COUP actively participating on the company’s board of
directors. Through NativeEnergy, the COUP tribes plan to engage businesses
and individuals across America in joining the fight against global warming,
by helping finance the development of the tribes’ vast renewable energy
potential.

NativeEnergy is a national marketer of renewable energy credits or “green
tags,” offering individuals and organizations a means to compensate for
their global warming pollution, or to effectively power their homes and
businesses with renewable energy. NativeEnergy’s patent-pending business
process brings upfront payment to renewable projects for their future green
tag output, enabling its customers to help finance the construction of new
wind farms and other renewable energy projects, such as tribal wind
projects and methane digesters, which directly reduce reliance on fossil
fuels to meet the nation’s electricity needs.

The Intertribal COUP is a nonprofit council of federally recognized Indian
tribes in North and South Dakota, Nebraska and Iowa, with affiliates
throughout the northern Plains. Organized in 1994, it is chartered and
headquartered on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation to provide a tribal forum
for policy issues dealing with telecommunications and energy utility
operations and services.