By Marissa Ventrelli | Colorado Politics
A citizen initiative that seeks to enshrine the right to natural gas has qualified for the November ballot, Colorado’s election office confirmed on Thursday.
Petitions containing signatures for Initiative No. 177 were turned in to the Secretary of State’s Office for review in late June. On Thursday, the Secretary of State’s Office said 146,165 of the 189,508 signatures collected were valid, surpassing the threshold.
The initiative from Advance Colorado establishes consumers’ right to purchase natural gas for cooking and heating their homes and businesses, as well as the right of distributors and utilities to sell natural gas to homes and businesses.
“Natural gas is a clean, reliable and affordable form of energy that more than 70% of Colorado homes use today,” said Michael Fields, president of Advance Colorado. “That right should be protected.”
The measure is the group’s response to a palpable shift in state policy to turn away from fossil energy, notably including natural gas.
Some 1.9 million Colorado households warm their homes each winter using gas. That’s also how tens of thousands of businesses heat their buildings. Last December, for example, energy regulators ordered Xcel Energy — the state’s biggest utility company — and other nonmunicipal utilities to slash their carbon output by 41% by 2035 as a step toward a 100% carbon-free future fired by solar and wind.
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