There is no “environmental justice” in Colorado Senate Bill 200. Crafted by state Sens. Faith Winter and Dominick Moreno and state Rep. Dominique Jackson in a back room with only the environmental community, SB 200 is bad climate policy, bad public policy and no friend of energy justice. Gov. Jared Polis is correct to promise a veto of this hot mess.
Reducing emissions and getting to a carbon-free world is hard and expensive. Keeping the lights and heat on while at the same time keeping rates reasonable is even harder. Most people cannot afford to replace their gas heat, stoves, or water heaters with electric appliances.
Reducing the emissions from the transportation sector is even harder because most people cannot afford an electric vehicle. Cost-effective electric trucks that can haul those goods over the mountains and across the plains are not available.
The sponsors ignore the important cost benefit feasibility and reliability analysis that the Public Utilities Commission does in the electric and gas sector. As a former commissioner on the PUC, I can attest to the detailed modeling and projections, as well as the vetting and cross-examination and analysis that is done at the PUC when they review clean-energy plans. There is no provision in SB 200 for the development of decarbonizing plans that would analyze costs, benefits and reliability. Instead, SB 200 requires the AQCC to adopt rigid rules by March 2022 and issue hefty fines for non-compliance. The AQCC will not be a mere “project manager.” The AQCC will become the economic czar of the state, deciding which business will survive and which will die.
The environmental groups that drafted SB 200 seem not to care one whit what costs this rigid rule making and fining approach will impose on ordinary citizens and businesses in Colorado. Instead, they propose a feel- good Environmental Justice Advisory Board to advise on the rule making of AQCC and conduct outreach. How does that help low-income households who will not be able to afford heat?
SB 200 will create another long-term debacle for communities with high poverty rates, just like Clean Air Clean Jobs did in 2008. Black Hills charges its residential customers 42% more than Xcel’s charges, because the Ritter Energy Office and the environmental groups required the closure of Black Hills coal plants and replacement with gas plants, even though Black Hills served only 90,000 customers. SB 200 would now mandate closure and replacement of those gas plants, even though they are less than 11 years old.
If the sponsors were interested in understanding the challenges and how to solve the problems, they would have included industry and the Governor’s Energy Office in the drafting. Instead, SB 200 just dictates that the emission goals must be met, sector by sector, and if one sector, such as the electric utilities, exceed their goals, that credit cannot benefit any other sector.
Senate Bill 200 blows up the historic climate package that was enacted in 2019 through Senate Bill 236 and House Bill 1261, which put the state on one of the most aggressive emission-reduction trajectories in the country — 25% reduction by 2025, 50% in 2030 and 90% by 2050, while at the same time prioritizing reliability and affordability and protecting workforce and local communities. That legislation included all the stakeholders and came up with a historic plan.
The sponsors pay lip service to “energy justice” with a committee that will use the funds generated from a carbon penalty to do something that sounds good.
SB 200, however, will undercut good-paying jobs, reasonable electric and gas rates, reliable and affordable transportation, and a robust economy in Colorado. But costs, benefits and reliability are hard to understand and to achieve. It is much easier to chase headlines.
Governor Polis is correct in opposing SB 200 and promising a veto. We should all be appreciative that he has his eye on long-term benefits for all Coloradans.
Frances Koncilja, an attorney, is a former commissioner on the Colorado Public Utilities Commission and now practices at Koncilja Energy Law and Policy LLC. She is representing Pueblo County in Public Service Company of Colorado’s pending Clean Energy Plan. A version of this originally appeared in the Denver Gazette.
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CU Boulder’s institutionalized racism infests football program
By Jon Caldara
Racial discrimination is repugnant. Period.
Our nation has made great strides during our nearly 250 years. And for that we should be proud, not ashamed. Too bad we’ve gone backward with government-sanctioned racial discrimination.
I was born the same year of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, raised with our shared goal of a colorblind society. Martin Luther King Jr. laid out that vision as clearly as John Kennedy set a goal of a man on the moon: to be judged on the content of our character, not the color of our skin.
Today’s identity politics is the most dangerous, hateful and ugly movement since slavery itself. To teach a child she is what the color of her skin is, not who she works to be, pollutes her and condemns her.
The Wall Street Journal recently shed light on this systematic racism at my alma mater, the University of Colorado, Boulder. With a simple open records request researchers found (to no one’s surprise) CU recruits and hires based on race. Those who check the BIPOC box (black, indigenous and people of color) get the benefit of CU’s institutional racism.
Not only is this a blatant violation of the Civil Rights Act, which CU turned a blind eye to, it teaches tens of thousands of students that, to get ahead professionally, they must embrace their victim identity.
I did find one department at CU turned its back to racial parity — athletics.
The Buffaloes head football coach Deion Sanders has brought a new excitement for the first time in a generation. This is likely because winning is more important to him than racial equity. To test this, I perused the team’s website to see how ethnically representative his department is compared to the state. After all, it is Colorado’s flagship university. Shouldn’t it “look” like Colorado?
I mean, in the other departments CU is using the same philosophy of the Los Angeles Fire Department’s Deputy Chief, and race-over-merit enthusiast, Kristine Larson. Defending her race-based hiring, she said, “You want to see someone that responds to your house, to your emergency — whether it’s a medical call or a fire call — that looks like you.”
I know when I had my heart attack my first concern was the racial and gender identity of the medical workers racing to save my life. That’s, that’s just normal.
Likewise, football fans also want to see players who look like them. That’s much more important to fans than anything merit-based, like winning games.
Addressing concerns female firefighters may not be strong enough to carry a man out of a burning building, Ms. Larson responded, “He got himself in the wrong place if I have to carry him out of a fire.”
If physical strength doesn’t matter in life-or-death situations like being trapped in a burning building, then why would it matter on something as trivial as a football game? The University of Colorado’s overpaid elite overlords obviously agree.
And that’s why I expected racial equity on Folsom Field.
Remember, according to the U.S. census, Colorado’s population is roughly 62% white, 12% black, 19% Hispanic and 6% Asian.
Odd, then, that at a cursory glance of the 46 pictured who make up Coach Prime’s staff only 16 appeared to be white. For those who received a Liberal Arts degree from CU, I’ll do the math for you. Only 21% of his staff is white. And only three, around 6%, are female.
The players he recruited also show no racial equity. Of the 99 players on the roster, it looks to me only 28 of them are white. Not to mention the institutionalized sexism CU obviously promotes — not a single chick on the team.
Here’s CU’s separate-but-equal race policy: On the field — use merit. Off the field — use Jim Crow (hire by skin color).
Sensing the political winds of change, CU just renamed its Office of Diversity to the Office of Collaboration. I’m sure those who made the change are equally supportive of President Donald Trump’s renaming of the Gulf of America. CU’s known for intellectual consistency.
There is no “reverse racism,” there is only racism. It’s foul and only made worse when perpetuated by your tax dollars. Oh, and if anyone in the victim-pimping industries care, it’s illegal.
Unless you want CU to force three times more white guys on its football team?

Are the energy problems facing Colorado a partisan issue? PowerGab Hosts Jake Fogleman and Amy Cooke have a conversation with Dave Thielen from Liberal and Loving It to see if there is a political consensus on the problems facing Colorado’s energy grid and what some possible solutions are.
Show Notes:
https://liberalandlovingit.substack.com
https://liberalandlovingit.substack.com/p/will-toor-executive-director-colorado
https://liberalandlovingit.substack.com/p/is-wind-energy-cheaper-than-gas

Transparency is a key to government accountability. Often judges have to order that public information become, well, public. How very odd then, that many judges refuse to follow transparency laws themselves. Retired Judge Dennis Maes explains.
