More energy bills with bigger stakes
In early February, Independence Institute’s Energy & Environmental Policy Center flagged the early energy bills introduced in the Colorado legislature. As we enter March, some bills have had hearings and their fates decided. Here’s where things stand. Early casualties in committee hearings include SB26-033, which would have added some pre-permitting requirements and grid reliability statements […]
Early Energy Rumblings from the Colorado Legislature
The Colorado legislature is putting some energy hearings on the board for February, and 13 energy bills have been filed so far. Here is what the Independence Institute is watching. SB26-028, “Removal of Wind Energy from State Energy Goals,” is going to be heard Wednesday, February 18, in Senate Transportation and Energy committee. The bill […]
Unpacking Colorado’s Electric Vehicle Triumphalism
Newly released electric vehicle sales data has Colorado policymakers patting themselves on the back for a job well done. The reality of the state’s vehicle market is slightly more complicated. According to a recent report from the Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management, electric vehicles made up 25.3 percent of all new cars sold […]
Government Planners Nix Key Highway Expansions In Favor of Bike Lanes, Bus Travel
“Let them ride bikes,” say the transportation planners of the state’s most populated regional planning organization. The fallout from CDOT’s shift from an organization solely concerned with building and maintaining the state’s roads into a technocratic experiment in human behavioral engineering is beginning to take effect. From CPR News: The board of the Denver Regional […]
Energy and Land Use: A Sober Look at the Space Needed to Power the Future
Much of the conversation surrounding energy policy in Colorado these days has to do primarily with the emissions currently being produced and ways to continue reducing said emissions. The arguments over the role of various energy sources in getting to a decarbonized future are familiar at this point. But there has been comparatively little discussion […]
EPA bans construction of new coal plants
Today, the EPA announced new limits on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. For once, industry and environmental groups are in agreement: these new limits, they say, will effectively ban the construction of new coal plants. As Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, put it, the new limits mark the “end of an […]
Bad news for EU could be bad news for CO
Bad news for residents of the European Union and possibly Colorado. EU consumers and businesses face more than twenty years of rising electric costs as the region tries to meet its renewable energy goals according to a leaked report. The the working title of the draft report “Energy Roadmap to 2050” examines how the EU […]
