{"id":36101,"date":"2023-01-26T17:17:25","date_gmt":"2023-01-27T00:17:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/polis-administration-opposes-new-climate-targets-in-democratic-backed-bill\/"},"modified":"2023-01-27T00:17:25","modified_gmt":"2023-01-27T00:17:25","slug":"polis-administration-opposes-new-climate-targets-in-democratic-backed-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/polis-administration-opposes-new-climate-targets-in-democratic-backed-bill\/","title":{"rendered":"Polis administration opposes new climate targets in Democratic-backed bill"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Colorado
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis speaks at an event on climate and transportation policy at Denver\u2019s Union Station on Sept. 1, 2021. (Chase Woodruff\/Colorado Newsline)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

For the third legislative session in a row, an effort by Democratic lawmakers to beef up Colorado\u2019s approach to combating climate change is getting a cool reception from Gov. Jared Polis\u2019 administration and industry groups.<\/p>\n

Senate Bill 22-16<\/a>, introduced this month by Democratic Sen. Chris Hansen of Denver, received its first hearing in the Senate Transportation and Energy Committee on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The bill proposes a wide-ranging set of reforms aimed at speeding up the state\u2019s transition to clean energy, including changes to how carbon sequestration and electricity transmission projects are permitted. It would also commit Colorado to a net-zero greenhouse gas emissions target<\/a> for the first time, and set interim goals at five-year intervals between 2030 and 2050.<\/p>\n

Those targets are among the provisions in the bill that Polis administration officials expressed misgivings about in Wednesday\u2019s committee hearing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are concerned with the introduction of new greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets, specifically for the interim years and the change to the long-term 2050 target,\u201d Keith Hay, senior director of policy at the Colorado Energy Office, told lawmakers.<\/p>\n

He said that while the office supports interim targets in principle, state officials want more time to update their \u201croad map\u201d for emissions-cutting strategies and could return to the Legislature to propose interim targets by the end of the year. It\u2019s especially important, he said, for the state to study the potential impact of new federal tax incentive<\/a>s for clean-energy technologies like electric vehicles and home heat pumps.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is known, broadly, that transportation and buildings are going to be a challenge to decarbonize, and in part, that is because getting those emissions reductions requires individuals to make economic choices,\u201d Hay said. \u201cOne of the things that we really want to understand before we set targets is what the incentives \u2026 will mean to customers as they look at making those choices.\u201d<\/p>\n

A representative of Xcel Energy, Colorado\u2019s largest electric utility, echoed the administration\u2019s call to strip the new interim targets from the bill.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny new climate policy we adopt must allow our economy to continue to grow as we want it to, and not add additional costs to customers by forcing a transition before technology is available,\u201d Jeff Lyng, vice president of energy and sustainability at Xcel, told the committee.<\/p>\n

Few legal consequences<\/div>\n

For years, Polis, who won a resounding victory<\/a> to secure a second term in November, has clashed with Democrats<\/a> in the General Assembly over state climate policy, defending his administration\u2019s flexible and \u201citerative\u201d approach to cutting emissions. The conflict came to a head in a rare public spat in 2021, when the governor threatened to veto climate legislation<\/a> he said would give regulators \u201cnear-dictatorial control of our entire economy.\u201d<\/p>\n

By contrast, SB-16 \u2013 and a previous version that Hansen tried unsuccessfully to pass last year \u2013 would make no sweeping changes to the state\u2019s approach. As under current law, failure to meet the statutory emissions goals would trigger few specific legal consequences or enforcement mechanisms.<\/p>\n

In addition to permitting reforms, the bill would require large insurance companies operating in Colorado to better assess climate risk, and would direct the state\u2019s public pension plan, the Public Employees\u2019 Retirement Association, to report annually on climate-related risks in its portfolio. It also includes tax incentives for electric-powered lawn equipment.<\/p>\n

Committee members on Wednesday approved several minor amendments but left the bill\u2019s emissions targets intact, and advanced it on a 5-2 vote, with all Democrats in favor and both Republicans, Sens. Cleave Simpson of Alamosa and Byron Pelton of Cheyenne Wells, opposed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a lot here, and there\u2019s a reason for that \u2013 because there\u2019s a lot to do,\u201d Hansen said before the vote. \u201c(There are) a lot of different pieces in this bill, but I think they combine to make a very powerful step forward for the state.\u201d<\/p>\n

To read more stories from Colorado Newsline, visit www.coloradonewsline.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Colorado Senate bill also includes permitting reforms, incentives for electric lawn equipment<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36102,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[785,394,1030,28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-36101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-climate","tag-colorado-legislature","tag-environment","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36101\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36101"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=36101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}