Tag: Clean Air Clean Jobs Act

DENVER-- Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson spoke Monday at the National Jewish Respiratory Hospital here as a member of a panel discussing the environment and the economy. Jackson lauded "new energy economy" legislation advanced in Colorado during the administration of Democratic Governor Bill Ritter for the way it managed to bridge a major contemporary political divide in order to protect the environment and boost the economy.

Last session, arguably the most critical piece of environmental legislation passed by Colorado lawmakers was the landmark Clean Air, Clean Jobs Act, which mandated the shuttering of several Front Range coal-fired power plants and conversion of others to natural gas or renewable energy sources. This session, the legislature just completed the final step in implementing the law that was so bitterly opposed by Colorado’s coal industry last year.

Colorado conservation groups reacted favorably to Thursday’s decision by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to at least set a timeline for establishing national limits on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and oil refineries.

Colorado’s coal industry, the ninth-most productive in the nation in 2008, is under fire from politicians and environmentalists but not, as is the case this month in West Virginia, for safety reasons.

Conservationists aren't waiting for Xcel Energy to remake its coal-fired power plants along the Front Range to reduce smog ahead of an expected emissions clampdown by federal regulators.