WTP shelves costly ballot initiative, puts the question to legislators
Expense of ballot process, strong public support compels group to pursue legislative fix

DENVER — With polls showing the public strongly supporting consumer choice and lower prices for energy, a Colorado citizens group announced May 7 they would shelve plans to pursue an expensive ballot initiative and instead pursue those issues in next year’s General Assembly.

“Polls show people overwhelmingly support affordable energy and consumer choice, but putting the issue on the ballot requires tremendous time and money,” said Dan Fuchs, Western Tradition Partnership’s Director of Government Relations and a former term-limited Montana state legislator.  “We can be just as effective without expending those tremendous resources by focusing on legislative action.”

“Rather than let them off the hook, we are going to hold legislators accountable.  They are the ones who stripped utility customers of voter-approved consumer protections,” said Fuchs.  “We’re going to make legislators fix this because they’re the ones who broke it.”

WTP will instead educate voters on how their representatives in the General Assembly stand on the issue, and compel legislators to take action on energy affordability issues in next year’s legislative session.  Focusing on legislative action saves the organization hundreds of thousands of dollars and frees it up to tackle multiple issues this year like preserving property rights and access to state lands, restricting frivolous environmentalist lawsuits and fighting various tax hikes.

“Why go through the colossal financial and manpower expense of collecting 76,000 signatures to put it on the ballot and run a statewide campaign when we have the broad public support to simply make legislators do their job and fix it themselves?,” said Fuchs.

“Now we’re putting the ball in every legislator’s court.  Will they side with hardworking Coloradans, or will they side with the radical activist groups who are driving up utility bills?,” said Fuchs.

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Another one of Gov. Bill Ritter’s “gang green” pay-offs is H.B. 1001.   This bill would increase the amount of money Colorado rate payers are forced to give to “green” energy speculators.  It would raise Colorado’s Renewable Energy Standard from 20% to 30%.

Now it is getting even worse.

Ritter wants to see the installation of solar panels be mandated to use union labor which will drive up the costs of installation and rates even higher.

You can read the full story here in the Denver Post.  It is brief, but it highlights the ongoing effort of politicians trying payoff their radical environmentalist friends with your utility bill.

Bill Ritter

Bill Ritter must think you have a bottomless wallet.

He just announced he’s going to force Colorado utilities to get 30% of their energy from expensive “renewable” sources.

Yes, at a time when more and more people are struggling to pay their bills and employers must lay people off to meet costs, Bill Ritter has announced a massive statewide increase in utility bills.

Why would he do that?

Two words — “green” speculators.

You see, a lot of radical Green activists saw the media’s fascination with “going green” and “green energy” and saw a chance to make a quick buck. Hey, I’m a capitalist. I don’t fault them. But where we part ways is what they decided to do when they realized “green” energy is expensive, inefficient and no one wants it.

Rather than cut their losses and get out of the market, these speculators decided to rig the market by forcing people to buy their product.

They are now leaning hard on radical Green politicians to keep inflating the “green energy” bubble by issuing so-called “renewable energy standards” that give people no choice but to hand cash to “green energy” speculators.

These so-called “renewable energy standards” are nothing more than a bailout of failed speculators, a way for radical Green politicians to use government to transfer wealth from average citizens to green speculators.

It’s the exact same thing as if Obama had forced Americans to buy a second house to inflate the housing bubble. Ritter doesn’t have to worry about citizen outrage over their utility bills being increased to bail out green speculators. After his oil and gas tax hikes wrecked the state economy and sent Colorado’s jobs pouring into Wyoming and Texas, his rock-bottom poll numbers forced him to abandon his re-election bid.

But his radical Green ally, Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, hopes to continue the Ritter Agenda. He just announced he’s running for Colorado governor.

I — and a lot of other angry Coloradans — have one question for John Hickenlooper…

Will you repeal the Ritter Energy Price Hike plan if you win in November?

Many of those “angry Coloradans” are members of Western Tradition Partnership. We’re not going to take this lying down.

Hickenlooper’s record doesn’t give us much reason for optimism. As Denver mayor he sank $15 million in city funds into a New York City-based “green jobs” firm.

Oh, and the newly-appointed CEO of this New York City firm was Peter Chapman — Hickenlooper’s economic policy advisor (see earlier post here for details).

How did Hickenlooper’s tax-funded investment into a “green jobs” firm go? According to the Denver Post, “the 2007 contract with Denver requires Seedco to create 153 new jobs, with a minimum of 75. To date, the number is 38 new jobs. Denver responded by dumbing down the requirement for 2009, asking for 83 new jobs. Six months into the year, Seedco has created only six new jobs.”

And Chapman is no longer CEO. After just one year he “split town” and took a position in North Carolina.

So you can see why Western Tradition Partnership members are concerned about Ritter’s Energy Price Hike plan to bail out the speculators looking to make a lot of “green” at taxpayer expense. Under Hickenlooper it could become a permanent entitlement.

Will Hickenlooper promise to repeal the Energy Price Hike scheme?  That’s a question he needs to answer quickly.

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Help WTP in our mission of defeating the radical environmentalists’ agenda and promoting economically sustainable natural resource and land use policy while protecting access and private property rights, by clicking here.

And won’t you take a minute to make us your Facebook friend?

Salazar & Hick - Green Peas in a Pod

Despite down year for Dems, radical environmentalists’ dream scenario emerges -

As Denver suffers from bitter cold along with the rest of the U.S., Sierra Club-types across Colorado are feeling all warm and fuzzy inside with the news that Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper is on the fast-track to the Democratic nomination for Governor in 2010. Meanwhile, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar is going to stay right where he is, doing maximum damage to U.S. energy security (see recent article here on Salazar’s new anti-drilling rules).

“I can give you $100,000 reasons why Coloradans should be concerned with Mayor Hickenlooper’s positions on anti-jobs programs like Cap and Tax and wasteful green projects,” said Jacob Leis, Executive Director of Western Tradition Partnership, referring to the purchase of so-called “carbon offsets” for the Democrat National Convention in 2008 (see document here). “Bill Ritter campaigned as a moderate, but Denver’s Mayor hasn’t bothered to hide his commitment to the hardcore Green agenda.”

In a video featuring Hickenlooper and intended to promote the City of Denver (shown here), liberal descriptives gushed straight from the Obama playbook: “progressive”, “diverse”, “sustainable”, “greening” and “Arts and culture”. No mention of “jobs”.

“One wonders whether Hickenlooper is the kind of person who can get out of the way of the people in creating jobs, or if his obsession with the non-existent ‘New Energy’ economy will simply finish Bill Ritters’ work in destroying jobs and economic activity, especially in the natural resources industries,” added Leis.

Hick’s track record isn’t so hot when it comes to fiscal and financial matters, either. For example, in what should have been a bigger scandal, Hickenlooper insider Peter Chapman headed for the East Coast to head up SeedCo, a new non-profit intended to leverage resources into jobs. The City of Denver then agreed to pump $3million per year into SeedCo, and its performance is a joke at best (see article here). In fact, Hick’s string of failures on his “big ideas” borders on the pathetic (see Post column by former Denver Councilwoman Susan Barnes-Gelt here).

“WTP looks forward to contributing to the public debate on how much all the so-called ‘greening’ of Denver has cost in terms of jobs and the economy, let alone to Federal State, and Local taxpayers,” Leis concluded. “I bet it’s a whopping bill we’re all paying.”

To support furthering WTP’s mission of defeating the radical environmentalists’ agenda and promoting economically sustainable natural resource and land use policy while protecting access and private property rights, click here.

And won’t you take a minute to make us your Facebook friend?

Just hours after announcing new plans to shut down energy development on federal lands, Washington, D.C. insiders report Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has been given the green light to run for Colorado governor. (http://politicalwire.com/archives/2010/01/06/salazar_bid_fine_with_white_house.html)

And with the power of the White House behind him, you can bet Salazar has an inside track to the nomination.

But why would he give up a cushy job in D.C. to roll the dice and gamble on winning a tougher job in Denver?

Could it all be about who has control over Colorado’s state-controlled land?

You see, Salazar’s announcement that he was trying to shut down energy development (and the jobs and revenue it would create) only covers federal lands.

But radical Greens would love nothing more than to get state-controlled lands in their grasp as well. And they are working hard to shut down all energy development in Colorado, despite the fact it will send thousands of Coloradans to the unemployment line and send taxes skyrocketing and budget deficits spiral out of control.

Is Ken Salazar ready to serve up Colorado’s taxpayer-owned lands to radical Green interests, destroying jobs, raising taxes and making utilities more expensive in the process?

WTP will be keeping an eye on this development.