In the News...

Ritter signs energy bill at gondola plaza

Thursday, May 6 2010

by Andrew Travers, Aspen Daily News Staff Writer
Thursday, May 6, 2010
 
Seated above an Aspen Skiing Co. banner at the base of Ajax on Wednesday, Gov. Bill Ritter signed a bill into law that allows counties to pool resources to administer clean energy-promoting programs such as Pitkin County’s new Energy Smart loans.
 
In November, voters authorized the county to dole out $7 million in loans to county residents for energy-efficiency and renewable upgrades to their homes. Eagle and Gunnison counties approved similar initiatives, and the new law will allow the three counties to work together in implementing it.
 
After being introduced by SkiCo executive director of sustainability Auden Schendler, Gov. Ritter touted the bill as the “49th or 50th” clean energy-related bill he’s signed into law as governor, touting other recent environmental legislation that increased the renewable energy standard to 30 percent and will replace some dirty coal plants with natural gas facilities.
 
Of the Energy Smart law, he said, “It gives middle-income people the ability to have upfront money to participate in the New Energy Economy.”
 
Without this law, he said it would “be extremely difficult for Colorado’s smaller counties to offer this financing tool, denying their home and business owners access to the benefits this tool provides.”
 
State Sen. Gail Schwartz, the Snowmass Village Democrat who sponsored the bill, echoed the importance of making energy improvements economically accessible.
 
“It’s no longer a rich person’s game to be able to put up solar panels,” she said.
 
Added Pitkin County Commissioner Rachel Richards: “It empowers counties to empower individuals to improve their lives.”
 
Kevin Ward of the Aspen Science Center called Sen. Schwartz “the green machine,” and lauded Gov. Ritter for making the state a national leader on energy issues — and creating jobs in the process.
 
“Colorado is now the Silicon Valley of the New Energy Economy,” Ward said.
 
Others in attendance at the gondola plaza ceremony included representatives from Holy Cross Energy, Pitkin County Commissioner George Newman, SkiCo senior vice president David Perry, American Renewable Energy Day founder Chip Comins, and county energy manager Dylan Hoffman, who is currently drafting the plan for implementing Energy Smart.
 
Aspen Mayor Mick Ireland arrived in a spandex cycling outfit, which elicited a jab from Gov. Ritter, who wore a sport coat, open-collared shirt and jeans.
 
“I dressed down for this bill signing,” he said to Ireland during presigning remarks, “but you really dressed down.”
 
In its current draft form, the Energy Smart program would allow private homeowners to take out between $3,000 to $50,000 in loans from the county for the energy upgrades — to be paid back on participating homeowners’ annual property tax bills at an interest rate no higher than 6 percent.
 
Gov. Ritter will be in Aspen today and will discuss the recently passed Colorado Clean Air-Clean Jobs Act at the Little Nell at 8 a.m.