Senate Bill 252 requires Tri-State Generation and Transmission to get 25 percent of its power from renewable energy by 2020. Tri-State supplies most rural electric cooperatives, and the co-ops currently have a 10 percent renewable power mandate by 2020.<\/p>\n
It passed the Senate 18-17, with two Democrats from Denver\u2019s northern suburbs joining all Republicans in opposition.<\/p>\n
Rural Republicans said the bill unfairly targets them to pay for pet Democratic projects.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy do you want to do this to my neighbors and me? Why take money from my family to give to your special-interest group friends?\u201d said Sen. Greg Brophy, R_Wray.<\/p>\n
And Sen. Ellen Roberts, R-Durango, repeatedly asked sponsors \u201cwhat planet\u201d they were on, saying Front Range lawmakers don\u2019t understand that Western Colorado is still in an economic crisis.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat planet is it where everything is unicorns and rainbows and everybody\u2019s OK again? Because that is not our reality,\u201d Roberts said.<\/p>\n
Urban utilities already have a higher standards. Xcel Energy, which serves Denver and many other Colorado locations, is on track to meet its 30 percent requirement within seven years.<\/p>\n
Tri-State says the bill will cost it \u2014 and its customers \u2014 $3 billion, but Democrats said Xcel\u2019s experience disproves Tri-State.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just nonsense,\u201d said Senate President John Morse, D-Colorado Springs, sponsor of the bill. \u201cXcel\u2019s been doing this for years. The state of Colorado has supported this for years.\u201d<\/p>\n
The bill caps price increases for consumers at 2 percent, the same cap as for Xcel. Recent increases in Xcel bills come from a large expansion at its Pueblo coal plant, not from wind or solar power, said Sen. Matt Jones, D-Louisville.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe coal plant is costing Xcel customers three times the renewables,\u201d Jones said.<\/p>\n
Another sponsor, Sen. Gail Schwartz, D-Snowmass Village, said the bill can bring jobs to rural Colorado. A Pagosa Springs biomass plant is waiting to get started turning beetle-killed trees into power, but it needs a utility to buy the power, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose are jobs. Those are people going in with trucks and chippers and saws,\u201d Schwartz said.<\/p>\n
Roberts, however, said she was upset at the attitude from Front Range Democrats.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is so frustrating to me that there is an assertion that you know better than us about what we can do,\u201d Roberts said.<\/p>\n
The bill appears to have a strong chance of passing. It is sponsored by the Legislature\u2019s top two Democrats, and an energy policy aide to Gov. John Hickenlooper said the administration supports it.<\/p>\n
Voters adopted the state\u2019s first renewable energy standard in 2004. Democrats and some Republicans expanded it under former Gov. Bill Ritter, but they put a lower mandate on rural cooperatives because of heavy opposition from the co-ops.<\/p>\n