Council members accede to mayor’s wish to expurgate renewables from energy commission mission. Why? That’s still not clear.
by Allen Best
In pruning the mission of its energy advisory commission, the Pueblo City Council on Jan. 13 left no doubt that the city intends to move in a different direction. But what direction exactly?
The council on Dec. 23 rescinded a resolution from 2017 that posited a goal of 100% renewable energy by 2035. The reasoning for that action was murky, at best, and this latest action similarly was justified with a paucity of explanation.
Could this be related to the Black Hills rate case?
The high costs of electricity were cited during the meeting with the suggestion those prices are tied at the hips with renewable energy. In December, Joseph Pereira, deputy director of the Office of Utility Consumer Advocate, told Big Pivots that renewable energy has nothing to do with the rates charged by Black Hills Energy, the investor-owned electrical utility that distributes electricity to Pueblo.
Black Hills Energy already has among the highest electrical rates in Colorado — tops, according to a survey by the Colorado Association of Municipal Utilities from January 2024, although a July survey by the same organization showed Black Hills rates to be surpassed by several others. Pueblo is among the lower-income cities, with 62.3% of Colorado’s average per capita person income.
The utility in July submitted a proposal to the Colorado Public Utilities Commission to raise rates another 18%. Black Hills in November knocked that proposal back to 13.8%. That remains far more than what intervenors in the PUC proceeding think can be justified. The PUC commissioners have taken testimony but not have scheduled a deliberation.
Might Pueblo want to bail from its franchise agreement with Black Hills? Such municipalization efforts are talked about frequently but, as a 2019 study concluded, rarely succeed and only then in mostly small markets.
Boulder and Pueblo, at polar ends of the affluence spectrum along Colorado’s Front Range, have both entertained municipalization proposals in recent years. Pueblo came first, in the spring of 2020, and the proposal was defeated by a margin of 76% to 24%.
In Boulder later that same year, the margin was far more narrow, with 53.3% voting to stay with Xcel Energy.
Pueblo’s franchise agreement runs through 2030 but includes a potential off-ramp in 2025. The city has appropriated $300,000 for the update of a study done in 2019. The cost of the election itself in November has been estimated at $100,000.
At the council’s meeting Monday evening, council members first heard from an individual who declared his disappointment to the retraction of the 100% renewables goal. Pueblo, said David Cockrell, had been the first jurisdiction in Colorado to make the commitment, demonstrating “that even a working-class community like Pueblo can take responsibility to address the climate crisis.”
Later, when the ordinance to strip the mission of the energy commission of any mention of renewables came up, several members of the commission testified that it was the wrong thing to do.
Among them was Jodie Hendershott, a new member of the commission.
“Rather than reverting to the status quo of many years ago, as this ordinance suggests, we can work together to develop an adaptive strategy that allows for flexibility based on data, budget, advances in technology, and a collaborative effort between the energy advisory commission, the mayor and the council,” she said.
Hendershott also suggested that it was wrong to disband the commission as currently constituted because of the perceived failures of Black Hills Energy.
“Dissatisfaction with Black Hills as a utility provider and an on-going discussion of municipalization is not a relevant reason to change the city’s vision or purpose of the Energy Advisory Commission, and you deprive yourself of the valuable resource that maintaining the input of this commission represents.”
Another commission member, Mike Wakefield, who teaches at Colorado State University in Pueblo, said that he used the commission in his teaching about entrepreneurship and economic development. The students, he said, “understood that the mission of 100% renewable energy was really a stretch goal and not something that was in concrete that had to be achieved by a certain time.”
Wakefield also urged the council to modify the commission as necessary, but not start from scratch.
The commission helped steer the city toward more renewable energy, including the adoption of geothermal for heating and cooling at several fire stations. There is an incremental higher cost that is far outweighed with reduced operating costs over the life of the structures.
The commission will start from scratch. The plan is to let the mayor, Heather Graham, appoint members at her discretion.
Before that vote was taken, though, they heard the arguments of Councilor Dennis Flores, who had also opposed rescinding the renewable goal.
“If anything, you should call this the Commission on Conservation of Energy, That’s what you’ve created here by making these changes. (The existing commission) is light years ahead of that,” said Flores.
The commission’s recent work has included looking into battery storage, data centers, even nuclear,” he added. “There’s not full agreement there, but at least we have people that will give us information that’s valid, that’s important for us to understand.”
Flores also suggested that Pueblo may be sending the wrong message to businesses thinking of locating there.
“There may be lost opportunities of businesses that say, ‘Hey, we’ve already committed going down that road. If this city is going to take a different path, maybe we don’t want to locate our business in Pueblo.’”
Roger Gomez, another council member, responded that Pueblo has a growing sector called the “energy impoverished.” He seemed to be referring to renewable energy when he spoke about “having to choose between eating and turning on their lights, but it’s reality.” Gomez credited the energy commission members with having good hearts, but “realistically, the timing is just not there.”
Will the existing members reapply? One of them, Laura Getts, said she would.
“It has all been deeply disappointing but I would reapply as there is still a lot of work to be done, and commissions can be more influential than most alternatives, barring running for council.”
Tom Corlett, on the other hand, has no interest in applying to be on the new commission. “No renewables, no Tom. It’s as simple as that,” he said.
As for the municipalization, Flores said in a post-meeting interview that while he stoutly opposed the council’s action, he also disagrees with pursuing municipalization. Such efforts almost never succeed, he pointed out.
If Boulder, with its much greater affluence cannot make it happen, the effort in Pueblo will almost certainly be doomed to defeat.
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