Milbank Represents California Bioenergy in Landmark Sale of Greenhouse Gas Emission Reductions to PG&E’s ClimateSmart™ Program
LOS ANGELES, June 3, 2009 – The international law firm Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy, LLP represented California Bioenergy, a renewable energy company, in the first sale of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions from its livestock methane capture project to Pacific Gas and Electric Company’s (PG&E) ClimateSmart™ Program. The ClimateSmart Program is a voluntary, tax deductible program allowing PG&E customers to mitigate the GHG emissions produced through their energy use by paying a separate amount on their monthly bill. PG&E invests the funds in new, independently verified projects which reduce or absorb GHG emissions. The California Bioenergy project, located on a dairy farm in Kern County, CA, will help combat climate change by yielding 75,000 metric tons of GHG emission reductions.
“California Bioenergy’s contract with PG&E creates tremendous benefits,” said Edwin F. Feo, co-chair of Milbank’s Power, Energy & Utilities practice in the Firm’s Los Angeles office. “The project will reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as well as facilitate economic development in the area.”
Expected to be completed in 2010, the project will process manure from the dairy through an anaerobic digester which traps the methane gas produced as the manure decomposes. The California Bioenergy project will be verified under the stringent standards for the Climate Action Reserve, a national offset registry recognized by environmental organizations, government agencies and financial markets.
Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP is a preeminent global law firm that for more than 140 years has provided innovative legal solutions to many of the world’s largest, most complex, “first-ever” corporate transactions and litigation. The firm’s transactional expertise includes capital markets, corporate finance and transactions, project finance, acquisition finance, and other major fields of law practice. Milbank litigation teams resolve disputes involving mergers and acquisitions, proxy battles, financings and securities offerings, intellectual property, white-collar crime, and corporate restructurings, among others. The firm’s clients range from prominent multinational financial, industrial and commercial enterprises to governments, institutions and individuals. The Firm is headquartered in New York, with offices in Los Angeles, Washington, DC, London, Frankfurt, Munich, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore and Beijing.