With the budget sucking up the legislative oxygen in Colorado, AEE hosted an Advanced Energy Lobby Day in Denver, supporting a number of bills that will reshape the state’s energy market, creating significant investment opportunities for a rapidly growing industry here. Like other Western governors, Gov. Jared Polis entered office on the promise of expanding clean energy investments while ensuring a just transition for the communities impacted by the shifting economics of energy. The bills supported by AEE would help him fulfilled that promise. We navigated the Capitol, meeting with legislators between committee hearings and floor votes, communicating the business message on advanced energy. With a little less than a month of session remaining, we push forward on bills that would reduce barriers to EV charging infrastructure, securitization of coal-fired power plants to be retired, and carbon mitigation plans. 

The group also met with the Governor's Senior Energy Advisor, Zach Pierce, Governor's Office of Energy Executive Director Will Toor, the House Majority Leader, and Chairs of the House Transportation and Local Government Committee, House Energy Committee, and Senate Energy Committee. Both Toor and Pierce indicated that they will be keeping up this clean energy momentum on behalf of the Governor throughout 2019 and beyond, emphasizing that the process was just getting started with exciting developments to come.

Great things are happening in Colorado as the state works to deliver on Gov. Polis’s promise of a jobs, investments, and a cleaner grid.