Our state’s green-energy diehards — including their standard bearer, Gov. Jared Polis — face a heckuva dilemma.
On the one hand, they aim to deny Colorado consumers practical choices in the energy marketplace. No coal. Not even natural gas. The Polis administration’s revised green-energy “roadmap” envisions, among other goals, electricity generated only by renewables by 2040.
On the other hand, however, they fear achieving their goals. Though they wouldn’t admit it publicly, they realize alternative energy sources alone cannot meet the state’s energy needs.
In other words, their ideology may generate a lot of hot air, but they know it won’t heat your home.
As they bide their time trying to reconcile their blind faith with blunt reality, there is one thing they’re sure of: They don’t want anyone holding out hope for a more rational, less dogma-driven energy policy. That would be moving backward, in their estimation.
Hence, their attempt, as reported in the news last week, to monkey-wrench a citizens’ initiative that would do just that — move Colorado toward a more sensible approach to meeting our state’s energy needs. It would restore balance to energy policy priorities by allowing for choice.
That statewide ballot drive, authored by the advocacy group Advance Colorado, would let voters safeguard their right to natural gas in the state constitution. It would protect consumers’ right to buy and suppliers’ right to sell natural gas. The idea is to head off a state ban.
The proposal isn’t an overreaction. A de facto ban on natural gas in our state may sound like part of some dystopian, sci-fi story line, but it’s a real possibility.
Yes, our governor and his fellow Democrats in charge of the legislature want to snuff out the energy source that currently heats most Coloradans’ homes; cooks and grills many of their meals, and generates a third of their electricity. Natural gas is in fact the state’s top source of power generation.
Colorado is also the nation’s No. 6 producer of natural gas among the states, making the fuel a a major driver of our economy and a creator of high-paying jobs.
The governor’s office isn’t letting those awkward realities stand in the way. Through wide-ranging policies legislated at the governor’s behest and imposed through his public utilities commission, Polis hopes to make it impossible to use natural gas.
In so doing, the governor has staked out an extreme position in the debate over climate change. Advance Colorado’s initiative is trying to pull him back from the brink and onto a more moderate path.
Enter, Conservation Colorado. The environmental group, a Polis administration proxy on climate issues, recently whipped up four proposed ballot issues as a counterstrike to Advance’s energy-choice proposal.
The countermeasures — further turning the screws on oil and gas development by ratcheting up liability and other sanctions over real or imagined problems — are really intended as a diversion. The green group is employing an old political tactic, ginning up ballot issues for use as chess pieces in hopes of unnerving an adversary, whether or not there is enough money and support to get the proposals to the ballot.
Advance’s ballot proposal, by contrast, could gain real traction with the public — for instance, among Coloradans who appreciate functional heating in January — and that’s likely what Conservation Colorado fears.
Whichever side winds up winning voters’ hearts and minds, our lame duck governor, with less than a year to go in office, can be grateful he won’t be around to deal with the consequences.
He won’t have to face a public repudiation of his green agenda if Advance’s initiative prevails. And if, instead, his agenda continues to move forward — he won’t have to face all the Coloradans he has left in the dark.
Crdit Imgae: (iStock image)
