Drake Hernandez, Associate Principal - Energy & Infrastructure, Charles River Associates
Drake Hernandez is an associate principal within CRA’s Energy Practice and leads CRA’s low-carbon fuels and CCUS offering.

Mr. Hernandez is an economic consultant with extensive experience in energy and infrastructure-related disputes. He serves as an expert testifying witness in contested proceedings, providing economic and commercial context and quantifying damages resulting from contractual breaches, including valuations of physical assets. He has advised on complex disputes involving energy infrastructure and projects across the energy sector, including low-carbon fuels, natural gas, electric power, liquefied natural gas (LNG), and oil.

Mr. Hernandez also supports global clients as they develop strategies and evaluate investments within the energy and infrastructure sectors. His expertise lies in techno-commercial due diligence of energy and infrastructure projects, with a focus on cross-border projects. He assists clients in project valuation by analyzing market and regulatory trends to assess the economic and commercial aspects of a project’s contractual relationships. Corporations and investors engage him on matters pertaining to energy and infrastructure project commercialization, strategic and techno-commercial due diligence, and regulatory issues.

Apart from his work at CRA, Mr. Hernandez is also a senior fellow and member of the Global Research Council at the Tulane Energy Law & Policy Center within the Tulane Law School. Mr. Hernandez’s work has been published in Applied Energy, the Energy Law Journal, Utility Dive, and other commercial and academic journals. Drake regularly speaks both domestically and internationally on matters related to the regulation of low-carbon fuel infrastructure, low-carbon fuel market development, and energy system planning.

Thomas Holmberg, Partner, Baker Botts LLP
Tom Holmberg is a partner in the Global Projects Group at Baker Botts. He assists clients with energy projects and transactions around the world. He focuses on the development of liquefied natural gas (LNG), hydrogen, carbon capture, use, and storage (CCUS), and natural gas pipeline projects and transactions. He works with clients at all stages of such projects in areas that include project structuring, governmental approvals, and the negotiation of commercial agreements. He is the co-chair of the LNG, hydrogen and CCUS practice group.

Mr. Holmberg advises clients on an array of regulatory issues, including contract and tariff matters before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). He also represents clients before the Department of Energy (DOE) for authorizations to export and import natural gas under the Natural Gas Act.

Jenny Speck, Partner - Tax, Vinson & Elkins LLP
Jenny Speck advises clients on the qualification for and the monetization of energy transition tax incentives. She has worked on a range of energy transition projects, including onshore and offshore wind, solar, combined heat and power, biogas property, carbon capture, hydrogen and clean fuel credit projects.

She has firsthand knowledge of the carbon capture industry, having served as the senior manager of tax and regulatory compliance at Navigator CO2 Ventures LLC from April 2022 through October 2023. At Navigator, Jenny led all aspects of tax qualification, utilization and reporting compliance for federal income energy tax credits and served as Navigator’s sole liaison with the US Department of Energy. She was recruited and served as an independent Merit Reviewer of the Department of Energy loan program for carbon capture and storage demonstration projects.

Jenny also provides tax advice on traditional purchase agreements, including the sale and purchase of tax credits, joint ventures, financings and other general transactional work.