Lawmakers to Focus on Renewable Energy
By Charles Ashby, The Pueblo Chieftain, Colo.
Feb. 25–DENVER — Dozens of Colorado lawmakers are jumping on the renewable energy bandwagon, but not everything they’re proposing will make it into law.
Currently, the Colorado Legislature is considering 16 separate pieces of legislation aimed at boosting renewable energy development in the state. Among them is a measure that seeks to build new high-voltage transmission lines that would tie remote areas of the state such as Southwestern Colorado to the state’s power grid.
One of those bills, however, could be in trouble.
Sen. Ken Kester, R-Las Animas, and Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Yuma, managed to receive unanimous support in the Colorado House for their idea to create a new Renewable Energy and Infrastructure Authority, which would help renewable energy companies obtain bonding to build transmission lines around the state.
The measure, which has stalled in the Senate due to one Denver senator who wants to tinker with it, was introduced at the behest of Baca County commissioners, who have been frustrated at not being able to attract wind farms to their county because there is no way to get any generated power to the grid.
Despite its wide support in the House, and a favorable endorsement in Gov. Bill Ritter’s State-of-the-State address last month, state Sen. Chris Romer, D-Denver, says the bill needs work, and lots of it.
Romer, who’s carrying two of the renewable energy measures this year, is chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Colorado’s Energy Future, which is focusing on renewable sources.
At its first meeting last week, Romer said the panel will discuss everything from ethanol to clean coal to a myriad of ways of financing projects related to the subject, which includes creating an authority to help finance high-voltage transmission lines. Kester said he’s still hopeful his measure, HB1150, will reach the governor’s desk before the Legislature adjourns in May.
“As long as the bill is still there and on some kind of a schedule, I feel like we’re going to get the thing done,” Kester said last week. “I just want to make sure my bill passes as it is. We’ve just got to fight off all of these negative comments and keep it in the light of day.”
Romer has said he doesn’t oppose the measure, he just doesn’t think it goes far enough or does everything Kester and Gardner hope it will do.
Under it, the authority to be created would act as a stand-alone entity that does not use state funds or encumber the state in long-term debt.
It would give the authority power to issue revenue bonds so it could make loans or grants to build specific projects, such as the one Baca County would like to see.
Romer said the bill is too focused on wind power and not enough on other renewable energy sources. However, Kester said that’s the most immediate need.
He said Romer is free to expand the authority all he wants, but not at the expense of addressing the immediate needs of remote counties in order to attract the economic benefits that renewable energy plants can bring.
“We can put a couple of things in our bill and it wouldn’t hurt the bill,” Kester said. “But the main thing is, what the people down there want gets done . . . what we want left in there, not get clouded up,” Kester said. “The rest might be something we can talk about in another bill.”
Because Romer’s committee isn’t scheduled to begin discussing financing matters until late next month, Kester said he isn’t expecting to see much movement in his bill until after then.
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Copyright (c) 2007, The Pueblo Chieftain, Colo.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.
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