On Monday February 22nd, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s (CDPHE) Air Pollution Control Division (APCD) held a public meeting to discuss the status of President Obama’s Clean Power Plan (CPP), which the U.S. Supreme Court officially stayed on February 9th.
The agenda for this previously scheduled meeting was modified in order to address the recent developments of both the CPP stay, and the CDHPE’s statement in response, which was posted the very next day. In short, Colorado will essentially pursue CPP goals as if the stay never happened, while the states surrounding Colorado have put it on hold while the legal process plays out.
The 90-minute meeting consisted of a brief presentation by APCD deputy director, Chris Colclasure, followed by a Q & A and public testimony. Mr. Colclasure began by discussing public comments already received by his office, which were overwhelmingly in support of the CPP, including over 500 form-emails from nationally organized campaigns.
Colclasure defended CDPHE’s position to move forward on CPP emission goals, stating that his department will “take actions that have benefits regardless of the litigation,” because despite the legal process, “climate change remains a critical issue.” However, these purported benefits remain subjective, and are disputed by many stakeholders.
What analytical use is it to know a presumed benefit without knowing about its life-partner, cost? The CDPHE is conducting, a benefit analysis (and acting on it), rather than conducting a cost-benefit analysis. Colclasure stated in his presentation that they “hope” to model potential costs. The private sector metaphor here is a borrower going to a lender and saying, “lend me money for a house, because I hope to be able to afford my mortgage.” But in this case, the taxpayers are the ones being recklessly put at risk.
That isn’t a stretch. Energy Strategies and the Center for the New Energy Economy produced a model used by APCD to evaluate the CPP, but this model was never built to consider costs. During Monday’s public meeting, Mr. Colclasure admitted that the above companies have the ability to build a cost-inclusive model, but they were specifically contracted to not include costs in their modeling.
About 15 people spoke during the public testimony period, the majority of which supported the CPP, proving that the extreme environmental movement is well funded and well organized. Local, state, and national groups were represented, some even claiming the CPP doesn’t go far enough, and that environmental racism and injustice is not adequately addressed.
The testimony that did not support the CPP was moderate by comparison. Representatives from the Colorado Energy Consumers and the Colorado Mining Association requested that given the gift of time resulting from the stay, cost modeling, including probable job losses and ratepayer increases, be a priority in the coming months.
The CDPHE has demonstrated that it is unlikely to model the almost certainly heavy costs of the CPP, let alone reconsider implementing it. Colclasure spoke with certainty about the inevitability of carbon dioxide regulations, be they from the CPP or some other avenue. By all appearances, extreme and economically unsound environmental regulations are a runaway train in Colorado.
Sarah Huisman is an Independence Institute Future Leader, and Master’s student at Liberty University’s Helms School of Government.
