Watch closely: The PUC sunset hearing could reshape Colorado energy policy

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project

Watch for the PUC sunset hearing.

Not only will it be a chance to weaken local control, DORA wants less transparency for them.

I will be watching and posting (from what my state senator B Pelton said, it should be late February or early March), but I wanted to put a bug in your ear to watch for the Public Utilities Commission’s sunset hearing in front of the Senate Transportation and Energy Committee.

As I wrote [last week], there are rumblings about changing the mission of the PUC to perhaps grease the skids for state-level siting of renewables.

The PUC sunset hearing will be the time that they do this, but there are other things I’ve heard. I wrote back last year about a CFOIC article showing the Department of Regulatory Agencies (the state department housing the PUC) will likely be asking for the PUC to be exempt from some provisions of the Colorado Open Meetings Law.

More context on that can be found in the link below, which is to that newsletter.

The hearings will start in the House, but I’ll be watching for their Senate hearing, I’ll try and watch both, but may catch it first in the Senate.

If you get wind of something before you see it here, please give me a heads up, otherwise stay tuned.

https://open.substack.com/pub/coloradoaccountabilityproject/p/dora-recommends-less-transparency?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

---

Colorado’s affordability problem is as much nickel and dime as housing costs

When I first moved out to Sterling to take a job at the Junior College, I was pleased with how cheap the houses were. Not much else was (food and gas here tend to run higher), but a house was well within my reach and not a stretch as it would’ve been in the Front Range.

That’s since changed. Housing prices across the state have gone up. I wonder if my prior self could’ve afforded to buy out here with the current prices.

Housing gets a lot of headlines. It’s a big expense, it’s one of the first ones people think about when they think about moving (I didn’t even look at gas or food prices when I was thinking about moving). It’s also an area of conflict between local officials and state officials; conflict being a sure and certain way to get media attention.

I’m not wanting to minimize the role that housing prices play in affordability, but I do want to expand the conversation. You see, it isn’t only housing that has gone up.

Everything has gone up.

At the start of every calendar year, my bill for utilities like trash pickup, water, and sewer has an enclosure: a sheet telling me the calendar, and, just as often, a sheet talking about new rates.

This year’s enclosure showed that my monthly sewer bill was going from about $70 to about $75 a month, a 7% increase. My household hasn’t grown in that time. I’m not flushing more. The bill has jumped 7%, however.

When I contacted the city, the response was not surprising. The sewer treatment plant needed upgrades to comply with new state and federal regulations about waste treatment and so the city council upped the rates.

It’s not any secret either. Screenshot 1 attached is from a proposed 2025 budget for the city. It’s sewer and wastewater expenditures from p 36 of the first link below.

I highlighted the capital outlays to bring to your attention how much they jumped from 2023 actual budget to 2024 estimated and 2025 estimated. Compare that to the relatively mild jumps in things like personnel or maintenance.

Screenshot 2 helps explain the “debt service” in the expenses. Sterling had to borrow** to help fund the necessary upgrades.

Note also the relatively small DOLA (Department of Local Affairs–a state agency) one-time grant. This puts me in mind of the Sage Pointe neighborhood outside Sterling which is facing its own, much larger crisis in funding sewer upgrades. Unfortunately, as I wrote about in an earlier newsletter linked second below, they don’t get any DOLA money. That’s all been spent and pulled back (though there’s DOLA money for transit oriented housing folks!).

Unfunded mandates? Regulatory costs shifted to small governments and then on to small rural townspeople? Both themes looming large here.

$5 extra a month equates to $60. That’s a fancy dinner for my little family. It’s not a budget breaker on its own.

But it must be remembered that this $5 a month is one of many. Every new little fee, every new little regulation doesn’t cost much on its own.

They do gang up though. They gang up to make this state harder and harder to live in every year.

READ THE FULL COMMENTARY AT THE COLORADO ACCOUNTABILITY PROJECT

Editor’s note: Opinions expressed in commentary pieces are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the management of the Rocky Mountain Voice, but even so we support the constitutional right of the author to express those opinions.