On Monday, December 12, the IRS released Notice 2005-98, which solicits applications for allocations of the Clean Renewable Energy Bond (CREB) limitations under section 54(f) of the Internal Revenue Code.

The legislative intent of the CREBs is to provide an incentive for publicly-owned projects that do not qualify for federal Production Tax Credits (PTCs). You cannot use dollars raised by CREBs to support privately-owned projects. These bonds are available to any governmental or public entity, not just utilities.

This IRS notice provides guidance on the requirements a project must meet in order to be eligible to obtain an allocation of the limitation, the methodology the Treasury Department will use to allocate the limitation, and the credit rate, maximum term and information reporting requirements applicable to CREBs.
Applications for the allocation of the CREB limitation must be filed by April 26, 2006.

Notice 2005-98 can be found on the IRS web site: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/n-05-98.pdf
Further information regarding the regulations will be posted on http://www.cleanenergybonds.org.
Summary of and teleconference about the CREBs program can be found at: http://www.elpc.org/energy/CREBsummary.htm