Highlights and lowlights of SB252 testimony
Despite close to seven hours of testimony on SB13-252, a bill to raise the renewable energy mandate 150 percent on rural electric co-ops, it is very clear that the bill’s prime sponsors Senate President John Morse (D-Colorado Springs) and Senator Gail Schwartz (D-Snowmass) do not understand their own bill and didn’t bother to consult those […]
Hypocrisy of SB 252
Sponsors excluded from cost of own bill: Two of the main State Senate sponsors, Senate president John Morse (D-Colorado Springs) and Senator Gail Schwartz (D-Aspen) conveniently carved their own districts out of the bill. Because municipally owned utilities are excluded from the bill, Morse won’t have to pay the cost of his own legislation. While […]
Denver centric eco-left targets rural Colorado
Denver area eco-leftists have rural Colorado in their sights. In a September 2012 letter to state legislative candidates, Colorado Environmental Coalition Executive Director Elise Jones (now Boulder County Commissioner) and Colorado Conservation Voters Executive Director Pete Maysmith implied that dirty air in the Denver metro area may be the result of rural Colorado’s not having […]
Oregon’s Cannibalism of Environmentalism
By Brandon Ratterman Almost 60 percent of Oregon’s electricity is generated from hydroelectric power, which is considered by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as a renewable energy resource. However, the state is struggling to meet the mandated renewable portfolio standard (RPS) of 15 percent renewable generation by 2015, as hydroelectricity generated at facilities built before […]
Instability of sustainability: green agenda ignores science and technology
Could this happen in Colorado? Maybe… A Wall Street Journal article reports what some in Colorado’s energy industry know, too much reliance on wind and solar can make an electric grid unstable and lead to power outages. California regulators and energy companies met last week out of fear that the state’s electric grid is so […]
David Schnare: We’re putting global warming on trial in Colorado
David Schnare, the Director of Environmental Law Center at the American Tradition Institute and lead attorney in a lawsuit (ATI v. Epel) against Colorado’s 30 percent renewable energy mandate said in an interview on the Amy Oliver Show on Thursday that global warming will be put on trial when he argues that the mandate violates […]
Victory for Transparency: Feeding at DOE’s public trough a little less appetizing
For the last two and half years, the Independence Institute along with other free market energy policy advocates have pounded the drum of transparency and exposed the federal government’s infamous Department of Energy (DOE) loan guarantee program that rewarded the politically well-connected while costing taxpayers billions of dollars with high profile bankruptcies such as Solyndra […]
A high tab: NREL's $135 million toast
I didn’t make up this. The Denver Post lede paragraph in a story about the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is almost laughable: Hooking a toaster oven to a solar panel is not an easy thing, but the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s new $135 million integrated energy facility will able do just that. While it […]
A high tab: NREL’s $135 million toast
I didn’t make up this. The Denver Post lede paragraph in a story about the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is almost laughable: Hooking a toaster oven to a solar panel is not an easy thing, but the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s new $135 million integrated energy facility will able do just that. While it […]
Eco-left prepares to double down on renewable mandate
By Peter Blake This column appeared originally on Complete Colorado Page 2. When the runners are closing in on the finish line, move the tape farther back. That’s the usual strategy employed by greens when it comes to establishing renewable energy standards for electricity production. It’s a marathon that never ends, and the added cost […]
How CEI and II Toppled EPA Region 8 Administrator James Martin
By William Yeatman In mid-February, EPA Region 8 Administrator James Martin—who previously had served in the Ritter administration as the key facilitator of the Clean Air Clean Jobs Act—announced his resignation. The announcement came as a surprise, as Martin’s tenure at EPA was unusually brief. In fact, only one other (of 9) EPA Regional Administrators […]
Country can breathe sigh of relief. We’re still stuck with him…
By William Yeatman and Amy Oliver Cooke As Coloradans we thought we might have to apologize to the rest of the country if President Barack Obama nominated former one-term Colorado Governor Bill Ritter to head the Energy Department. If the President wanted to make electricity costs skyrocket and the eco-left community happy, Ritter was his […]
