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Developer Perspectives: Experiences with the Community Benefits Plan Process

The “Developer Perspectives” session of the workshop was focused on the experiences of developers with community benefits plans (CBPs), the application process for projects, and community engagement. Devashree Saha from the World Resources Institute moderated the session. The panelists included Kim Medford, Entek; Mark Haggerty, Center for American Progress; and Todd Malan, Talon Metals.

Saha started the panel by emphasizing that developers and the private sector are key stakeholders in the development of community benefits frameworks. She outlined the goals of the panel as hearing developers’ perspectives about (1) the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) community benefits process, (2) how to make the process a win-win for communities and developers, and (3) addressing concerns about DOE’s model being a developer-led model, discussing its limitations, and examining the opportunities to strengthen and improve it.

DEVELOPER-LED PROJECTS AND COMMUNITY BENEFITS

Haggerty offered that the Biden administration is pursuing an industrial policy framework that is largely executed through tax credits and is largely private-sector- and developer-driven. Community benefits frameworks are centered on building capacity, putting community liaisons where the investments are being made, and helping historically disadvantaged communities navigate the federal system and to try to secure benefits alongside new development.

Malan shared that he is the chief external affairs officer and head of climate strategy at Talon Metals, a publicly traded company focused on high-grade nickel mining in the United States. It operates in Central Minnesota and is currently exploring the upper peninsula of Michigan. Talon Metals has an agreement with Tesla to supply nickel to them for their domestic battery manufacturing. As part of DOE’s funding, Talon Metals is building a battery mineral processing facility in Mercer County, in central North Dakota. The new plant will process the raw ore from Minnesota, Canada, or other mines in North

America and send it to Tesla for final processing and incorporation into batteries. Talon also received a Department of Defense (DoD) $20 million grant to support Talon’s nickel exploration activities in Minnesota and Michigan. Before these grants were awarded, Talon established a neutrality agreement and workforce development partnership with the United Steelworkers Union. The firm also has project labor agreements in place for the mine in Minnesota and the battery minerals processing facility in North Dakota. These tools helped Talon to work with the communities and get the certainty that the community would support them through the project. It was valuable for the company to have such community engagement and support in competitive business situations.

Medford’s company, Entek, specializes in polymer-based battery separators. It is headquartered in Lebanon, Oregon, in a small, rural community that was once highly dependent on logging and farming. When those jobs were lost due to regulatory changes, Entek was able to provide employment opportunities in the region. They have focused their community engagement efforts on being transparent about what they make, how they make it, and what they use in their products. Their new $200 million DOE-awarded lithium battery separator plant will be in Terre Haute, Indiana, and has allocation for additional DOE funding.

The Process and Outcome of Community Benefits Plans

Saha asked Malan and Medford to comment on the process and outcome components of the CBP they submitted to DOE. She also asked them to highlight the challenges and pain points. Malan said that before the funding application, his company looked at 18 sites and met with community representatives and proximate tribal sovereign governments. When they decided on Mercer County, they signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the proximate tribal government with specific and measurable commitments on information sharing, employment for tribal members, workforce training, and procurement. For this part of the process, Talon Metals learned from best practices in Canada that allow sovereign tribes to participate in the project through equity investment.

Medford added that mentors within DOE helped them organize community workshops so they could learn from the community and then translate that into SMART goals in their application. Entek also had a few MOUs in place with apprenticeship programs.

Limitations of Developer-Led Community Benefits Plans

Saha asked Haggerty to share his perspectives on the limitations of developer-led CBPs and the different strategies to address these limitations. Haggerty emphasized that the big challenge is that those agreements are trying to

address multiple things simultaneously, including climate change, a history of environmental injustice, and the marginalization of communities and workers. “These things are hard to piece together. I do not accept that they are not possible to do together. However, since we have an industrial policy that is largely driven through private enterprise, we are also trying to solve some of the community benefits through private enterprise and that does run up against limitations.” He highlighted that a coherent national policy and economic framework for rural development is missing, which prevents meaningful collaboration between agencies and results in projects that are siloed within agencies and are difficult to access for the community.

He proposed inter-agency coordination on CBPs for more investment in capacity building, and for providing technical assistance, and for federal agencies to work as community liaisons, navigators, and rapid response teams as ways to reduce bottlenecks and overcome silos between agencies. This would trigger other agencies, like the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Transportation, or the Department of Agriculture, to align federal investments around capacity building and the outcomes that communities are asking for. Haggerty added that the appropriate steps are in place or in the process of coming together, but we must keep the big ideas in mind.

At the same time, Malan cautioned that we must not over-institutionalize community benefits frameworks as that may prevent change over time or the true reflection of the needs of people in a particular area. He commented, “It is not necessarily going to be the same in North Dakota as in Minnesota or Arizona.” Medford added that the great trifecta of government, community, and the private sector must work together and improve collaborations in individual locations.

Benefits and Limitations of Regional Planning

Saha continued that one of the things being talked about is how developers can bypass communities. That is, if the conditions are not favorable in one community, they can go to another community, pitting one community against another in the process. A solution might be to develop a shared set of community benefits principles that is applicable to an entire region, endorsed by relevant stakeholders and organizations, and applied to all projects. She asked the panel to comment on the pros and cons of this kind of regional visioning and a shared set of community benefits principles. Malan said that while the idea is interesting, it is challenging because some aspects of a community may not align with others. Medford agreed and said that while a shared set of practices may bring different communities in a region together, it will then pit one region against another. Haggerty added that while preplanning is essential, companies and sectors differ across projects.

DISCUSSION

An audience member asked Malan for his company’s stance on preserving tribal sovereignty, consent-based siting, go/no-go points, and what happens if the tribe opposes the project. Malan shared that early communication and information sharing helped his company create a binding MOU with the tribal community proximate to their new project. This communication helped dispel misgivings about mining in the region and fostered work with communities on their treaty-based rights and rights for hunting, fishing, and wild rice collection. The regulatory agencies in these regions treat tribes as regulators as well, and the regulatory review for Talon Metals’ projects included 11 federally recognized tribes as participants along with the other regulatory agencies. The company has also partnered with the North Dakota Building Trades Union on workforce training for general construction and manufacturing jobs. Their first cohort has nine students.

Another audience member asked the panel of developers if they would be willing to advocate to DOE that 40 percent of their grant awards could be set aside for community-based organizations to work with them. Malan shared that of the $20 million they received from their DoD grant, they set aside $100,000 for the community to bring in a geologist or geology professor of their choice who can independently contract with Talon Metals and learn more about the project. Medford supported the idea posited by the audience member but then highlighted that it is not how the program is structured today. She noted that there is sometimes a timeline mismatch between the speed at which a project can be delivered and the desired community benefits.

The last audience question asked that Malan and Medford speak to their companies’ core values so that community groups in the audience could learn what to look for in developers. Malan said for his company the priority is to treat the communities they operate in as their own because the company does in fact share the towns and live around the affected people. Medford said her company’s values are respect, integrity, innovation, and commitment. These values have made the difference in how they operate their business, engage with communities, and decide who they hire. She concluded the panel by emphasizing that not very many companies can claim like Talon Metals and Entek that they have been around for many decades. In their businesses, such longevity is unusual, and they must have done something right in their communities to have grown and sustained the way they have.