Here's the latest Tino-gram:
1.  Tino's environ. consultants have not discovered any stop signs.  

2.  The Isleta is interested in granting Dennis ROW/lease for the power plant 
as well as the pipeline.  The power plant could be located on Isleta land 
adjacent to the South boundary of the Scandia reservation.  Thus, the power 
plant could be connected to DOE's existing powerline infrastructure without 
ever leaving the Isleta and DOE land.  PNM would not be necessary to move 
power to DOE.  Unclear to me whether this approach would give the power plant 
optimal access to the power grid for sales of surplus power.  (maybe  this 
could be done through DOE to an interconnect with PNM on the Scandia 
reservation?)

3.  Dennis is using Jim Slattery, an ex law partner of mine in DC (and ex 
Dem. U.S. Congressman from Kansas), as his primary contact with  Bill 
Richardson at DOE.  My recollection is that Jim does have a good relationship 
with Richardson, so this seems very likely to be effective.  Tino reports 
that "DOE is OK with the deal" and the next step is negotiating the power 
contract itself.  Tino said that DOE is aware that the capital for the 
project will not come from the tribe so the tribe's interest will be fairly 
thin.   It is unclear exactly how much indian ownership Dennis and Slattery 
promised DOE.

4.  Tino has run into a power plant consultant named Jack Maddox who says 
he's working on a 230MW plant to be located west of Belen.  Tino thinks he's 
working for the Laguna tribe, but wanted us to find out who is planning a big 
power plant out there.  Is this ours?  PNM's?  El Paso?  

Finally, the next key step is obviously the economics.  Based on what Tino 
told me, I'm convinced that Dennis and Tino don't have a real good sense of 
how much $$$ might be in this deal.  They are groping a bit and our initial 
analysis of the numbers will likely carry a lot of weight.  How are those 
efforts coming?  

Thanks.  DF    
4.