(Photo/Joy of the Mundane, Flickr)

Mike Kempe, who works at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, once again finds himself battling his fellow board members at the state’s largest rural electric association (REA) – the Intermountain Rural Electric Association (IREA) in Sedalia.

The co-op, which provides power to more than 140,000 member-owners in the suburbs east, west and south of Denver, has a long history of bitterly fighting most renewable energy and conservation rebate mandates, arguing such initiatives drive up electricity prices.

Earlier this month six of the seven elected board members approved a resolution (pdf) opposing state Rep. Claire Levy’s REA board election transparency bill (pdf), which requires very basic practices such as informing members of elections in time for candidates to get on the ballot; posting minutes of board meetings online; and allowing members to address the board during meetings.

Kempe voted against the resolution, which passed 6-1.

“The board is elected by the people, or at least it should be elected by the people,” Kempe said. “They’re representatives and they should be going out of their way to communicate what’s going on in a factual and unbiased manner, and that is lacking in our co-op.”

When Levy first announced plans to introduce HB 1098, IREA spokesman and former Republican state Sen. Williams Schroeder said the Boulder lawmaker was merely continuing her personal vendetta against the co-op.

“It’s more on the basis that we’re not supportive of her green-energy direction, and that’s what I’ve noticed coming from her in the past,” Schroeder said in a previous interview. “It’s more, just like it was last year, retaliation for us being very vocal about her trying to direct costs on energy.”

But since then the bill has earned the stamp of approval of the statewide organization representing most of the nonprofit REAs in the state – the Colorado Rural Electric Association (CREA).

One co-op, however, thought the bill was such a no-brainer that the CREA should do more than merely support it, and should actively promote its passage. The Delta Montrose Electric Association dropped out of the CREA over the matter, as well as what board members felt was an ongoing pattern of the CREA failing to endorse or at least advocate for renewable energy and conservation measures.

Kempe felt compelled to respond to the IREA resolution, which makes conspicuous note of his opposition. He posted a lengthy letter on the local blog pinecam.com spelling out what he deems misrepresentations in the resolution.

One of the points of contention in the resolution that was sent out to co-op members – a restriction against co-op publications during election periods – was actually removed from the bill and is not in the current version passed by the House and under consideration by the Senate.

“Especially in areas that are just barely on the outskirts of Denver, people just think that they belong to another [investor-owned] Xcel Energy, but a co-op is different because it’s actually owned by the members and we have a right to know what’s going on in the co-op,” Kempe said. “It’s the responsibility of the co-op management and the board of directors to communicate effectively what’s going on.”

Last April, three so-called “green” candidates lost board election bids, accusing incumbent IREA board members and staff of engaging in unfair campaign practices.

In his letter, Kempe spells out those allegations and makes it clear Levy’s bill would rectify the situation in future elections:

1. Members received no information about the election until after the deadline for candidacy had passed.
2. IREA management spent large sums of co-op money in advertising and for special mailings during the campaign that echoed the campaign messages of incumbent Board members.
3. The general manager personally funded the campaigns of the very board members who set his salary – a practice which in my opinion is patently unethical.
4. Ballots were knowingly enclosed in transparent envelopes, allowing members’ votes to be visible to IREA management.
5. Incumbent candidates were told when ballots would be mailed while challengers were denied this information. Non-incumbent candidates literally did not know when the election would be held.

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Union Carbide's toxic Uravan mill

Ahead of a House Transportation and Energy Committee hearing, various politicians, business owners and agricultural representatives advocated for House Bill 1348 (pdf), the so-called “Uranium Processing Accountability Act.”

The Western Mining Action Project and Energy Minerals Law Center, two groups active in watchdogging uranium mining claims and mill proposals in Southwest Colorado, helped spearhead the legislation, which would put stiff new state regulations in place governing uranium mine and mill cleanup, expansion and out-of-state processing.

Environment Colorado and Cañon City’s Colorado Citizens Against ToxicWaste (CCAT), which formed in 2002 to prevent Cotter Corporation from storing radioactive waste from New Jersey, approached Rep. Buffie McFadyen, D-Pueblo West, about the bill in response to Cotter announcing expansion plans last year.

Cotter has a long and messy history of uranium mining and milling pollution in the Cañon City area dating to the 1950s. The company also owns several mining claims in Montrose County and supports plans by the Canadian company Energy Fuels to open a new mill in the west end of that county.

Residents there and in nearby San Miguel County are worried a new uranium mining boom could lead to more highly toxic EPA Superfund Cleanup sites like the ones that have already cost taxpayers nearly a billion dollars for operations in Colorado alone. Transporting yellowcake uranium and milling materials like acid and other chemicals is another concern.

Proponents of the comparatively carbon-free nuclear power industry, including Colorado Sen. Mark Udall, maintain the state’s toxic past was born of ignorance about the dangers and new technology makes mining and processing much safer. State lawmakers clearly want more concrete assurances.

“Our number one goal as a legislature should be public safety,” Rep. McFadyen said in a release. “This no nonsense legislation ensures toxic waste cleanup and the health of our citizens.”

HB 1348 would require uranium operators to clean up existing problems before applying for expansion permits; allow local governments, the public and other stakeholders to provide input during the Colorado Department of Putlic Health and Environment’s annual reviews of cleanup financing; require uranium companies to notify residents with water wells near groundwater contamination; and require state licensing when companies accept “alternate feed,” or toxic waste from industrial or medical operations.

“Actions have consequences, and uranium companies need to clean up their mess,” said Sen. Ken Kester, R-Las Animas, another sponsor of the bill.

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Denver Post reporter Mike McPhee was discussing the bizarre case of Jamie Paulin-Ramirez, 31, of Leadville – arrested in Ireland in a plot to kill a Swedish cartoonist for depicting the Prophet Muhammad on the body of a dog – when he referred to Leadville as a “dirtball town” and “nothing to write home about.”

Leadville: FOX smeared

That prompted an apology from McPhee in the Leadville Herald Democrat and an invite from state lawmakers Rep. Christine Scanlan, D-Dillon, and Sen. Mark Scheffel, R-Parker, who represent Leadville, to join them for “A Day in a Dirtball Town” tour of the mining town-turned tourist spot.

“I feel terrible about it,” McPhee told the paper. “I grew up near Leadville. I wrote a book about the railroads’ race to serve Leadville. I’ve ridden my bike there, stayed at the Delaware Hotel, shopped at the antique stores.”

He went on to explain that the dirtball comment was a reference to the tailings piles scattered around town from Leadville’s mining past – a potential source of tourism that are their own wellspring of controversy. Former Colorado Independent reporter and Leadville resident Katie Redding was all over that story.

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Sen. Mark Udall (DenverJeffrey)

Glenwood Springs-based Holy Cross Energy, the state’s third largest rural electric co-op, and Carbondale-based Clean Energy Collective worked with Udall to come up with the SUN (Solar Uniting Neighborhoods) Act, which will extend the same 30-percent tax credit to community solar farms.

Groups of individuals or homeowner associations would be able to locate utility-scale solar power facilities on a piece of common ground in collaboration with local utilities that would distribute the power and credit owners based on their percentage of investment in the solar farm.

“In collaboration with Clean Energy Collective we are looking at an incredible opportunity to exponentially increase our installed capacity of renewable energy generation through the incorporation of large, utility-scale community system installations,” Casey said on press conference with reporters Wednesday.

Paul Spencer of Clean Energy Collective predicted a 67 percent increase in solar installation statewide over the next five years, or 80 megawatts of new solar generation based on project demand for community collective-style facilities.

Spencer said individual home, apartment or condo owners – or even renters – could invest as little as $500 in a co-owned solar farm and then be credited on their monthly power bill based on their percentage of ownership.

Currently, a major barrier to solar installation is the $10,000 to $15,000 cost of installing a home photovoltaic (PV) system – offset somewhat by the 30-percent credit, but still a significant expense.

“These projects have the potential to drastically increase the adoption of clean energy nationwide, but the tax code hasn’t kept up,” Udall said. “You can get a 30-percent tax credit for putting a solar panel on your house, but not for investing in a solar farm.”

Udall said he’ll either piggyback the bill with climate-change legislation being crafted in the Senate, or add it as an amendment to another energy or tax bill this session.

In the Colorado state House, Rep. Claire Levy, D-Boulder, has introduced a bill that would require the Public Utilities Commission to rewrite rules to direct investor-owned utilities such as Xcel Energy to offer rebates for community solar gardens.

HB 1342 (pdf) is set for further House debate March 19.

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Hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” is the process of injecting water and sand, treated with undisclosed chemicals, into natural gas wells under extremely higher pressure. Used in an estimated 90 percent of the wells in Colorado, fracking breaks open tight underground geological formations and frees up more gas.

Critics of the process say it can lead to contamination of groundwater supplies despite extensive drilling safeguards meant to prevent such problems. DeGette’s bill would remove a 2005 exemption for process under the Safe Drinking Water Act, which was granted during the Bush administration and dubbed by the left the “Haliburton Loophole” after the drilling services company that perfected widely used fracking techniques.

In Colorado, governments and state agencies are split on the need for federal legislation, and industry representatives maintain the process is totally safe, easily handled by state regulators and that any evidence of drinking water contamination – including incidents in which streams have actually become flammable – is purely anecdotal.

The EPA reviewed various studies on fracking in 2004, a process discredited in some circles, and concluded it did not present a major public health threat, but recent EPA tests in neighboring Wyoming and other areas have led to increased concern, especially as the process became more and more popular in recent years.

“We commend EPA for investigating this controversial gas drilling technique,” Earthjustice legislative associate Jessica Ennis said in a release. “From Wyoming to Pennsylvania, people are worried about what this untested process is doing to their drinking water.”

The Colorado Oil and Gas Association did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Here’s DeGette’s statement:

“I applaud EPA’s decision to undertake a comprehensive study of the potential environmental impacts of hydraulic fracturing. Such an effort has never truly been done. In 2004, EPA conducted a review of the issue that stopped short of the full scientific assessment and independent analysis that is required.

“This study may be a challenge, given that companies are not currently required to disclose the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing fluids. But it will be a significant step in ensuring that our nation’s drinking water supply is protected. I look forward to working with EPA to provide the resources it needs to conduct a full evaluation of this important issue.”

Josh Penry

But it’s also worth noting Penry, a frequent critic of Ritter’s “New Energy Economy,” was not quoted in a release Tuesday from the governor’s office touting the Colorado Clean Air-Clean Jobs Act, which will require Xcel Energy to mothball or retrofit several of its coal-fired power plants on the Front Range so they use cleaner-burning fuel.

Several natural gas industry representatives were quoted in the release, including the head of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association (COGA), because most of the retrofitting would involve conversion to natural gas, which burns about 50 percent cleaner than coal but can be more expensive and sees greater price fluctuations. But Colorado is much more of a gas state than a coal state, and Penry’s Western Slope is gas central.

Co-sponsor Penry did, however, talk about the bill with the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, telling veteran political reporter Charles Ashby it’s a “game-changer,” not only for natural gas production on the Western Slope, but for air quality on the Front Range.

Still, the former gubernatorial candidate stopped short of lauding the bill’s potential benefits in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and getting the state out ahead of looming federal climate change legislation or U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulations limiting those emissions under the Clean Air Act.

“They’re going to convert about 900 megawatts of coal-fired power production in aging plants in the Denver area to natural gas,” Penry told Ashby. “It is a tough issue in part being driven by major haze issues, but for natural gas and for the industry and all the jobs, it increases natural gas production in the state by about 15 percent, so it’s a big deal.”

Penry also told the Sentinel he was able to make sure the bill will “focus more on jobs than on carbon reduction, saying that should be its real focus.”

COGA President Tisha Conoly Schuller clearly got the memo, keeping her quote in the Ritter release focused on jobs: “The natural gas industry is poised and ready to contribute to Colorado’s clean energy mix with abundant, local natural gas resources. This bill provides the opportunity for Colorado to use a natural gas infrastructure that is in place and operating below capacity to create jobs and increase state and local tax revenues.”

COGA is suing to overturn Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission drilling regulations passed by the legislature last spring and backed by the Ritter administration that put more emphasis on air and water quality, public health and wildlife habitat. Penry has been a frequent and strident critic of those new regs, calling them a job-killer on the Western Slope, despite the fact that any job-killing has been the work of the recession and its impact on gas prices.

“Those protections against drilling are just vital, just critical, and that’s one reason we as a conservation community were so excited to support them and worked so hard for their passage, because we just have to make sure natural gas drilling is done right and that there are just some places it’s not appropriate to drill, period,” Pete Maysmith, executive director of Colorado Conservation Voters, told the Colorado Independent.

Penry, a former congressional staffer for GOP gubernatorial frontrunner Scott McInnis, backed a political nonprofit group called the Western Skies Coalition in an effort to win back lost GOP seats by spinning Republican state Senate candidates to seem more green.

“Any time you get an odd bedfellows coalition of interests together like this people are going to have different interests and different motivations and that’s often what can lead to exciting and diverse coalitions and really important policy,” Maysmith said.

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McInnis leaving messages (McInnis for Governor)

Before he had even filed his paperwork to run for governor, the former six-term GOP congressman from Colorado’s Western Slope left a voicemail for a potential campaign contributor referring to a 527 group set up by Republican political operative Sean Tonner.

Late last year, McInnis campaign director George Culpepper resigned, later phoning a Montana newspaper to tell them he still supported McInnis but quit to “form Western Skies, a political strategies organization based in Colorado.”

Tonner, president of the conservative lobbying firm Phase Line Strategies, in 2008 registered the Western Skies Coalition, a 501(c)4 nonprofit “dedicated to promoting issues that make our nation great.” Western Skies drew criticism from the left for trying to “green wash” Republican state Senate candidates in ad campaigns during that election cycle that painted them as pro-environment.

“We’ve got Sean Tonner on board. Sean’s doing our 5-uh, or a 527,” McInnis said on the infamous voicemail first posted on the Complete Colorado website in April of 2009. “We’ve got lots of support in the oil and gas industry.”

Luis Toro, director of Colorado Ethics Watch, said candidates rarely acknowledge any connection to 527 groups – political organizations named for a section of the IRS tax code – or 501(c)4 nonprofits because it’s considered a coordinated expenditure and therefore a campaign donation that can violate contribution limits.

“Candidates generally never want to coordinate with these outside groups, and it was really kind of a shocking statement for those of us who follow these things to hear a candidate on a voicemail even to someone he thought was a supporter saying, ‘Sean Tonner’s running our 527,’” Toro said.

In 2008, the Western Skies Coalition was linked to a veritable who’s who of Republican politicians and political operatives with deep ties to Colorado’s oil and gas industry, including former Gov. Bill Owens and state lawmakers Josh Penry and Cory Gardner. The group promoted the Energy Leadership Action Plan Pledge, which called for a more “balanced” emphasis on oil, gas and coal.

“[McInnis] said Sean Tonner is setting up our 527, so maybe he was talking about Western Skies,” Toro said. “And then when his former campaign manager [Culpepper] quits or leaves and goes to run that very same organization, that’s a red flag, so we’re certainly going to be watching this closely.”

None of the lawmakers involved with the group and contacted by the Colorado Independent would discuss its funding sources, but it reportedly raised nearly $400,000 in its stated pursuit of “removing limits on new oil and gas exploration, restructuring the burdensome requirements placed on energy production in the United States and supporting the research of renewable energy.”

McInnis, an attorney for a Denver law firm that does extensive work for the oil and gas industry, has been campaigning on a platform that would roll back Gov. Bill Ritter’s more environmentally stringent oil and gas drilling regulations. He also has provided lip service to the renewable sector, but, like Penry and Gardner, is a staunch opponent of Ritter’s “New Energy Economy.”

Western Skies was briefly inactive but filed an annual report in August of 2009 and is now listed under the business section of the Colorado Secretary of State’s website as a nonprofit corporation in good standing.

In a press release announcing the formation of Western Skies in late 2007, Tonner announced former Gov. Owens, also a former oil and gas lobbyist, and former U.S. Secretary of Education and George H.W. Bush drug czar Bill Bennett would serve on the executive committee. Tonner is Owens’ former chief of staff, and Owens’ daughter, Monica, works for Phase Line.

“I thought [McInnis’s 527 voicemail] was especially shocking, and from a longtime congressman who’s run lots of campaigns it just seemed like one of those, Really, did he just say that? kind of moments,” said Pete Maysmith, executive director of Colorado Conservation Voters.

“It certainly indicates [McInnis] and the folks on his team are thinking along those lines; otherwise I don’t know why it would come out of his mouth. So does it make us go, Hmmm, that’s something we need to be on the watch for? Absolutely. Of course.”

McInnis spokesman Sean Duffy did not return calls requesting comment; Culpepper could not reached for comment; a phone number listed on the Western Skies website has been disconnected; and a message left for Tonner at Phase Line Strategies in Highlands Ranch was not returned.

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McInnis, a former six-term U.S. congressman born and raised in Glenwood, showed up among a bevy of statewide candidates and GOP political strategists, but he also was there for the announcement by former Glenwood Springs City Councilman David Merritt that he’ll run for the Garfield Board of County Commissioners in November.

Scott McInnis

Merritt will square off against Sunlight Mountain Resort ski area manager Tom Jankovsky in a primary, with the winner taking on entrenched Democrat Trési Houpt, who is running again after deciding last month not to seek the local state House seat after Gunnison’s Kathleen Curry switched from Democrat to independent late last year.

Houpt, appointed by Gov. Bill Ritter to the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission and a strong backer of environmental and public health regulations, is often the lone dissenting vote on the three-member board of county commissioners in gas-rich GarCo.

McInnis, in fact, donated a cool 10 grand to a political nonprofit called Western Heritage that campaigned in favor of Houpt’s two Republican co-commissioners, John Martin and Mike Samson, in 2008. The head of Denver-based Antero Resources also chipped in for that cause.

Houpt has said all along she expects to have a double bull’s eye on her back because of her position on the COGCC and the GarCo board, although McInnis spokesman Sean Duffy told the Colorado Independent in January that the county commissioner race was not on the McInnis campaign radar at that point.

After Saturday’s dinner, it may have just jumped on their screen.

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But Penry, one of the main Senate sponsors, clearly sees a bump for his district’s languishing natural gas industry if the plan becomes law. First unveiled earlier this month, the bill, which has the backing of utility heavyweight Xcel Energy, would cut nitrogen oxide emissions at Xcel coal-fired plants by up to 80 percent over the next eight years by retrofitting or shuttering several metro-area plants.

Not surprisingly, natural gas industry officials love the idea because the Xcel plants would have to be retrofitted to use mostly gas, which is produced in abundance in Colorado and burns 50-percent cleaner than coal. And the goal of the bill is to get Colorado out ahead of more stringent EPA rules that will penalize greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act.

Potential pitfalls include the volatility of gas prices compared to coal, and the ongoing environmental concerns about the impacts of natural gas drilling on air and water quality, especially on the state’s Western Slope.

Penry, joined in the House by gas-patch Rep. Ellen Roberts, R-Durango, supports Ritter’s bill for fairly transparent reasons. Switching from coal to gas in Colorado means lower emissions and more drilling jobs on the Western Slope.

But Penry hasn’t always been so transparent in his relentless support for oil and gas industry interests. While simultaneously blasting any Obama administration initiatives aimed at addressing environmental concerns on public lands, Penry also has been behind groups like the Western Skies Coalition, a nonprofit set up to green wash Republican candidates and attack any new enviro regs as anti-gas, anti-jobs.

Ritter, lawmakers and other experts were slated to testify on the merits of the bill before the House Transportation and Energy Committee later this morning.

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That way the actual constituents of such Dems – like Colorado’s John Salazar, CD3, and Betsy Markey, CD4 – can’t get through to them to let them know how they feel, one way or the other.

According to the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, CD3 residents on the Western Slope were upset last week that they couldn’t get through to a live voice or even voice mail at any of Salazar’s various offices, perhaps in part due to efforts of Tea Party talking heads like Michelle Malkin on FOX News, who’s been calling for a concerted calling campaign.

“We have a voice mailbox specifically set up for people who want to leave comments for the congressman, but 95 percent of those have been from out of state,” Salazar field representative Gail Gnirk told the Sentinel. “They spill over into everybody else’s voice mail, but I try to go through those every 20 minutes. It’s become impossible to do. I found six conservative Web sites that are telling people to call this office directly.”

It’s the kind of thing likely to draw right-wing activist and suspected break-in felon James O’Keefe to one of the “people’s offices” to see if the phones need fixing.

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