“In my 15 years on this subcommittee, we have forged a strong bipartisan tradition of thorough and meaningful investigations. That could have been the case with the Solyndra investigation,” DeGette said today at a subcommittee meeting on oversight and investigations. “We have here a $525 million loan guarantee made with taxpayer funds that went bad. We need to learn the circumstances of the original deal as the restructuring. We need all the facts, all the witnesses, all the documents. Sadly, after seeing the Majority’s conduct of this investigation, I do not believe they share this goal.”

The subpoena authorization is an unprecedented move for the committee, DeGette noted, stressing that the Obama administration has already turned over 85,000 pages of documents related to Solyndra.

“I believe the majority’s action in moving forward with a subpoena resolution today is an act of irresponsible partisanship,” she said. “The Committee has every right to seek and obtain relevant information from the White House to advance its legitimate oversight needs. But a subpoena to the White House is a serious step in a congressional investigation. And it is a step that should be taken only after alternative avenues have been exhausted. We clearly do not face those circumstances today.”

Colorado’s congresswoman was among the first to seek an investigation into the Solyndra loan guarantee after the solar company in Fremont, Calif., flamed out in August. A grim macroeconomic climate, excess capacity, European subsidy cuts and competition from China all factored in its demise.

Meanwhile, Americans for Prosperity — an anti-tax group partly founded and funded by conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch — is spending $2.4 million on television commercials in Florida, Michigan, New Mexico and Virginia attacking Obama over Solyndra and his ties to clean energy.

“Wealthy donors with ties to Solyndra give Obama hundreds of thousands of dollars,” the one-minute ads say. “What does Obama give them in return? Half a billion in taxpayer money to help his friends at Solyndra — a business the White House knew was on the path to bankruptcy, but loaned them the money anyway. … Now Solyndra is bankrupt and taxpayers are stuck with the bill.”

The ads end with an allegation the president is using taxpayer money for “political favors.”

The link between money and politics is indeed hard to ignore, especially when examining the actions of the Republican congressmen on the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Koch Industries and its employees — who help operate Americans for Prosperity — contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to the majority of the committee’s Republicans. Koch Industries is grounded in the oil and gas business and is the largest energy donor to members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

U.S. Rep. Cory Gardner, R- Colo., is the biggest beneficiary of the Kochs’ campaign contributions in Colorado, raking in upwards of $315,000 from Koch-funded organizations in the 2010 and 2012 election cycles, according to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and other sources.

Gardner, who sits on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, voted in favor of the White House subpoena. Committee Chairman Fred Upton, R-Mich., who is leading the charge in the Solyndra investigation, received a maximum $5,000 contribution from Koch Industries in this election cycle.

DeGette said Upton’s rhetoric has become “inflammatory,” “brazenly inaccurate,” and proof that any objective review of the Solyndra situation has deteriorated into a conspicuous “political sideshow.”

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The 2010 SEPA Utility Solar Rankings report produced by the Solar Electric Power Association (SEPA) ranked Xcel fourth out of 230 utilities surveyed in the solar megawatts-per-customer category, which measures solar power added per customer served. Xcel also moved up to fifth (from 14th) in SEPA’s rankings of utilities based on overall megawatt capacity of solar power.

“Solar energy will continue to play a role in Xcel Energy’s future as we move toward meeting a renewable energy goal of 30 percent by 2020,” said Jay Herrmann, Xcel’s vice president of marketing, referring to a renewable energy standard mandated by the State Legislature in 2010.

SEPA President and CEO Julia Hamm said the association’s survey found a 100 percent increase in solar capacity added in 2010 compared to 2009, largely because of the efforts of utilities such as Minnesota-based Xcel.

“Xcel Energy has developed creative business models and approaches that are appropriate for its environment and that bring the benefits of solar power to its operations, its customers and our society,” Hamm said.

But critics of the utility continue to complain that Xcel’s sudden and unexpected curtailing of its Solar Rewards rebate program earlier this year cost Colorado’s solar sector hundreds of jobs since mid-February.

“Xcel’s actions have been alarmingly destructive to Colorado’s economy,” Neal Lurie, executive director of the Colorado Solar Energy Industries Association (CSEIA), recently told the Denver Business Journal. The group estimates the slashing of Solar Rewards has cost nearly 600 jobs.

Udall says the Renewable Energy Access through Leasing (REAL) Act would be paid for by charging premiums for companies to participate in the insurance program and would come with zero cost to taxpayers.

Sen. Mark Udall

“The REAL Act is a creative, bipartisan solution to cutting the prohibitive costs of greening Colorado homes by offering wider leasing options for residential projects,” Udall said in a release.

“Making renewable energy more affordable for more Coloradans shifts our country’s reliance on fossil fuels toward cleaner sources that create lasting jobs within our state’s burgeoning renewable energy industry and pump dollars directly into our economy,” he added.

Udall is hitting the road in Colorado on Friday, visiting New Earth Pellets in Silver Plume – a company making wood pellets for pellet stoves out of beetle-killed pine trees – and the Teva Mountain Games in Vail.

With a mountain biking competition on Vail Mountain as the backdrop, Udall will be promoting a summer ski area recreation bill he introduced to expand the types of outdoor recreation allowed at ski areas that are typically located on leased U.S. Forest Service land. Udall, who tried similar legislation last session, says the bill is needed to ensure a more year-round economy at the state’s ski resorts.

Also on Friday, Udall will visit the new Walking Mountains Science Center in Avon, which will offer field-based natural science programs to more than 6,000 Eagle County school children.

Two days after a conservative group filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Denver challenging Colorado’s renewable energy standard (RES), Colorado Sen. Mark Udall – who was instrumental in getting voter approval for that RES back in 2004 – introduced a bill with his cousin Tom Udall, D-N.M., to establish a national standard.

Sen. Mark Udall

The Udalls’ latest bill would require utilities to generate 25 percent of their electricity from wind, solar and other renewable energy sources by 2025. Colorado’s RES, first approved by voters in 2004 at the 10 percent by 2020 level, has since been legislatively increased to 30 percent by 2020.

The latest Udall bill would require utilities nationwide to generate 6 percent of their power from renewable energy sources by 2013, followed by gradual increases up to 25 percent by 2025. Including Colorado and New Mexico, 29 states and the District of Columbia currently have some sort of RES.

“I was proud to lead the effort in Colorado to pass one of the country’s first Renewable Electricity Standards – and it has helped the state create over 30,000 new good-paying jobs and spurred the growth of one of the strongest renewable energy sectors in the country,” Mark Udall said in a release.

“We can do the same thing across the country with a robust national RES. A national RES would unleash innovation, helping America compete for renewable energy manufacturing jobs and lead in the global economic race.”

A recent PEW Environment report revealed the United States has dropped to third behind China and Germany in renewable energy investment.

The Udalls first introduced a RES in 2002 while members of the House. They later built a coalition in the House that won passage of a national RES amendment in 2007, but it died in the Senate. When both were elected to the Senate, they introduced another national RES bill in 2008.

“Americans want to put our nation on a path towards energy independence, and this bill is our best chance to get America running on homegrown energy while creating good jobs for hardworking Americans,” Tom Udall said in a release.

“Studies show that a federal RES would reduce energy bills, revitalize rural America, slow global warming and strengthen our energy security. With American innovation and ingenuity, we can put our people to work in a thriving, clean energy economy.”

While the bill may be able to make it out of the Senate – although even that isn’t a certainty – it has almost no chance in the Republican-controlled House. A climate change bill made it out of the then Democrat-controlled House last year but later died in the Senate.

Last week Mark Udall introduced a resolution in support of the Clean Air Act, which the GOP-controlled House – including members of the Colorado delegation — has been trying to dismantle in order to prevent the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from regulating greenhouse gas emissions as a form of air pollution. The resolution was signed by 33 other senators and makes it clear that any anti-EPA bills that make it out of the House will likely die in the Democrat-controlled Senate.

Louis Bacon

The website Real Aspen, in an email interview with Bacon Friday, reported Minnesota-based Xcel – Colorado’s largest utility – is so lucrative that it has become his hedge fund’s largest utility holding.

“I am expecting their guaranteed profit earnings machine will pay for my legal fees irrespective of the success of their [San Luis] Valley project,” Bacon wrote in an e-mail to Real Aspen Friday to explain Moore Capital’s purchase of 2,335,000 shares of Xcel in the fourth quarter of 2010 . “They are in a no-lose position in most states — if this is what the regulatory structure is why not benefit from it?”

More from Real Aspen:

“Despite his hedge fund’s financial stake in Xcel, the owner of the 171,400-acre Trinchera Ranch, which Bacon bought from Steve Forbes for $175 million in 2007, isn’t done fighting Xcel. Bacon’s land sits alongside Blanca Peak, the state’s third-highest mountain, and he wants to keep the region pristine.

“Bacon, a strong skier who regularly visits Aspen, is using his investor know-how to expose Xcel’s greed, which he says is buoyed by the Colorado Public Utilities Commission’s lax regulatory oversight.

“Xcel maintains new power lines are needed to re-enforce the reliability of the existing power grid in the San Luis Valley. The utility originally dressed the proposal in green, asserting the lines would transport solar energy from sun-drenched southern Colorado to the bustling Front Range. Xcel has since backed off its headier environmental claims and no longer has to use the new lines for cleaner forms of energy.

“Bacon and other residents in the area are calling for more transparency in Colorado’s utility regulatory decision-making and they have proposed alternative routes for the location of any new power lines.”

The San Luis Valley, for instance, seems ideal for soaking up abundant sun, converting it to power and sending it off to Front Range cities. Land is cheap, it’s flat, wide open and a virtual high-altitude desert blasted by seemingly ceaseless sunshine. But it’s in remote southern Colorado, far from the major metropolitan centers.

That’s led to an epic battle between billionaire hedge fund manager Louis Bacon, owner of the sprawling 171,400-acre Trinchera Ranch, and Xcel Energy and Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association – utilities that want to run power lines across Bacon’s land. Environmentalists, for the most part, back the utilities.

In case you missed it, Denver Post reporter Jason Blevins did a great job framing the conflict earlier this week.

“One side of the environmental clash paints the 54-year-old hedge-fund-managing land baron and conservationist as a natural-resource champion protecting one of the state’s last unspoiled ranches. The other sees a deep-pocketed NIMBY guarding his own private Eden and thwarting Colorado’s pioneering push for statewide solar energy.”

But make no mistake, there’s plenty of grassroots opposition to the San Luis Valley becoming the state’s new energy industrial center. Check out this recent article on the Colorado Energy News website.

There’s also a broader argument about utility-scale solar – essentially multi-megawatt power plants – versus more distributed generation (home solar and small-scale projects on public buildings and in community “solar gardens.” But some say Xcel and Tri-State frown on developing too much of that capacity because it cuts into their monopolies.

Meanwhile, Bacon seems to be digging in and lawyering up more and more by the day. More from the recent Post article:

“Bacon’s Colorado full-press PR campaign to highlight alternative routes for the transmission line is far reaching. Superstar crooner Sting this summer visited the Denver Art Museum and paused to gaze at a painting of Trinchera’s Mount Blanca, on loan to the museum by Bacon. As if on cue, Sting told a gallery of invited reporters he’d be ‘very upset if there was a huge system of power lines in front of it.’

“’It’s so bizarre to defend ourselves from this big rock-star guy,’ an Xcel spokesman said. ‘It is unusual for us to deal with a landowner who hires his own PR firm and bevy of lawyers.’”

Welcome to the New Energy Economy.

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The Sierra Club is determined to reduce U.S. oil dependence. (Flickr, The Sierra Club)

The Sierra Club is in the process of trying to answer that question. For the past six months, it has worked on a massive study on how to reduce the United States’ oil dependence in an economically and environmentally beneficial way. The group is also building a coalition of environmental advocates and lawmakers to support the project, which will quantify potential oil-use reductions across every industrial sector.

“Over the next 20 years, how steep can we make cuts in oil consumption while allowing the economy to flourish and while creating more jobs rather than penalizing individual workers or communities?” Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune asked. “So, this will be a major priority of the club over the next several years — to build a broad based coalition of organizations and elected officials who will want to stand up for a very thoughtful and pragmatic, but visionary and aggressive plan to get off oil.”

Brune, who took over his post just one month before the oil spill started, recently sat down for an interview with me. He outlined the organization’s oil study, talked about the prospects for energy legislation and previewed the upcoming mid-term elections.

Here is an edited-down version of our talk:

What is the major issue going forward for the Sierra Club right now?
Our top issue remains fighting climate change in a way that increases the availability of clean energy like solar and wind, while also improving the public health benefits associated with decreasing our reliance on fossil fuels.

Is the focus now on Environmental Protection Agency regulations, Congress or both?
I would say both for sure. We see great opportunity in EPA rulemakings to increase public health benefits by forcing utilities in particular to account for the cost of their pollution. A top priority right now is organizing around EPA’s hearings on coal ash, to make sure that coal ash is treated as a hazardous waste. But, over the next couple of years, we’ll be looking at a whole series of rulemakings, many of which are focused on stationary sources like coal plants, but we’re also looking at EPA rulemakings to cut our dependence on oil.

Is there a serious concern about challenges to EPA’s regulatory authority under the Clean Air Act going forward?
Yeah, certainly many threats have been made to EPA’s authority to act under the Clean Air Act, attempts either to gut the Clean Air Act or eliminate EPA’s authority. So, we’re taking those threats very seriously. We also think that should there be a public debate about these issues that the public overwhelmingly supports strong, effective and cost-effective regulations that have come out of the EPA for the last 40 years under the Clean Air Act. We think there’s broad public support for retaining its authority.

In terms of Congress, it doesn’t seem that anything is going to happen on cap-and-trade any time soon. Is that your thinking as well?
Well, you know, I think it is difficult to predict too far into the future. We think Congress should act. We know that members were put into office with the expectation that there would be a meaningful, substantive response to climate change and that Congress would enact laws that would put a down payment on scaling up clean energy. So, we know that the demand is there. But whether or not senators in particular will respond remains to be seen.

Putting aside cap-and-trade, there’s been talk of a narrower energy bill. It looks like Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) and Sen. Brownback (R-Kans.) are introducing a renewable energy standard that they are hoping to get passed. Is there a specific RES target that you would like to see or is it that the policy needs to move forward as soon as possible?
Well, let me make a general point. There was far too much of a focus earlier this spring on a single bill to address climate change economy-wide. And, in reality, there are dozens of things that Congress can do to fight climate change and to increase energy security in the country. In regards to this particular RES bill, our focus is primarily on keeping it clean. We want to see a renewable energy standard that is focused on truly clean energy and doesn’t have absurd giveways to nuclear power or so-called clean coal or any one of the other handful of options. And then of course to increase those investments as quickly as possible.

Is there a number that’s being thrown around among your members now?
Yeah, but it’s not something I really want to discuss in the public right now.

What other things are you focusing on in Congress?

I’d say the top thing is a plan to get off oil. We just experienced the largest environmental disaster in our country’s history and in response, Congress has done nothing. There’s not even a plan to fully reform what used to be called MMS and there’s not yet a plan to hold oil companies fully accountable and to lift the liability cap. And most importantly, there’s no effective plan right now to significantly reduce our dependence on foreign oil. So, if there’s one thing that Congress can do in the next couple of months, it would be to challenge the oil industry and deliver us a plan to get off oil.

It’s been sort of an uphill battle trying to get an oil spill response bill to pass, something that is incredibly popular with the American people. And you’re right, it seems like the bill is getting held up on this idea of liability, whether or not an oil company should be held 100 percent liable for spilling thousands of gallons of oil into the ocean. What are your thoughts on that?
We shouldn’t be privatizing the gain and sharing the risk with the public. If oil companies are going to be benefiting from oil drilling, they also have to be able to absorb any of the risks associated with drilling.

Do you expect that Congress will pass an oil spill bill this year?
We do.

I wanted to also touch on the mid-term elections. It’s on everybody’s mind right now. What is the Sierra Club doing in terms of working with individual candidates?
So, there’s lots that we’re doing. The Sierra Club has 1.4 million members and supporters, so over the next several weeks, a big job of ours will be to educate our supporters about what’s at stake Nov. 2., trying to get people out to the polls and to engage our members to become volunteers. So, the Sierra Club endorses specific candidates.

We get very heavily involved in local and state propositions. Arguably our biggest priority this year is to defeat Prop 23, which would undermine the Global Warming Solutions Act, AB32, that was passed in California a few years ago. With that, we’re doing a massive voter mobilization drive. Individual members will be calling voters to encourage them to get out. We are also part of a coalition of groups that is doing advertising, thought we’re not doing any ourselves.

Are there any other races that are of particular concern for you?
We’re looking at the Senate races in Nevada and Missouri. Obviously, Harry Reid has been excellent in fighting the coal industry as well as supporting big investments in clean energy. We are also looking at the Florida race. Democratic Senate candidate Meek has a 100 percent League of Conservation Voting score. He’s been strongly in favor of Florida’s solar bills as well as the ban on offshore oil drilling. There’s obviously dozens or even hundreds of races in which the environmental voice is an important one.

There has been a lot said by the oil industry and Gulf coast lawmakers about the Obama administration’s offshore drilling moratorium’s impact on jobs, though there was a report that came out last week that said job losses might not be quite what people estimated. What’s the Sierra Club’s position on all of this? Should the moratorium be lifted?
No, I think that a full moratorium should be put in place. We’re mindful of the fact that we need to make stronger investments in clean energy jobs so that those who work in the oil industry who want to put food on the table for their families have viable alternatives in growing industries that they can work in.

To be clear, we’re not advocating turning off the spigot in the Gulf. There are more than 4,0000 rigs operating in the Gulf right now and we are not saying there should be no oil drilling in the Gulf, not until we have a clear plan to get off oil. But what we’re saying is that since it’s been proven now that oil drilling offshore is dirty and it’s dangerous and it’s deadly, we need to tighten up the safety regulations to make sure that disasters like this don’t happen in the future. And we need to stop investing in exploring for new oil and instead explore much more carefully and aggressively investments in solar and wind so that we’re not poisoning our coastlines as we’re trying to keep our lights on.

On pipeline safety. There have been a couple major disasters this year. Of course, the natural gas pipeline explosion in San Bruno, Calif. And before that there was an oil spill in Michigan from an oil sands pipeline. Looming over this you have a massive proposed pipeline project, the Keystone XL project, that is going to go from Canada to Texas. Has the Sierra Club been looking at the issue of pipeline safety through a new set of eyes now that we’ve had these disasters?
Yes, we have. There’s two things that we’re doing. Clearly, the cost of our reliance on oil — when you talk abut the Michigan spill, the Gulf oil spill and the Keystone pipeline — is so much higher than what we pay at the pump when you consider the foreign policy implications, the fact that our entire economy is held hostage to wild fluctuations in oil prices.

So, what we’ve done over the last six months since I started at the Sierra Club is to build out a much more aggressive, comprehensive plan for how our country can get off oil. Over the next 20 years, how steep can we make cuts in oil consumption while allowing the economy to flourish and while creating more jobs rather than penalizing individual workers or communities. So, this will be a major priority of the club over the next several years — to build a broad based coalition of organizations and elected officials who will want to stand up for a very thoughtful and pragmatic, but visionary and aggressive plan to get off oil.

And then, regarding natural gas, we don’t think we can simultaneously phase out coal, oil and gas at the same time. Gas will need to stick around for a while. But there the challenge is to have much higher and much tighter safety standards so we’re not in this disastrous position again and again and again where people are losing their lives due to an industry is ineffectively regulated.

On oil sands or, as some call them, tar sands. There were senators in Canada last week reviewing oil sands production in there. Is there a message you would like to send to them in terms of how oil sands should be treated? Because there’s an argument out there that it’s better to get oil from Canada, despite the high greenhouse gas emissions of oil sands production, because we’re no longer reliant on the Middle East.
I think that’s just misguided thinking. The Pentagon says that climate change is one of the top national security threats in the 21st century. We have to deal effectively with climate change. Importing oil from the tar sands is 2-3 times more greenhouse gas intensive than conventional oil. You don’t solve a problem by making it worse. So, I understand that the notion that we have oil that is under the sands of our neighbors to the north is attractive to people who think we can have a simply pipeline solve a lot of problems. But the reality is that if we rely too much on a different source of oil that is dirtier, that will accelerate climate change rather than reduce it’s impacts, we’re only going to be replacing one set of problems with an entirely different set of problems. The only effective way to address this problem systemically is to adopt a plan to get America off oil.

Can you be more specific about this plan?
We’ll have a plan that we can introduce probably in the next 3-6 months. It looks at every major industrial source of oil consumption, from the oil that’s used in medium- and heavy-duty trucks, light trucks, cars and SUVs, the oil used for pesticides and paints. Whatever the major source of consumption is, we’re looking at a major, comprehensive plan to phase it out where and whenever possible.

What’s the time frame of this phase-out?
The big challenge is political will. For example, clearly it is technically possible, one would presume, to produce nothing but plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles in the next couple years. Whether that’s politically possible, of course remains to be seen. If the United States were to mobilize as we did in World War II and completely transition the entire automobile fleet to produce a new technology, clearly that could be done.

What we need to do is measure the distance between what we can do and what we’re willing to do as a country and develop what we feel as responsible and pragmatic, but also aggressive tactics to achieve energy independence. To help inform that decision we would look at the cost of different decisions under different time scenarios, the benefits economically, environmentally or socially depending on our foreign policy and what would the oil savings be in real-world terms. Then we’d highlight a few different options. We’ll have the data shortly. Then we’ll figure out how to use it. We’ve commissioned this first study just as the Sierra Club, but we anticipate doing more with a broad coalition.

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Overall, Xcel ended 2009 as the nation’s number one wind energy provider with 3,200 megawatts across its service territory. That represents 8 percent of Xcel’s fuel load, which is comprised of 15 percent renewable energy, including hydro, solar and other sources.

Among its 2009 accomplishments, Xcel listed SmartGrid City in Boulder, with 47,000 homes connected to the pilot program, and the Solar Technology and Acceleration Center (SolarTAC) facility in Aurora, billed as “one of the largest facilities in the world to test and demonstrate advanced solar technologies.”

The company also talked up its Solar Rewards program, first introduced in Colorado in 2006 and expanded to Minnesota and New Mexico in 2009. The program has accounted for more than 5,000 photovoltaic systems being installed by the end of 2009, and more than $110 million in incentives doled out to customers. The company finished the year as the 6th-largest provider of solar power in the country.

Xcel still relies on coal for 50 percent of its fuel load across its service territory, 24 percent natural gas and 12 percent nuclear. Its new Comanche 3 coal-fired plant will come on line near Pueblo soon, but the company has committed to shutting down or retrofitting several aging coal-fired plants in the state, converting them to natural gas.

The 10-year plan, according to a release from Xcel, will add more than 257 megawatts of solar with on-site installations for residential and commercial customers. The compliance plan, filed late Tuesday with the Colorado Public Utilities Commission, also calls for 700 megawatts of new wind power and 350 megawatts of utility scale solar power plants.

Gov. Bill Ritter’s office was quick to praise the plan for going above and beyond what was required by Colorado voters with the passage of Amendment 37 in 2004 and subsequent modification by the state legislature in 2007.

“We applaud the company for adding more than three times the solar photovoltaic resources than the law requires,” Ritter said in a statement Tuesday, adding Xcel could have complied with just 85 megawatts.

Xcel will boost its Solar*Rewards program, which involves purchasing Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) from customers, by buying more credits as part of an agreement with the Colorado Solar Energy Industry Association (CoSEIA) and the Governor’s Energy Office that’s designed to bolster the state’s burgeoning solar industry.

The Xcel filing comes on the heels of an announcement Monday that the German company SMA Solar Technology AG, the world’s largest manufacturer of solar inverters, will locate a plant in Denver’s Stapleton neighborhood.

The plant will employ 300 full-time workers once it ramps up by the middle of 2010, and could add another 400 temporary workers if demands warrants. Solar inverters, according to the Denver Post, convert direct current produced by solar arrays to alternating current for the power grid. The state provided the company $3 million in incentives, and Denver chipped in another $600,000.

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As Xcel continues to be pressured to expand the state’s transmission grid to farther flung areas to accommodate growth in utility-scale renewable power projects such as wind farms and solar plants, the company wants distributed renewable projects that actually take pressure off the grid to help foot the bill.

That caused considerable uproar among home solar owners who feel they were being unfairly singled out despite doing the right thing for the environment and the governor’s New Energy Economy.

Ritter said in a release he thought the surcharge would have created a disincentive for solar investments that would have hurt the strides the state has made in creating green jobs and increasing the amount of renewable energy generation.

“I commend Xcel for reconsidering this proposal,” Ritter said. “We appreciate Xcel’s concerns about the cost of distributing power and maintaining the electric grid, and we will work with Xcel to study these issues moving forward. The New Energy Economy has become a key bright spot in the state’s overall economy. We must do all we can to encourage growth as we lead Colorado toward a new energy future.”

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