Aspen, and its team of expert specialty subcontractors, is providing environmental, engineering and planning support to the Energy Commission (the permitting agency for all power plants in the state), as part of consecutive, 3-year on-call contracts. Aspen helped identify and screen appropriate sites for power plants to be built on an accelerated basis during the energy supply crisis. Through over 650 Work Authorizations in the first contract, Aspen provided technical assistance to review Applications for Certification for 48 proposed power plants. A major task was preparing Staff Assessments as part of the Energy Commission's CEQA compliance program. Under our second contract, Aspen continues to support the environmental review of power plants and also has provided expert technical analysis of natural gas and electricity - related issues. The latter includes studies on aging power plants, liquefied natural gas and short-term and long-term demand, supply, and transmission options for the western U.S.