Hick: Sign bill on rural renewables

Overblown.

That’s how we would describe the visceral reaction to the Colorado General Assembly’s passage of new renewable-energy mandates for rural electricity providers.

Senate Bill 252, which passed the Legislature last week, is in the hands of Gov. John Hickenlooper for signature. The bill requires rural electrical cooperatives, including Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association and Intermountain Rural Electric Association, to generate 20 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2020, versus 10 percent today. For-profit companies such as Xcel Energy and Black Hills Energy already are required to achieve 30 percent renewables by 2020.

SB 252 passed the Legislature after an amendment that reduced the requirement from 25 percent to 20 percent. We believe the compromise was warranted, given the lower population of rural areas.

But the compromise was not enough for opponents, who argue that the requirement will drastically increase the cost of electricity for rural customers, even though the bill states that the standard is reduced if electricity costs would increase by more than 2 percent.

That’s a small price to pay for legislation that will generate jobs in the renewable-energy sector, reduce pollution and foster economic development. Those advantages don’t mesh well with an old narrative espoused by rural legislators: that the Front Range, principally the Denver area, tends to bully rural parts of the state.

This is not about bullying. It’s about increasing the state’s portfolio of renewable energy, thereby reducing pollution. That it will have the residual effect of creating jobs in the solar, wind and other renewable sectors is an added bonus.

This bill is a fair compromise, allowing rural areas to realize the same benefits as the Front Range.