{"id":46376,"date":"2021-06-07T17:10:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-07T23:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-governor-democrats-reach-deal-on-emissions-proposal\/"},"modified":"2021-06-07T23:10:00","modified_gmt":"2021-06-07T23:10:00","slug":"colorado-governor-democrats-reach-deal-on-emissions-proposal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-governor-democrats-reach-deal-on-emissions-proposal\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado governor, Democrats reach deal on emissions proposal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"The
The Craig Station coal-burning power plant in Moffat County is pictured Feb. 27, 2020. Tri-State Generation plans to close the plant by 2030. (Matt Stensland, Special to The Colorado Sun)<\/span>Matt Stensland, Special to The Colorado Sun<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A deal reached between Gov. Jared Polis and Democratic state lawmakers on an effort to track and reduce greenhouse gas emissions was finalized Monday, with much of the proposal staying intact despite weeks of protracted negotiations and a veto threat.<\/p>\n

House Bill 1266, a measure to create an environmental-justice task force, was amended in the Senate Finance Committee to include much of what was in Senate Bill 200, which was the focus of the intraparty debate among Democrats and will be killed.<\/p>\n

Polis threatened to veto SB 200, which would have placed the state\u2019s Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction Roadmap into law and give the Air Quality Control Commission oversight to enforce the mandates. The governor took issue with giving so much power to an unelected board, even though the panel\u2019s members are appointed by him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted 16 things,\u201d said Sen. Faith Winter, D-Westminster, who is a prime sponsor of both measures. \u201cI got 13.\u201d<\/p>\n

She called the 25-page amendment the \u201cbaby of Senate Bill 200.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Polis administration said it\u2019s pleased with the amendment, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe see this as an implementation bill that aligns with the strategies in the roadmap,\u201d said Will Toor, who leads the governor\u2019s Colorado Energy Office.<\/p>\n

The three major elements left out of HB 1266 were provisions giving the Air Quality Control Commission enforcement power across all polluting sectors and, more specifically, the ability to enforce reductions in the transportation and construction sectors.<\/p>\n

The transportation sector drives the most greenhouse gas emissions in Colorado.<\/p>\n

The amendment to HB 1266 would still allow the commission to track and enforce emissions reductions in the oil and gas, electric-utility, and industrial and manufacturing sectors. It would also create an environmental justice ombudsman position to field complaints related to pollution impacts on vulnerable communities.<\/p>\n

Specifically, the legislation would allow the commission to enforce these greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals by 2030:<\/p>\n

An 80% reduction by every electric utility that is not already required to file a plan to reduce emissions. Only Xcel Energy is currently required to file an emissions-reduction plan.<\/div>\n
A 60% reduction by the oil and gas industry.<\/div>\n
A 20% reduction by the industrial and manufacturing sectors.<\/div>\n

Toor said the Polis administration was uncomfortable with applying the traditional air-regulatory approach to transportation and construction, \u201cwhich are sectors where there\u2019s not an industry to regulate.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou want to reduce emissions from the oil and gas industry, it\u2019s relatively straightforward,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

While the Air Quality Control Commission won\u2019t have the power to enforce emissions reductions in the transportation sector, lawmakers changed SB 260, a sweeping transportation fee and spending bill awaiting Polis\u2019 signature, to require the Colorado Department of Transportation to consider emissions reductions in its long-term project planning.<\/p>\n

Colorado conservation groups, which were pushing hard for SB 200 to be passed as is, were part of intensive negotiations around the policy over the weekend. The groups believe HB 1266 will have meaningful enforcement provisions on timetables for setting emissions limits.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, we didn\u2019t get everything we wanted,\u201d said Joe Salazar, executive director of the liberal environmental group Colorado Rising and a former legislator. \u201cThose two other sectors are work for next year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Salazar said the environmental justice ombudsman position is crucial for the communities he represents, and that the enforcement sectors left out of this year\u2019s bill can be addressed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a lot of the environmental justice movement that forced Polis to come back to the table to negotiate, to the point that we are at today,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t think he understood how strongly we were going to challenge him.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Colorado Chamber of Commerce said it opposes HB 1266, saying it wasn\u2019t given much time to digest the 25-page amendment incorporating SB 200. The Colorado Rural Electric Association echoed those concerns.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow we\u2019re moving the goalposts,\u201d said Geoff Hier, director of government relations for CREA. \u201cThis is not fair. We will request proper time and review on this.\u201d<\/p>\n

HB 1266 passed out of the Senate Finance Committee on a 4-3 vote. It now heads to the Senate Appropriations Committee.<\/p>\n

The Colorado Sun is a reader-supported, nonpartisan news organization dedicated to covering Colorado issues. To learn more, go to coloradosun.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Environmental groups cheer changes, while business and energy sectors cry foul<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46377,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[944,2097,394,233,222,819,28,234],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-46376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-air-pollution","tag-air-quality","tag-colorado-legislature","tag-coloradosun-com","tag-environmental-pollution","tag-gov-jared-polis","tag-headlines","tag-pollution"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46376","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=46376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46376\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46376"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=46376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}