WASHINGTON — LAWFUEL – Legal Newswire – The Internal Revenue Service today announced 312 projects eligible to be financed with tax-credit bonds under the Clean Renewable Energy Bonds (CREB) program.

The U.S. Treasury Secretary is authorized to distribute volume cap allocations of tax-credit bonds through the CREB program, which was created by the Energy Tax Incentives Act of 2005 and the Tax Relief and Health Care Act of 2006.

In November 2006, the IRS announced the first round of volume cap allocations, which allocated $800 million of volume cap (some of which was subsequently relinquished) to 610 projects. (The announcement was in IR-2006-181 available on the IRS website.) State and local governments as well as electrical cooperatives are able to issue tax-credit bonds under the program.

Internal Revenue Code Section 54 authorizes the allocation of $1.2 billion of tax-credit bond volume cap to fund projects that can generate clean renewable energy. State and local government borrowers are limited to no more than $750 million of the volume cap with the rest going to qualified mutual or cooperative electric companies.

CREB volume cap allocations are awarded on a “smallest-to-largest” project basis. IRS Notices 2007-26 and 2005-98 further explain the program and can also be found on the IRS website.

The IRS has completed the review of applications for $897 million of CREB financing submitted pursuant to Notice 2007-26 and has notified applicants of the results. The second round included 342 applications from 33 states, pertaining to 395 projects. Approximately $477 million of CREB volume cap was available for allocation to qualified issuers.

The deadline for making an application was July 13, 2007. There were 156 proposed projects in California, 57 in Minnesota, 23 in New Jersey, 17 in Washington, 13 in Nebraska, 12 in Montana, 11 in Illinois and 10 in Wisconsin. Applications ranged in size from $15,000 to $38.5 million.

Governmental borrowers submitted applications totaling $728 million to finance 367 projects with an average project size of about $2 million. Governmental borrowers in 28 states will receive $263 million of volume cap allocations ranging from $15,000 to $2.95 million. Approved projects of governmental borrowers include: 138 solar facilities, 88 wind facilities, 41 landfill gas facilities, 12 hydropower facilities, three closed-loop biomass facilities, three trash combustion facilities and one open-loop biomass facility.

Cooperative borrowers submitted applications totaling about $170 million to finance 28 projects with an average project size of about $6.1 million. Cooperative borrowers will receive about $143 million of volume cap allocations for projects in 13 states ranging from $300,000 to $30 million. Approved cooperative projects include: 14 wind facilities, four landfill gas facilities, six hydropower facilities, one solar facility and one open-loop biomass facility.

Disclosure restrictions prohibit releasing taxpayer-specific information without written consent. Notice 2007-26 included a Consent to Public Disclosure Statement. The 310 projects whose applicants signed the consent form can be viewed online at IRS.gov

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 8, 2008 LAWFUEL – Lawsuits Announcements — Notice is hereby given that Glancy Binkow & Goldberg LLP has filed a Class Action lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York on behalf of a class (the “Class”) consisting of all persons or entities who purchased or otherwise acquired the common stock of SunOpta Inc. (“SunOpta” or the “Company”) (Nasdaq:STKL) between August 8, 2007 and January 25, 2008, inclusive (the “Class Period”).

A copy of the Complaint is available from the court or from Glancy Binkow & Goldberg LLP. Please contact us by phone to discuss this action or to obtain a copy of the Complaint at (310) 201-9150 or Toll Free at (888) 773-9224, by email at info@glancylaw.com, or visit our website at www.glancylaw.com.

The Complaint charges SunOpta and certain of the Company’s executive officers with violations of federal securities laws. Among other things, Plaintiff claims that Defendants’ material omissions and dissemination of materially false and misleading statements concerning the Company’s business and financial performance caused SunOpta’s stock price to become artificially inflated, inflicting damages on investors.
SunOpta primarily operates as a producer and processor of natural and organic foods in the United States and Canada. The Complaint alleges that throughout the Class Period defendants failed to disclose, among other things, that the Company was experiencing problems with its internal controls and inventory.

On January 24, 2008, following the close of trading, defendants shocked investors when they published a press release that revealed, for the first time, that the Company was performing well below expectations and that defendants expected to cause the Company to take a material restatement charge in the near term — rendering its prior reported financial statements and reports unreliable, false and materially misleading. The Company said it expected to post a profit of 12 cents to 14 cents per share for the year, citing issues within its fruit and BioProcess groups that led to pretax write-downs and provisions of $12 million to $14 million. Among problems the Company cited were inventories within the Company’s Fruit Group’s berry operations requiring a write-down to net realizable value, whereby “preliminary estimates indicated that an adjustment in the range of $9 to $11 million for this issue and related items is necessary.” The Company disclosed a charge of “approximately $3 million pre-tax, related to difficulties in collecting for services and equipment provided to a customer under the terms of an existing equipment supply contract within the SunOpta BioProcess Group.”

After SunOpta drastically lowered its fiscal 2007 profit forecast and announced that financial restatements are likely, shares of SunOpta plunged to a low of $6.05 on January 25, 2008.

Plaintiff seeks to recover damages on behalf of Class members and is represented by Glancy Binkow & Goldberg LLP, a law firm with significant experience in prosecuting class actions, and substantial expertise in actions involving corporate fraud.

If you are a member of the Class described above, you may move the Court, not later than March 28, 2008, to serve as lead plaintiff, however, you must meet certain legal requirements. If you wish to discuss this action or have any questions concerning this Notice or your rights or interests with respect to these matters, please contact Michael Goldberg, Esquire, of Glancy Binkow & Goldberg LLP, 1801 Avenue of the Stars, Suite 311, Los Angeles, California 90067, by telephone at
(310) 201-9150 or Toll Free at (888) 773-9224 or by e-mail to info@glancylaw.com.

More information on this and other class actions can be found on the Class Action Newsline at www.primenewswire.com/ca.