Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren’t.
– Margaret Thatcher
Amy Oliver Cooke
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- Amy Oliver Cooke
Oxford English Dictionary
Roget’s Thesaurus
Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations
Five Days at Memorial
“You see how picky I am about my shoes, and those only go on my feet.”
Cher (Alicia Silverstone) from Clueless (1995)
Two things:
My superpower is an ability to recall and sing AM hits of the 60s and 70s.
Also, I collect old cookbooks even though I rarely cook.
Amy Oliver Cooke is the Executive Vice President and Director of the Energy and Environmental Policy Center for the Independence Institute, Colorado’s free market, state-based think tank. She has worked in both policy and operations since 2004.
Amy began working in energy policy in 2010. She is proud to be one of the original state-level, free market energy policy advocates and is famous for her provocative messages like “Mothers In Love with Fracking” and “I’m an energy feminist because I’m pro-choice in energy sources,” which the eco-left called “hands down the worst kind of feminism.”
She founded a Colorado non-profit organization the Coalition of Ratepayers to provide a voice for captive ratepayers and to intervene in regulatory proceedings on behalf of small business and residential utility customers.
In December 2016, she was honored to be the second person named to President Trump’s Transition Team for the Environmental Protection Agency.
Her work on important ballot measures has earned her numerous awards including the Spark Freedom Trendsetter Award for social media outreach and both the prestigious Reed and Pollie awards for best Spanish language TV ad for a ballot measure.
Amy is a former senior fellow with the influential Independent Women’s Forum, a free market think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C., and a National Advisory Board member for the Steamboat Institute.
She has authored and contributed to numerous opinion editorials, issue papers, and issue backgrounders and has been published in the Daily Caller, Townhall, Denver Post, Pueblo Chieftain, Greeley Tribune, Denver Business Journal, Colorado Politics, and The Hill. She has appeared on Fox News, MSN.com, Devil’s Advocate, Colorado Inside Out, and Power Hour.
In 2015, Amy retired after 10 years of hosting the award winning Amy Oliver Show on News Talk 1310 KFKA Monday through Friday from 9 to 11 am. In 2008, the Colorado Broadcasters Association recognized her with the Award of Excellence for Best News Talk personality in a major market. She was recognized again in 2011 with the Award of Merit for Best News Talk personality in a major market.
Amy earned a Bachelor of Journalism in Magazine Journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia and a Master’s degree in American History from the University of Northern Colorado.
Amy loves sports (especially baseball), politics, policy, and living in Weld County with her husband retired Sheriff and current State Senator John Cooke. She is a mother of three and stepmom of two.
Latest Posts from the Energy Policy Center
The Rotten Political Incentives of the Utility Industry0
- August 22, 2023
The monopoly electric utility business model is rife with problems. Chief among them is the regulatory capture it invites. Monopoly utilities tend to reflect the political environment in which they are situated. This is no accident. They know where their bread is buttered and are more than happy to play along with the ambitious energy
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Colorado’s Energy Future: The High Cost of 100 Percent Electric Home Heating0
- August 15, 2023
What began as a first-of-its-kind ban on new natural gas hookups in 2019 in Berkeley, California, has turned into a nationwide movement. To date, more than 100 cities plus the state of New York have since passed gas bans of their own to push their citizens toward electrification. It has even begun to spread in
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Poll: Majority of Colorado Likely Voters Favor Nuclear Energy0
- May 19, 2023
Colorado voters are broadly in favor of the country’s largest source of clean energy, according to a newly released Independence Institute/Cygnal poll. Likely general election voters across Colorado favor nuclear energy more than 2:1 (53% support, 25% oppose). 54% said they favor including nuclear power in Colorado’s clean energy mix by 2040, with support crossing
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Colorado’s Energy Future: The High Cost of 100% Renewable Electricity by 20400
- May 15, 2023
Colorado Governor Jared Polis (D.) campaigned for his first term in office on a platform of transitioning the state to 100 percent renewable energy by 2040. In his first year in office, Polis unveiled an official government “roadmap” to do just that. Since then, he has signed into law no fewer than 55 climate bills
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