Twice I’ve provided evidence that the Colorado Department of Public Health and Energy (CDPHE) has inflated projections of ozone ambient air concentrations (see here and here).

Those were critiques of ozone projections. This year is the first year that we have a data set against which to judge the accuracy of CDPHE ozone modeling during the New Energy Economy era. Unfortunately for Coloradans, the results are even worse than I’d feared. See for yourself:

It’s difficult to overstate the magnitude of these exaggerations, which range from 2ppb to almost 10 ppb. For comparison, consider that the PUC last week authorized $1.3+ billion worth of ozone pollution controls that are projected to reduce ozone air concentrations less than 1 ppb by 2020.

This is what happens when civil service agencies become politicized. Colorado’s supposedly worsening ozone status was a major impetus for the Clean Air Clean Jobs Act, which, in turn, was the centerpiece of Governor Bill Ritter’s political agenda—namely, to advance the climate change mitigation goals as part of his New Energy Economy.

William Yeatman is an energy policy analyst at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.