Restore funds for state’senergy office

Colorado state officials should work promptly to restore funding for the Governor’s Energy Office. The office, which promotes energy conservation in the state, faces an uncertain future after a legislative session that cut off funding and sought – unsuccessfully – to change the agency’s mission.

Gov. John Hickenlooper allowed a bill to become law – without his signature – that stripped the office’s funding from state gaming revenue. Additionally, a three-year federal grant of $130 million ends in 2012.

A state legislator also proposed during the last legislative session to downsize the office, change its name to the Colorado Energy Office and alter its focus to include both traditional and renewable energy. The bill did not pass.

But the potential shift in mission, and the actual reduction in funding, has caused concern among the state’s renewable-energy sector.

We share that concern.

Former governor Bill Ritter promoted the state as a hub of the “New Energy Economy.” That status is built on two foundations:

• Clean-tech companies such as Vestas Blades America, Abound Solar Inc. and Ascent Solar Technologies Inc. have joined a wealth of university and federal-laboratory assets developing new technologies that can be employed around the globe to promote the shift from fossil fuels.

• Efforts have been made to improve energy efficiency around the state, including promotion of energy conservation, green building and a shift toward renewable energy and away from carbon.

That latter mission is one in which the Governor’s Energy Office has excelled, but which is in the greatest jeopardy.

Boulder County Business Report staff writer Beth Potter reports that in the past 11 months, the GEO has handed out $10 million in rebates, with a multiplier effect of $90 million in materials purchased and contract work.

Such programs have given an enormous boost to the state’s solar-energy installation companies, which employ thousands of people statewide.

The Governor’s Energy Office performs a necessary and valuable mission: promotion of energy conservation. To remove its funding or to change its mission risks aborting our “New Energy Economy” just as it was beginning to form.

That would be a great mistake.

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