The critical questions in the Colorado story are: First, what allowed Colorado to pass a citizen-supported measure like Amd 37 – making it the first US state to do so, and a particularly startling achievement given that similar legislation had repeatedly died in the state’s General Assembly? And second, once Amd 37 passed, what drove Colorado on the relatively fast track of green policy that it has seen, from a 10% RPS to 20% to 30%, with accompanying growth in installed energy base and local green business? Below, we argue that the answer lies in a combination of 1) a public advocacy program that successfully showed several very different constitu-encies in Colorado how clean energy could meet their different needs, thus building support among several communities; 2) a fertile environment provided by local centers of research and business innovation in cleantech;
3) coincidental funding assistance from the federal gov-ernment, and 4) immediate reinforcement generated by early successes.
3.1 Public advocacy
Public awareness and support for renewable energy, as well as advocacy efforts from various NGOs, were indis-pensable to the formation of Colorado's green growth strategy. It was, after all, a citizens' initiative that produced Colorado's first RPS. The widespread popular support for renewable energy (compounded by early successes) is also evident in the fact that Governor Bill Ritter's suc-cessful campaign in 2006 emphasized what he called "a new energy economy", a green growth strategy aiming to create jobs by promoting renewable energy (Ritter 2010).
Popular support for renewable energy in Colorado spans geographical regions and political spectrum, and this breakdown is considered in finer detail below. Support stems from a variety of sources; background character-istics include the obvious ready availability of renewable energy resources; citizen pride in Colorado’s natural re-sources; an independent political streak that favors en-ergy independence; and more specific reasons discussed below. This emerging state-wide popular pressure paved the way for the recent green movement.
"Public awareness and support for renewable energy, as well as advocacy efforts from various NGOs, were indispensable to the formation of Colorado's green growth strategy"
Colorado’s population can be divided into three major geographic groups, each of which has its own economic and ideological make-up regarding renewable energy. The front range area in central Colorado, which includes ma-jor urban centers like Boulder, Denver, and Fort Collins, tends to be more progressive and Democratic-leaning than the rest of the state. A survey of county commis-sioners across Colorado shows that urban, Democratic administrators are more likely to implement renewable energy projects (Davis and Hoffer 2010), which may re-flect the stronger public concern for the environment in these areas (and, if successful, may also tend to build sup-port). Eight out of the thirteen coal-fired power plants in Colorado are also near these more progressive cities in the front-range area. Aside from greenhouse gas emissions concern, many people are affected by pollutants, like ni-trogen oxides and mercury, that these power plants emit.
This may stir public opinion against coal; there have been many protests in Coloradan cities against coal-fired power plants in the past two years (Finley 2009; Espinoza 2010).
The counties in the rural plains of eastern Colorado tend to be more conservative and Republican, but farm-ers and ranchfarm-ers could still find reasons to support the RPS. Agricultural communities have a history of utilizing wind as an important power source (Davis and Hoffer 2010). With an RPS, they can increase their income by selling homegrown renewable energy back to utilities or by leasing land to wind farms. According to one Demo-cratic legislative leader – Alice Madden, who participated in the advocacy movement – RRepublican support for
renewable energy remains relatively narrow. However, the support of Republican former Speaker Lola Spradley, who represented a rural constituency in eastern Colora-do, during 2003-2004 was indispensable to the eventual creation and passage of Amd 37, and provided significant rhetorical support for the effort (Plant 2011).
Finally, the western mountain counties are rural and relatively independent politically. Tourism is a major in-dustry in these areas, meaning that protecting the natu-ral landscape is important. However, these areas tend to have less in the way of exploitable wind energy.
As can be seen from these descriptions, advocates of Amd 37 had plausible arguments to offer voters in each of these areas. Precisely how critical arguments made to each constituency were to the success of Amd 37 is dif-ficult to determine definitively. It is clear that support from urban Front Range and western mountain counties formed a core part of the vote. Voting returns show that all of the Colorado counties in which Amendment 37 re-ceived more than 50% of the vote were Front Range or western mountains counties.
In the rural eastern plains counties, the amendment faced not only general ideological opposition from con-servatives, but direct, specific opposition from rural pow-er genpow-eration coops that felt threatened by the measure (Baker 2011). A poll roughly a month before election did show that a plurality of Republicans in the state support-ed the measure (45% favoring and 33% oppossupport-ed (Frates and Cox 2004)) and Speaker Lola Spradley in particular made a concerted effort to reach these voters based on an economic message about the potential monetary benefits they could accrue from local wind installations (Olinger 2004; Paulson 2004; Purdy 2004). However, ultimately, the measure failed to win any of the eastern plains coun-ties, outright; and in fact, eight of the eleven councoun-ties, in which 37 polled at less than 1/3 of the electorate were in the eastern plains. Nonetheless, selling 37 to these voters was inherently an uphill battle, ideologically. It is difficult to tell whether, without efforts to court these voters, 37 might have done even worse in these areas, potentially resulting in a statewide loss. These efforts may also have paved the way for a subsequent quick turnaround to ac-ceptance of the benefits of RPS in following years (dis-cussed below).
Finally, a factor potentially affecting all constituencies was the fact that rate payers in general could look to gain from the RPS. Amd 37 mandates a $2 per watt rebate to consumers for solar installation. It also dictated that Xcel and Black Hills, the state’s two investor-owned utilities, must produce half of their solar standards by buying back power produced at customers' facilities. Amd 37 also capped the rate increase for a customer per month at 50 cents, forcing the utilities to shoulder any additional cost increase. The legislation thus offered consumers rebates, potential buy-backs of homegrown renewable energy, and guaranteed low impact on rates. Later renewable energy legislation, like Net Metering HB08-1160 (2008) and Renewable Energy Financing Act SB09-051 (2009), expanded rebates to consumers for solar installation and
utilities buyback of homegrown electricity. All of these measures benefit the average ratepayer.
Amd 37’s popular support thus came not only from the progressive, environmentally-minded part of the population, but also from a variety of independent and conservative rural sources across the state. The con-sumer-friendly rebates and rate caps may have helped to render the RPS even more acceptable to the general public. This state-wide public support eventually led to Colorado's first RPS.
3.2 Research, development and green industries Colorado has a somewhat longer history in the area of green innovation and industry than in green policy per se.
Colorado has long provided an encouraging environment for the research, development and commercialization of energy technologies, fostering many successful renewable energy and energy efficiency firms even before the state’s legislative move towards green growth. So it is not surpris-ing that with new legislation offersurpris-ing even more incentives to green industries, Colorado has become a hub for clean tech and has attracted global players like Vestas.
Colorado houses multiple national laboratories, in-cluding the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminis-tration, and National Center for Atmospheric Research, all of which contribute to research and development in climate change mitigation technologies. These national laboratories are located very close to each other, as well as to three higher education institutions in Colorado. The state of Colorado has encouraged collaboration among these education and research institutions via memo-randums of understanding in order to ensure the rapid transfer and commercialization of new technologies.
A fourth national laboratory, the National Institute for Standards and Technology, is playing a leading role in es-tablishment of Smart Grid standards.
"The nurturing environment in Colorado saw many large and successful renewable energy and energy effi-ciency firms spring up in Colorado long before the key legislations of the mid-2000s"
The nurturing environment in Colorado saw many large and successful renewable energy and energy effi-ciency firms spring up in Colorado long before the key legislations of the mid-2000s. For example, Architectural Energy Corporation, headquartered in Boulder, was founded in 1982; it generates $10 million annual sales by providing energy efficiency consulting and services (ASES 2009, 57). Since Governor Ritter's "New Energy Economy" program began to take off, green industries have been expanding rapidly. The research community in Colorado directly helped the creation and growth of new firms. One example is AVA Solar Inc., a thin film solar panel producer with a new 500 worker, 200 MW capacity factory developed at Colorado State University
with the support of NREL (ASES 2009).
As early as 2007, the renewable energy and energy ef-ficiency industries had generated $10.2 billion in revenue and hired 91,285 workers (Bezdek 2009, 47). During the same year, the total revenue for the oil and gas indus-try was $17.2 billion, and the indusindus-try employed 70,779 workers (MacDonald et al. 2007, 55). Though green dustries generated less revenue than the oil and gas in-dustry, it hired more workers.
In addition to existing strengths in renewable energy and energy efficiency industries, Colorado also has a generally attractive business environment, featuring low corporate and income tax rates and a highly educated workforce. According to Forbes, it is the fourth best place to do business in the US (Badenhausen 2010). Once low-carbon policies were in place and the state began to focus on green growth in earnest, it is no surprise that global clean tech leaders like Vestas and its suppliers were at-tracted to Colorado.
3.3 Funding
Colorado also benefited, at least in the short term, from a coincidental conjunction with federal funding trends.
Green policy took off in 2007 and 2008 with incoming Governor Ritter. Shortly thereafter, the global econom-ic downturn led to the passage of the US stimulus bill, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).
Since a meaningful percentage of ARRA funds were fo-cused on renewable energy and efficiency in both new and existing programs, the sudden influx of funding from the federal government in areas like efficiency, weatherization, and renewable energy provided both a safety net for existing programs (which might otherwise have been cut in the face of state budget difficulties) and a kick start for programs that would otherwise have been slower or impossible to start, providing levels of funding larger and faster than those that states had envisioned for themselves (Plant 2011).
The corollary to this, however, is the potential chal-lenge facing Colorado and other states as ARRA winds down. Funding for many of these programs, such as weatherization, are expiring or being cut. The need to re-place them at the state level as the influx from the federal level ebbs will be a huge challenge in the near future, and it is uncertain how effectively states will respond. An in-ability to find replacements could slow industry growth down (Plant 2011).
3.4 The Post-37 shift: turning opponents into allies In addition to the growth of its green industry sector, Colorado’s green policy support was ultimately strength-ened by the tolerance or active support of several critical allies in the conventional energy industry, spurred by the configuration of policy proposed. In several cases, the immediate outcomes of Amd 37 – which turned out to be easier to achieve than utilities expected, and provided tangible benefits to rural plains voters – significantly raised support for renewables and green policy, particu-larly in the eastern plains counties.
3.4.1 Energy industry
Given Colorado's extraction industries, it should not be surprising that there was significant initial resistance to low-carbon legislations from energy industry stakehold-ers. The RPS was rejected by Colorado's Republican con-trolled senate twice in 2003 and 2004, before Amd 37 passed as a ballot initiative.
Xcel Energy, the most influential utility company in Colorado, opposed the 10% RPS in the beginning, but quickly had a change of heart and ultimately supported the increase of the RPS, first to 20% and then to 30%. Xcel realized that it would not be difficult to meet the 20% tar-get, as federal tax credits after 2008 made wind energy affordable (Minard 2010). With Colorado's significant wind potential, improving technologies, and increasing fossil fuel prices, wind energy may become competitive faster than envisioned. In fact, as early as 2001, Colora-do's Public Utilities Commission ordered Xcel to build a wind farm in Lamar as part of its conventional genera-tion capacity despite Xcel's protests. The PUC claimed to base this decision on purely economic grounds – wind energy at Lamar would be cheaper than natural-gas pow-er (Laird 2008). In the end, cost and profitability would be the only things to bring firms truly on-board.
"A large sector of Colorado's oil and gas industry has also jumped on the green-growth wagon, offering full support for Colorado's latest Clean Air Clean Jobs Act"
A large sector of Colorado's oil and gas industry has also jumped on the green-growth wagon, offering full support for Colorado's latest Clean Air Clean Jobs Act.
Under implementation of this act, Xcel will retire two old coal-fired power plants and retrofit one of them to burn natural gas. Given that coal provided for 65.2% of Colo-rado's electricity in 2008 while natural gas only provided 25.2% (EIA 2010), natural gas producers stand to gain a much bigger market share at the expense of the coal in-dustry. Indeed, there has been a publicity battle between the coal and the oil and gas industry over the Clean Air Clean Jobs Act.
The creation of stricter gas drilling rules, paired with the RPS, allowed environmental organizations to feel more comfortable lobbying for natural gas over coal.
Although natural gas burns cleaner than coal, it is a non-renewable energy source that produces greenhouse gas emission. Its longer term viability may depend on continued affordability and the development of extrac-tion technologies that are acceptable to the public. Sup-port from the oil and gas industry is recent and tentative.
Many in Colorado feel that natural gas can hitch its wagon to wind to enhance public support and also may be com-pensated by self-reinforcing effects of green policy-creat-ed constituencies like those seen in the California case.
3.4.2 Consumers
Meanwhile, experience with renewables and particularly
wind has increased support for green policy among ru-ral consumers. By 2006, some of these constituencies had begun to receive tangible benefits from local east-ern plains wind installations. Observers familiar with the Colorado politics suggest support has risen throughout the state, but especially among Republicans and in the eastern plains counties.
A possible demonstration of this effect is found among electoral returns for races that touched on this issue. For instance, Governor Bill Ritter was well known for mak-ing renewable energy a critical part of his campaign plat-form in 2006, making 2006 something of a referendum on the program’s success thus far. Gov. Ritter did well in the 2006 election, and notably, he did significantly bet-ter amongst easbet-tern plains state vobet-ters than Amd 37 had done two years before. Although Gov. Ritter generally did not receive a majority in these politically conserva-tive areas, he was competiconserva-tive; in eastern plains counties that had major wind installations in place or under con-struction by 2006 (Bent, Logan, Prowers, and Weld), he received between 47 and 57% of the vote. In the eight eastern plains counties that had given Amd 37 less than 1/3 of their vote, Gov. Ritter typically received around 13% more of the vote than Amd 37 did.
4 Conclusion
Though a state with vast fossil-fuel reserves, Colorado has embarked on a surprising green growth path. Success stems from the combination of three elements: (1) the public advocacy movement leveraging both progressive support for environmental protection from Democratic urban regions and mountain counties as well as farm-ers' and ranchfarm-ers' support for an RPS that offers them economic benefits; (2) the nurturing environment cre-ated by a collaboration of research and education institu-tions in Colorado, policies favorable to green industries, and a generally good business environment; (3) an assist from high federal funding at a critical period; and (4) the subsequent increase in support from important industry stakeholders like Xcel Energy and key natural gas com-panies, as well as rural consumers, based on perceived advantages offered them by green policy.
"Second, Colorado’s story demonstrates the impor-tance of policy moves that have immediate, tangible, on-going benefits for constituencies that otherwise might be skeptical of green policy"
There are two key lessons to draw from Colorado’s success. First, Colorado was able to make a relatively rap-id shift toward a green industry path because key policy leaders identified a potential partnership between mul-tiple very different constituencies who all had interests that could be served by similar green growth policies.
This provided the basis for a policy realignment based on an informal partnership between these groups.
Second, Colorado’s story demonstrates the impor-tance of policy moves that have immediate, tangible, on-going benefits for constituencies that otherwise might be skeptical of green policy. Such policy moves can funda-mentally alter the political landscape, creating new sup-porters for green policy and hence broadening the po-tential coalition for green policy. In a conceptual sense, this is the heart of the “green growth” or “green industry”
policy: environmentalists have always supported renew-ables, but the “green growth” argument focuses on show-ing other groups that they have real economic interests in green policy as well.
Of course, Colorado’s green growth faces potential obstacles down the road; the depth of future support from the natural gas industry is an unknown. Also, Colo-rado lacks the transmission capacity to best exploit re-newable energy. Xcel Energy is trying to kick start solar projects in southwestern Colorado, but an influential lo-cal landowner is fighting placing transmission lines on his land (Minard 2010). Public resistance is especially pronounced against transmission lines crossing residen-tial areas or private lands (Davis and Hoffer 2010). The promotion of distributed generation at customers' facili-ties also requires the grid to be able to accommodate dis-tributed, intermittent power sources. As it is everywhere, upgrading to a renewable-friendly transmission grid will be a major challenge for Colorado.
Colorado, like most other states, also faces some po-litical and structural challenges to green policy. These
Colorado, like most other states, also faces some po-litical and structural challenges to green policy. These