Current through January 24, 2014
Reform defeated: SB14-035 Renewable Energy Standard Repeal *postponed indefinitely*
Senate Bill 35, introduced by State Sen. Ted Harvey, would have repealed “substantially all of the provision enacted by Senate Bill 13-252” by returning the renewable portfolio standard to 10 percent from 20 percent for rural cooperative electric associations, among other cuts.
The bill, sent to the State, Veterans and Military Affairs committee was killed Wednesday on a 3-2 party line vote. The SVMA committee has been dubbed the “kill committee” by the minority party, where bills are sent to receive a quick despatch.
Comment: As this bill has been killed, the Independence Institute will examine a similar bill, proposed by State Sen. Ray Scott on Wednesday that would reduce the RPS requirement from 20 percent to 15 percent.
SB14-011 Colorado Energy Research Authority
Among other provisions housekeeping provisions, SB 11 “substitutes ‘clean energy’ for ‘renewable energy'” and authorizes additional monies in the amount of $2 million to create an “energy research cash fund” (ERCF) for the next five fiscal years.
Comment: Substituting “clean” for “renewable” energy is noteworthy. The fiscal note estimates a cost of $2,000,000 annually for the next five years for the ERCF from the state General Fund.
SB14-028 Expand Electric Vehicle Charging Station Grants *Passed Senate second reading with amendments*
SB 14 “expands the existing list of persons and entities that are eligible to receive moneys from the electric vehicle grant fund, administered by the Colorado energy office (CEO), by adding private businesses and nonprofits and allowing the CEO to consider the extent to which grant applicants’ proposed charging locations serve existing vehicles or encourages the acquisition of new vehicles.”
Comment: The bill’s fiscal note estimates that the impact will be “minimal” with grant monies collected under HB13-1110 providing the resource stream. Funding will go to as many stations as possible, but could include fulling funding those installations “in a location that is especially advantageous for support of the electric vehicle market.”
SB14-082 Renewable Energy Standard Adjustment for Cooperative Electric Associations
SB82: “In the section of the renewable energy standard statute setting aside a specific portion of electric generating capacity that cooperative electric associations must meet through distributed generation, the bill:
• Eliminates the disparity between cooperative electric associations serving fewer than 10,000 meters and those serving 10,000 or more meters;
• Establishes a uniform 0.5% of total retail electricity sales as the target percentage for distributed generation; and
• Allows the 0.5% to be measured collectively among these associations as a group rather than individually.”
Comment: Fiscal note estimates minimal impact.
SB14-103 Phase In High-Efficiency Water Fixture Options
SB103 “prohibits the sale of lavatory faucets, shower heads, flushing urinals, tank-type toilets, and tank-type water closets on and after September 1, 2016, unless they are a watersense-listed plumbing
fixture.”
Comment: No fiscal note. The bill defines a “watersense-listed plumbing fixture” as:
• Tested by an accredited third-party certifying body or laboratory in accordance with the federal environmental protection agency’s WaterSense program;
• Certified by such body or laboratory as meeting the performance and efficiency requirements of the program; and
• Authorized by the program to use its label.
The bill would expand the current requirements for “water-efficient indoor plumbing fixtures” which apply currently to builders of new homes, new state buildings, and new and renovated residential, office, and commercial buildings, but at a much lower and “less stringent” standard than the one defined by WaterSense.
HB14-1012 Advanced Industry Investment Income Tax Credit
HB1012 “repeals the Colorado innovation investment tax credit and replaces it with the advanced industry investment tax credit.” The tax credit would be available through the end of 2017 for “an equity investment in a qualified small business from the advanced industries, which consists of advanced manufacturing, aerospace, bioscience, electronics, energy and natural resources, information technology, and infrastructure engineering.” The tax credit would equal 25 percent of the investment and up to 30 percent if the business “is located in a rural area or economically distressed area.” Maximum tax credit would be $50,000 for a single tax credit, and up to $2 million per calendar year, with rollover.
Comment: No fiscal note at the present time.
HB14-1030 Hydroelectric Generation Incentive
HB1030 would “promote the construction and operation of hydroelectric facilities in Colorado” by providing incentives for additional installation and elevating community hydroelectric energy facilities “into the community solar garden statute.”
Comment: The bill’s fiscal note estimates a cost of less than $2,500 per year. The hydroelectric power in question would be targeted at those “small hydropower projects of 30 megawatts or less” sited in “streams, diversion ditches for irrigation, or existing dams.”
HB14-1064 Severance Tax Distribution To A Local Government That Limits Oil And Gas Extraction *postponed indefinitely*
HB1064 “prohibits any local government that has a moratorium or permanent prohibition on the extraction of oil and gas from receiving more direct distributions or grants and loans than the local government received in the fiscal year during which the moratorium or permanent prohibition was enacted.”
Comment: The restriction would be lifted in the following fiscal year if a county or municipality rescinds the moratorium or permanent prohibition. In the meantime, the “moneys that would otherwise have been distributed to the county or municipality are redistributed on a pro rata basis to all other eligible counties and municipalities.” The fiscal note puts a total price tag of approximately $40,000 over the next two fiscal years.
In other words, the bill would properly restore balance between counties and municipalities who choose to limit oil and gas extraction and those that do not, as the localities instituting prohibitions should not benefit from increased activities elsewhere by matching severance tax revenues to activities permitted.
**Bill postponed indefinitely, 7-6 party line vote:
Jonathan Singer, D-Longmont, said. “My community is downstream and downwind from oil and gas operations and we feel the public health impacts of fracking regardless of existing fracking bans.”
Sonnenberg presented his proposal as a measure of fairness, ensuring that cities don’t benefit financially from a practice they’ve banned and that those communities that do allow fracking benefit from more of the severance tax revenue.
“Passing this bill would have directed a higher percentage of severance tax funds to communities that help provide for the energy needs of our state,” said Sonnenberg.
“I am disappointed the Democrats failed to see the importance of providing these communities additional revenue to support the oil and gas industry.”
HB14-1067 Renewable Energy Electric Standard REAs Move to 2025
This renewable reform bill, HB1067, “changes the target date to achieve the renewable component of the energy generation portfolio of retail cooperative electric associations [CEA] serving 100,000 or more customers, and qualifying wholesale utilities” from 2020 to 2025.
Comment: The fiscal note indicates a minimal impact. CEAs required to comply with the 20 percent renewable energy standard by 2020 would need to meet step-change adjustments that increase from 6 percent in 2015-2019 to 20 percent in 2020 would see a five year extension for meeting requirements. Measures available to comply with the requirement include development of “eligible generation facilities,” entering into power purchase agreements with “an eligible energy generation facility,” or purchasing “existing renewable energy credits”–each of which, the fiscal note determined, would involve “additional costs” for the CEA.
The Independence Institute will also examine any additional energy bills introduced this session as they become available. This bill survey, completed on January 10, did not indicate any bills on hydraulic fracturing.
HB14-1113 Electric Renewable Energy Standard Reduction
HB1113 orders the public utilities commission to establish electric resource standards, or minimum percentages of electricity that electric service providers “must generate or cause to be generated from recycled energy and renewable energy resources.” This bill moves the current required minimums from 20 to 15 percent until 2019, and from 30 to 15 percent for 2020 and subsequent years. It also reduces the required minimum for rural electric coops to be reduced from 20 to 15 percent for 2020 and in the years following.
Comment: No fiscal note. This bill looks to challenge provisions from last year’s SB252, while also leveling all required electricity standards to be a flat 15 percent for both investor-owned and rural electric cooperative associations from 2020 and thereafter. Step-increases mandated by earlier bills are voided and returned to a standard 15 percent.
HB14-1138 Renewable Energy Standard Add Hydroelectric to Eligible
HB1138 “amends the definition of ‘renewable energy resources’ that can be used to meet the state’s renewable energy standard to include hydroelectricity and pumped hydroelectricity.”
Comment: Fiscal note indicates minimal impact. The impact on state policy, however, could be quite large. Adding hydroelectric and pumped hydroelectric electricity to be added to the state’s list of eligible energy resources for meeting Colorado’s renewable energy standard “reduces the amount of energy required to be generated from other eligible resources (principally wind),” according to the bill’s fiscal note. This could affect not only state agency and local government electricity rates, but those of ratepayers statewide as well.
HB14-1150 State and Local Government and Federal Land Coordination
HB1150: “The bill creates the division of federal land coordination in the department of local affairs to address federal land decisions in Colorado that affect the state and local governments. The chief coordinator is the head of the division and is required to form a federal land coordination task force to study certain federal land decisions. The department of agriculture, the department of natural resources, the Colorado tourism office, the Colorado energy office, and the office of economic development are required to assist the division at the request of the chief coordinator. Based on task force findings, the chief coordinator may recommend that a local government receive a grant for research and analysis to form a coordinated response to a federal land decision.”
Comment: No fiscal note.
HB14-1159 Biogas System Components Sales and Use Tax Exemption
HB1159: “The bill exempts from state sales and use tax components used in biogas production systems. Local governments that currently impose sales or use tax on such components may either continue to do so or may exempt them from their sales or use taxes.”
Comment: The fiscal notes estimates a reduction in state tax revenues of up to $635,000.
This bill creates a sales and use tax exemption, or carve out, for capturing biogas to be used as a renewable natural gas, or for equipment used to create electricity from the biogas. Biogas “is
a natural by-product that is released as manure, food waste, and other organic compounds
breakdown.” This bill appears targeted to one project in Weld County, the Heartland Biogas Project, a 20 MW “anaerobic digester and renewable natural gas (RNG) facility” set to come online as soon as April 2014.
