Can CDPHE Be Trusted To Measure Ozone?
Earlier this month, I asked whether CDPHE (a.k.a., “the Department”) is cooking the books on Colorado ozone. In particular, it struck me as suspicious that the Department used data from 2006, an anomalously active wildfire season, as inputs for models used to project ambient air concentrations of ozone through 2020. You can read all about […]
Review of November 3 PUC Hearing on HB 1365: Xcel Axes Coal, Environmentalist Plans
Review of November 3 PUC Hearing on HB 1365 Primer on the Many Implementation Plans that the PUC Is Considering Primer on HB 1365 Timeline of Implementation Plans Study on the Dubious Foundations of HB 1365 Archive of HB 1365 Posts Oped Last Week in Denver Daily News: Ritter’s Phantom Carbon Tax Xcel Identifies Which […]
Ritter's Phantom Carbon Tax
by William Yeatman and Amy Oliver Cooke Ratepayers can’t see it on their bill, and they won’t hear about it from Governor Bill Ritter. But a central component of his New Energy Economy is a big, hidden energy tax that makes customers pay for the controversial theory of global warming. In order to make Ritter’s […]
Running Timeline of HB 1365 Implementation Plan
August 13: Xcel filed its preferred emissions reductions plan (“plan 6.1E” or “preferred plan”). To read a brief summary of Plan 6.1E, click here. September 4: A group of independent power producers, electricity generators that compete with Xcel on the wholesale electricity market, challenged plan 6.1E, arguing that it is illegal because it included actions […]
Colorado’s Clean Air Clean Jobs Act Will Accomplish Neither
by Amy Oliver Cooke and William Yeatman The Colorado Public Utilities Commission (PUC), Xcel Energy, and Governor Bill Ritter colluded to fast track the misnamed Clean Air Clean Jobs Act (HB 1365), which effectively mandates coal-fired power plants to switch to natural gas. The trio essentially duped lawmakers into hasty passage of this bill. They […]
Update on PUC Hearings for H.B. 1365: It's Going To Be a Long Weekend for Xcel's Top Brass
The Public Utilities Commission this week held deliberations on Xcel’s implementation plan to meet H.B. 1365 (“The Clean-Air Clean Jobs Act”), legislation that effectively mandates fuel switching of 900 megawatts of electricity generation from coal power to natural gas. If you haven’t been following H.B. 1365, it’s a classic case of government picking and choosing […]
How Colorado Governor Bill Ritter’s New Energy Economy Is Like the Bowl Championship Series
On GQ’s blog, there’s an interesting interview with two acclaimed sports writers, about the Bowl Championship Series. As millions of Americans know well, the BCS is the complicated system that chooses a national champion in the billion dollar college football industry. There are more than 100 schools vying for the crystal football awarded to the […]
Colorado’s Great Green Deception
Colorado’s Great Green Deception: If HB 1001 Seems too Good to Be True, It’s Because It Is By William Yeatman and Amy Oliver Cooke Last March, Colorado Governor Bill Ritter (D) signed HB 1001, a mandate requiring investor- owned utilities to generate 30 percent of their electricity sales from renewable energy sources by 2020. The […]
The Real Cost of Being Green
by Amy Oliver and William Yeatman Gov. Bill Ritter and green energy advocates are selling Colorado a false bill of goods when it comes to the “New Energy Economy.” They claim the green energy agenda won’t burden consumers, but their interpretation relies on misleading accounting that hides billions of dollars in green energy costs. The […]