Colorado has new climate goals etched into state law and a slew of new tax credits and programs to help get it there.
Gov. Jared Polis signed into law Thursday a package of bills that includes reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 100% come 2050, a program to automate and streamline local solar energy permitting, encourage geothermal heating and cooling and a tax credit package to incentivize more electric vehicles.
“It’s sort of one enormous package that, taken together, will help to clean the air, achieve our climate targets and save Coloradans money,” Will Toor, executive director of the Colorado Energy Office said.
In particular, Toor touted the new decarbonization tax credit law, HB23-1272, as “probably the single-largest investment the state of Colorado has made in climate action, clean energy, and consumer incentives.”
That bill creates some $200 million in tax incentives over the next several years to promote electric bicycle, car and truck purchases, as well as geothermal, heat pump, industrial clean energy and other initiatives.
At the trio of bill-signing events, Polis and sponsoring lawmakers all cited the necessity of the new laws to combat climate change in ways big and small.
The Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction Measures bill, SB23-016, for example, creates a 30% point-of-sale discount for new electric lawn equipment and snowblowers, while also giving state regulators authority over a class of injection wells. The latter provision sets the stage for state involvement in carbon capture.
“It’s going to take every tool in the toolkit for us to reach our climate goals,” state Sen. Chris Hansen, a Denver Democrat and sponsor on several of the climate bills, said. “We need to decarbonize every part of our economy and every part of our state.”
It even won a measure of support from the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, though its CEO also noted the role the industry will play in the state for decades to come. The group’s support included the state taking primacy of regulation from the federal government for some injection well regulation.
“We were encouraged to see the progress in (the bill) to foster energy development in Colorado rather than other initiatives that could diminish the competitiveness of our state,” Dan Haley, the association’s president and CEO, said in a statement. “… While the transition to renewable energy is Gov. Polis’ main objective, the reality remains that we will need oil and gas for decades to come.”
Polis also tied the efforts to more routine cost savings on utilities. HB23-1252 specifically aims to encourage geothermal energy usage, including at scale and from utility companies.
“My goodness, when we had our January and February (energy) bills, who wouldn’t want a low-cost reliable alternative that doesn’t fluctuate in cost because of the global commodities market?” Polis asked.
Thursday’s bill signing also included an effort more directly tied to utilities. Lawmakers formed a joint select committee — the first such committee in many years — this year in response to spiking utility bills this past winter. That bill, SB23-291, seeks to limit what ratepayers’ money can go toward.
“The utilities are just doing what the system allows them to do,” state Sen. Lisa Cutter, a Littleton Democrat and bill sponsor, said. “It’s our job not to uphold the status quo when the people that we represent are struggling to pay for something as basic as energy.”
Senate President Steve Fenberg, a Boulder Democrat, said the new law should have short- and long-term effects through things like making utilities have “skin in the game” with limits on being able to pass on all the fuel costs to consumers, spread out price shocks to consumers and how much legal fees and the like can be passed on to consumers.
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