Renewable energy standards survive GOP target

By The AP
Wednesday, February 9, 2011

DENVER — Republican plans to undo clean-energy policies approved in recent years in Colorado have failed in the Democrat-controlled Senate.

A Senate committee today narrowly rejected GOP measures to ratchet back a renewable energy standard and to force utility regulators to pay more attention to consumer cost, a change that could have benefitted coal-fired power plants.

Democrats leading the committee said it would be short-sighted to roll back alternative energy policies. Republicans argued that Colorado’s changes have driven people out of work.

One of the failing bills would have undone a requirement that utilities get 30 percent of electricity from renewable sources by 2020. Another would have required utility regulators to give greater weight to minimizing costs to ratepayers when making decisions.