March 11, 2026 · Transportation & Energy · 15,031 words · 22 speakers · 186 segments
The Senate Transportation and Energy Committee will come to order. Ms. Forbes, please call the roll.
Senators Bazley.
Present.
Catlin. Excused. Excused.
Exum.
Good afternoon.
Lindstedt.
Present.
Mullica.
Yep.
Helton R.
Here.
Sullivan.
Excused.
Cutter.
Excused.
And Mr. Chair.
Here.
Welcome to the Senate Transportation Energy Committee. Today we have a packed agenda. We have confirmation hearings for three different boards, the Orphan Wells Mitigation Enterprise Board, the Energy and Carbon Management Commission, the Community Access Enterprise, followed by one bill, Senate Bill 26002. And after that, we will hear a presentation on the electric vehicle plan and greenhouse gas reduction roadmap plan. So we will start with the confirmation for the Orphan Wells Mitigation Enterprise Board.
Julie Murphy from the ECMC and DNR is here to introduce our appointee who has been nominated, Christopher Simmons.
Ms. Murphy, I see you're online. So I will go over to you to introduce Mr. Simmons, and then Mr. Simmons, I'll turn it over to you.
Terrific. Thank you, Chair and members of the committee. My name is Julie Murphy. I'm the Director of Colorado's Energy and Carbon Management Commission, a division within the Colorado Department of Natural Resources. I am pleased to introduce one member of the Orphan Well Mitigation Enterprise Board for your consideration. For context, the enterprise was established by Senate Bill 22198, and the authority to plug marginal wells was added in Senate Bill 24229. The enterprise uses fees from the oil and gas industry to plug and abandon orphan and marginal wells, as well as reclaim and remediate orphan well sites. The Orphan Well Mitigation Enterprise Fee Fund is a state of Colorado enterprise that oversees an industry-funded program with the highest level of environmental protection. The Commission established an annual mitigation fee paid by industry that generates approximately $8.5 million annually to plug orphan wells and reclaim and remediate orphan sites. In 2024, the Board adopted a new marginal well mitigation fee that generated approximately $5 million and is expected to generate about that much annually to plug marginal wells through a voluntary program. Both programs are currently plugging wells in Colorado. And both programs prioritize plugging wells in order to protect public health safety, reduce emissions, and restore the environment. The Enterprise Board is comprised of five voting members, including the chair of the Energy and Carbon Management Commission, as well as me as the director of the Energy and Carbon Management Commission, an individual with experience in the oil and gas industry, a local government official, preferably from a jurisdiction that has oil and gas development and orphan wells, and an individual with formal training or substantial experience in land reclamation projects. We are here today for the confirmation hearing for Christopher Simmons, who is being reappointed to a second term and filling the seat of an individual with experience in land reclamation. Christopher is a senior manager for public lands policy with the National Audubon Society. He focuses primarily on mitigating climate change and wildfire impacts of energy development on federal public lands and integrating tribal co and co into federal land use planning Prior to working for the National Audubon Society Christopher worked on upstream oil and gas issues while working for an oil and gas company and prior to that as the inaugural Adams County oil and gas liaison. Christopher has developed expertise in land reclamation and remediation through the lens of local government operator, and now on behalf of an environmental nonprofit. He is an alumnus of AmeriCorps, CU Boulder, in the University of Denver. He also currently serves on the National Audubon Society Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging Staff Council, and the EJ's working group to ground the organization's conservation work in equity of access. As a third-generation Coloradan, he values our ease of access to nature and advocates for the remediation and restoration of the environment so future generations of Coloradans can enjoy its enduring beauty. I will certainly let Christopher speak to his own background and qualifications in more detail, but I can tell you that the board is incredibly dedicated to their mission and to the people of Colorado, and Christopher exemplifies this dedication. He has proven himself to be a tremendously valuable member of the board as an inaugural member and an honorable public servant. We welcome his continued work with the benefit of what he's already contributed to it. With that, I will turn it over to Mr. Simmons, with your permission, Chair.
Thank you, Director Murphy. And before we do that, let the record reflect that Senator Sullivan is now present. We'll move on to our appointee, Mr. Simmons. Please introduce yourself and explain your interest in serving on the board.
good afternoon chair and members of the committee as director murphy has mentioned my name is christopher simmons and i am honored to have been reappointed as the individual with formal training or substantial experience in land reclamation projects for the orphaned wells mitigation enterprise board my experience with reclamation crosses public private and nonprofit sectors, including roles in the oil and gas industry, local government, and a nonprofit. Orphaned wells have spanned a continuum of my career. I began this work 12 years ago in northern New Mexico on allotted Navajo lands while working a due diligence project for an operator who recognized the broader benefits of reclamation. I became acquainted with orphaned and abandoned wells while working for Adams County and met regularly with ECMC staff to identify and visit those wells throughout the county and ensure that the environmental risks to the community, servicing groundwater, air, and wildlife were assessed and eventually mitigated. I currently work for the National Audubon Society as Senior Manager for Public Lands Policy, focusing primarily on mitigating impacts of energy development. To me, plugging and reclaiming orphaned wells is key to the protection of public safety, health, welfare, and the environment, and I believe that the state has set a strong example of how this work can be done at scale. I've enjoyed my first term on the Orphan Welles Enterprise, Orphan Welles Mitigation Enterprise Board, and I'm tremendously proud of the work that the board has conducted with the ECMC staff, and I look forward to working closely with my fellow board members, stakeholders, and and staff to continue reducing the state's orphan wells. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Simmons. Do we have any members of the committee with questions for our appointee?
Mr. Simmons, I'll ask a question. From your perspective having been on the board and looked at the problem of orphan wells closely what do you see as the biggest obstacle we face as a state in taking care of our orphan well problem
Thank you for the question. You know, I think from my point of view, one of the largest obstacles that we will face as a state is going to be a reduction and a potential reduction in federal funds. You know, I think the first few years of this board have has been well funded, given some of the grants and other monies provided by the federal government. But just given some of the current upheaval that we're seeing, I think it'll really come down to how to potentially backfill some of that funding or stretch it farther than we currently are.
Thank you, Mr. Simmons. Any other questions? Let the record reflect that Senator Catlin has now joined us. Do we have a motion? Senator Linstead.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move to the full Senate with a favorable recommendation on the appointment of Christopher Simmons to the Orphan Wells Mitigation Enterprise Board.
That is a valid motion. Ms. Forbes, please call the roll.
Senator Basley.
Aye.
Catlin.
Aye.
Exum.
Aye.
Linstead.
Aye.
Mullica.
Yes.
Pelton R.
Aye.
Sullivan.
Aye.
And Mr. Chair.
Aye.
And Senator Cutter is excused.
That motion passes 8 to 0.
Senator Lenstead. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would request that this be added to the consent calendar.
Seeing no objections, this confirmation will be added to the consent calendar. Thank you very much, Mr. Simmons. and we will move to our next confirmation, which is to the Energy and Carbon Management Commission. Director Murphy, I will turn it back over to you to introduce our appointees, Mr. Michael Cross and Mr. Brett Ackerman. And I think you are on mute, Director Murphy.
Thank you, Chair. Now we got you. members of the committee. Thanks. Sorry. I'd be better practiced at this than you'd think. So again, I'm Julie Murphy. I'm the director of the Energy and Carbon Management Commission, a division within the Department of Natural Resources. And I'm thrilled to be before you today to introduce two members of the Energy and Carbon Management Commission for your consideration and confirmation. As a quick recap, the Energy and Carbon Management Commission is a professional commission charged with regulating the development and production of oil and gas, deep geothermal resources, the sequestration of carbon dioxide, and the underground storage of natural gas, all in a manner that protects public health, safety, welfare, the environment, and wildlife resources. The commission is composed of five voting members, including the chair, who has professional experience demonstrating an ability to aid the commission in making sound and balanced decisions, an individual with expertise in environment and wildlife protection, an individual with oil and gas experience, an individual with expertise in planning or land use, and an individual with experience in public health. I would also note the Executive Director of the Department of Natural Resources and the Executive Director of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment also serve on the commission as ex members We are here today for the confirmation hearings for two members of the Energy and Carbon Management Commission Brett Ackerman and Michael Cross who are reappointed members looking to serve their second term. Mr. Ackerman was appointed to the Energy and Carbon Management Commission by Governor Polis in July of 2022. He is serving in the capacity of a member with formal training or substantial experience in environmental protection, wildlife protection, or reclamation for a term expiring July 1, 2026. Sorry, and if reappointed, would be serving through July 1, 2030. Prior to his appointment, Brett spent 20 years with Colorado Parks and Wildlife in various positions, most recently as CPW's Southeast Region Manager and a member of the agency's executive leadership team. Over the past two decades, he has helped formulate, guide, and implement many of Colorado's natural resource conservation policies and land use practices, including leading CPW's engagement in the Senate Bill 19-181 ECMC rulemaking process. Brett has served on a variety of boards, including an appointment by Governor Polis to Colorado's Habitat Stamp Committee, an appointment by the U.S. Secretary of the Interior to the Bureau of Land Management's Rocky Mountain Resource Advisory Council. Brett holds a Bachelor of Science in Wildlife and Range Resources from Brigham Young University and a Master of Public Administration with a concentration in Environmental Policy, Management, and Law from the University of Colorado, Denver. Turning now to Commissioner Mike Cross, he was appointed to the Energy and Carbon Management Commission by Governor Polis in July of 22. He is currently serving in the capacity of a member with substantial experience in oil and gas for a term that expires in July 2026 and has been reappointed. He has experience in the oil and gas industry working as a legal counsel, focusing on oil and gas, mining, and other natural resource industries. He has significant commercial and industry-specific litigation experience, having represented clients in complex state, federal, and administrative agency litigation, including class action and multi-district litigation. Mr. Cross also has experience in regulatory compliance, permitting, and operation issues, particularly in connection with the federal procedural and environmental statutes and regulations. Mr. Cross earned a Bachelor of Science in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University and a JD from Cornell Law School. Outside of work, Mike enjoys spending time with his wife and two children and enjoying Colorado. I will certainly let the Commissioner speak to their own backgrounds and qualifications in more detail, But I can tell you after working with Commissioner Zackerman and Cross that they are dedicated to the commission, this agency, and the people of Colorado, and implementing their work with the highest respect for the authority and the importance of the agency's mission. The time and effort they have put into this work is unparalleled, and they have set a high bar for our commission and have proven themselves as honorable public servants. With that, Chair, I'll turn it over to you. Thank you.
Thank you, Director Murphy. Let's move on to our appointees. We will start with Mr. Cross. Mr. Cross, please introduce yourself and explain your interest in serving on this board.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and Senators. My name is Mike Cross, and it's my honor to come before you today to speak about my desire to continue to serve as Commissioner at the Colorado Energy and Carbon Management Commission as a representative with substantial industry experience. I was born and raised in Casper, Wyoming, before attending undergrad and law school at Cornell University. Dr. Murphy indicated I practiced initially doing complex commercial litigation before moving to Denver in 2014. Over the next seven and a half years, I continue to do complex litigation, but my practice began to focus more on administrative law, representing and advising energy companies, not only oil and gas, but also mining and renewable companies, in connection with permit applications, environmental analyses, and complying with legislation and regulations at both the state and federal level. Four years ago, I was given the incredible honor to utilize my knowledge and experience while serving the people and state of Colorado in my current position. My desire to serve remains unwavering, and my reasoning is the same as it was four years ago. I know we're in an energy transition, but I also know that we cannot just flip the switch on oil and gas and solely rely on renewable energy sources tomorrow. My goal has always been to ensure that while the energy transition is happening, oil and gas exploration in Colorado is done in a responsible manner. I do believe that we in Colorado have created a regulatory structure that does just that. Oil and gas development is not fostered, but scrutinized to make sure operations are located and carried out so that adverse impacts are avoided, minimized, and mitigated, and we can protect public health, safety, welfare, the environment, and wildlife resources. While that reasoning has been resolute, the last four years have given me additional reasons to want to continue to serve in this role. First, the increased authority given to our agency by the legislature, particularly to regulate deep geothermal operations, has allowed me to help advance the energy transition and make sure that our rules allow Colorado to be a leader in the responsible development and utilization of our other natural resources. Additionally, one reason I want to serve has emerged in only the past few weeks. I have valued the ongoing relationships and discussions I have had with all stakeholders throughout the state, whether industry, environmental justice, environmental protection, wildlife, or local government focused. I have attended all of our public hearings and listening sessions in person to ensure that all voices are heard and transparency is present in our decision-making process. A week and a half ago, protesters from a group whose stated goal is to humiliate and embarrass showed up at my personal residence, screaming obscenities and pasting posters throughout the neighborhood. While their antics were unwelcome and frightening for my family and neighbors, my wife and I have used the incident as a teaching moment for my young children. We have explained to them that not only should you not capitulate to bullying and harassment, but there is a proper way to effect change. by following the rule of law, public service, contributing to meaningful debate and dialogue, and promoting practical alternatives. I appreciate your consideration and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.
Thank you, Mr. Cross. Before we open it up for questions, Mr. Ackerman, let's go over to you. Please introduce yourself and explain your interest in serving on this board.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the opportunity and I appreciate Director Murphy and her kind words. It's a pleasure to work with her. She does a great job leading our agency. It's also a pleasure to work with Commissioner Cross and the other commissioners on the commission. Very highly skilled professionals, all of them. I wanted to thank you first for hearing us today and specifically for the work that this committee does on behalf of the state and on behalf of guiding our agency. As Director Murphy mentioned I the ECMC Commissioner currently serving as a member with formal training and substantial experience in the environment wildlife and reclamation And in that capacity, I really wanted to thank the committee for your attention to conserving Colorado's wildlife and natural resources as you work hard to balance those important protections with the state's development and energy demands. It's a considerable task and I believe we work well together. Director Murphy talked about my qualifications and I worked for quite some time for the Division of Wildlife and Parks and Wildlife in some capacities, as she mentioned. One of the things that I did over there as well was managed the relatively complex wildlife regulations of this state for about 10 years and learned to navigate difficult situations over there and continue to do that over here. I think our commission does so in a very professional manner. As Director Murphy mentioned, even prior to my first appointment to the ECMC commission, I've worked with this committee or this commission as I led the team that worked with ECMC to revise and implement its existing 1200 series wildlife regulations. And since my appointment to the commission, I've focused on ensuring that those regulations serve to continue to protect public health, safety, welfare and the environment. and especially have focused on how we can continue to improve Colorado's nation-best wildlife protection rules while we responsibly develop energy resources. As one example of some of the tasks that we as commissioners do, I'm currently leading the commission's efforts to ensure we're protecting Colorado's biological resources as directed by Senate Bill 19-181. I'm currently about halfway through a year-long effort of convening and leading a group of Colorado's invertebrate and botanical experts in conjunction with energy company representatives to devise and report to the commission on how we can further and better improve Colorado's protections for the state's pollinators and rare plants. I also currently serve as the commission's lead on geothermal energy. While there are many working in many capacities on this issue, I led the establishment of ECMC's Deep Geothermal Regulations in 2024, which set the foundation for deep geothermal energy to explore and establish some roots here in Colorado. And I currently sit with folks from many entities on the Colorado Geothermal Council. We continue to work hard on how we can responsibly make use of Colorado's relatively abundant geothermal energy. I certainly am interested in serving again. I've very much enjoyed serving with this commission. I love Colorado. I'm very, very proud, as Commissioner Cross mentioned, of the nation leading a natural resource protection approach that the legislature and our commission have co-established here in the state. And the reason that I love it is it works. We have significantly improved protections in many aspects of Colorado's environment, natural resources in this effort and continue to be a leader in energy development and production. We've set a great example, in my opinion, of comprehensive protection, and many industry partners that work in Colorado have, in response, developed their own programs, wildlife protective programs and others that are based on practices established associated with those regulations and Senate Bill 181 that they've then found to be helpful and implementable in other states, regardless of those states' regulatory regimes. That said, we have a lot of work yet to do. We continue to seek to improve how we develop energy in Colorado in a protective fashion. And regardless of the committee decision on my appointment today I very proud to have served in this capacity I thank you for that opportunity And I do believe I have much yet to offer in helping Colorado continue to lead in the front line on the ground protection of natural resources and energy development. So thank you for the chance to appear before you today.
Thank you, Mr. Ackerman. Members of the committee, does anyone have any questions for our appointees?
Senator Sullivan. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And Mr. Cross, First off, I thank you for your service, and I'm deeply sorry that the kinds of actions the community takes against you and your family, as we all know how inappropriate that is. And thank you for continuing to want to serve in that. On a little bit lighter note, I grew up in upstate New York, and I couldn't help but noticing here what a big change it must have been from Casper, Wyoming, to Ithaca, New York. and then when I look at your data you weren't even born when this was happening but Ed Marinaro was running back for Cornell went on and played for the Minnesota Vikings and then was a star in the TV show Hill Street Blues and maybe you would know is he still the best athlete to ever come out
of Cornell University. Mr. Cross. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Senator Sullivan, for your kind words. And I'm going to guess there's a pretty good chance he probably is. When I graduated from undergrad in 2006, the star player on the football team was Kevin Booth, who was a lineman who ended up getting drafted by the New York Giants and won two Super Bowls with the New York Giants. But it's not very often that the star player on your team is an offensive right tackle. So I think that doesn't say a lot about the state of Cornell football since its time. But we do have some pretty good hockey players and some pretty good lacrosse players as well. Any other questions for members of the committee for our nominees?
Okay, seeing none, is there any objection to moving these appointees as a group? Wonderful. Do we have a motion? Senator Linsett.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move to the full Senate with a favorable recommendation, the appointments of Michael Cross and Brett Ackerman to the Energy and Carbon Management Commission.
That is a proper motion. Ms. Forbes, please call the roll.
Senators, Baisley.
Aye. Catlin.
Yes. Exum.
Aye. Linsett. Aye. Mullica.
Yes. Pelton R.
Aye. Sullivan.
Aye. Senator Cutter is excused.
And Mr. Chair.
Aye.
The motion to refer our nominees to the Committee of the Whole has passed by an 8-0 vote.
Is there any request for the consent calendar? Senator Lindstedt.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would request that it is added to the consent calendar.
Any objections to adding this to the consent calendar? Seeing none, our appointees will be added to the consent calendar with a favorable recommendation. Thank you very much, Mr. Cross and Mr. Ackerman. We will now call up our final set of nominees for confirmation to the Community Access Enterprise. And here in person we have Ms. Dominique Gomez, Deputy Director from the Colorado Energy Office,
and Mr Mike Salisbury Director of Transportation at the Colorado Energy Office to introduce them and give an overview of the role Who would like to go first Ms Gomez let start with you Thank you Vice Chair Ball I'm Dominique Gomez. I'm the Deputy Director of the Colorado Energy Office. Unfortunately, our Director of Transportation, Mike Salisbury, is giving a presentation across the street, but he will be joining you for the EV plan a little bit later in the session. But we do have Mr. Paul Boney, who is one of the members for appointment today. and I believe Laura is online. She is on the road for travel today. Senate Bill 21-260 created several new enterprises with the purpose of advancing electrification of the state's transportation sector to mitigate the environmental and health impacts of transportation use. The Community Access Enterprise is one of those enterprises and is housed within the Colorado Energy Office. The primary purpose of the Community Access Enterprise is to support the widespread adoption of electric motor vehicles in an equitable manner by directly investing in transportation infrastructure, making grants, and providing rebates or other financing options to fund the construction of electric motor vehicle charging infrastructure throughout the state and electric alternatives to motor vehicles in communities, including but not limited to disproportionately impacted communities, and by owners of older, less fuel-efficient, and higher polluting vehicles. The bill also established a board of directors for the community access enterprise to oversee and implement the enterprise's business purpose. And Governor Polis initially appointed four members of the board on September 29, 2021, who met the requirements, including one member who represents disproportionately impacted communities, one member who represents the automobile industry, one member who represents electric alternatives to motor vehicles, and one non-specified position. In addition, directors are their designees from the Colorado Energy Office, the Department of Public Health and Environment, and the Department of Transportation also serve on the board. Today, Mr. Paul Boney has been reappointed to fill the Electric Alternatives Board's position. Paul is the Energy and Transportation Director for the Western Resilience Center. He focuses on bringing low-carbon alternative transportation to Route and Moffat counties, with a focus on disproportionately impacted communities. And he brings over 25 years of diversified experience in planning, implementing, marketing, and evaluating energy and consumer product programs and services. And I'll pass it over to Mr. Boney in just one moment. We also have Laura Goetz, who has been reappointed and serves as the board chair and to fill the non-specified board position. Laura is currently a relationship manager at Tri-State Generation and Transmission and has had past roles working at the San Isabel Electric Association and with the city and county of Pueblo, advancing energy and transportation efforts. She will provide important perspectives from south-central Colorado. I urge you first to hear from both Ms. Goetz and Mr. Boney as board members, and then I urge you to confirm both of them. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Gomez. Now we'll move to our appointees. In person we have Mr. Paul Boney. Mr. Boney, please introduce yourself and explain your interest in serving on the board.
Thank you. And it's a pleasure to be here, Mr. Chair and Senators. I will tell you when I was coming over rabbit ears past this morning on some pretty serious ice pack, I was thinking why didn't I go for the virtual option, but I'm delighted to be here in person. So thank you for that. I applied for this board when it was first formed. there was a slot for a nonprofit focused on alternative transportation, and I'm not ashamed to admit I didn't win that slot, but fortunately the person who did resign midway through their appointment, and I reapplied, so I think that shows my commitment, and I was fortunate enough to be appointed, and I've enjoyed my time on the board so far. I really enjoy working with the staff. I enjoy keeping an eye on the programs, and I can share with you some examples where we brought those to our local communities as well. And I was as deeply gratified as I was when I was appointed. I think I'm cursed because every time I come to Denver in person, there's a blizzard in March. So fortunately, there's no moisture in the storms this year, and I was able to make it over. I do have a long work history in both utility and industry roles, bringing programs and budgets to bear. So I'm very fiscally conservative. I will tell you that the staff and the budgets that come through this enterprise board are well thought out, well managed, and the programs are tracked very nicely. So my kudos to the staff at the energy office for managing that work. And not one for long for big speeches, but I'm certainly open to questions. And I would just appreciate your support for another term on the access board.
Thank you, Mr. Boni. Now we will go online to Ms. Goetz. Ms. Goetz, please introduce yourself and explain your interest in serving on this board.
Good afternoon, everyone. Can you hear me all right? Yes, we can. Okay, fantastic. I apologize that I'm on the road and I can't be there in person. We're in the San Luis Valley right now visiting. We're doing a big visitation loop of all of our rural electric co-ops. So it's been great to visit our communities across the state. And that is a big part of my role at Tri-State is working with our rural electric cooperatives. And so I bring to this work not just a unique perspective living in Pueblo, Colorado, but also just the rural community perspective, which I think is a very important piece of the work that has been happening through this advisory board. And so it's my experience to government efforts, economic development efforts, distribution utility efforts. And much of my time has been spent on the ground working with local businesses, working with people. And it's important to me that these programs are really connecting with folks who are living and working on the ground. And so I like to offer thoughts and feedback that I'm collecting from folks through this work. But I've seen how powerful these programs can be, how this money does make a difference, how it does tip the scales for fleets, for example, or for others and provide a multitude of benefits. And so it's been an honor to be a part of this board. And I can't say enough about Paul just to give an extra pitch for Paul as well. It's been wonderful to have Paul on the board and have his thoughts and perspective as well. But there's, yes, there's fantastic work being done by the Colorado Energy Office. And the funds that we have available to utilize for these programs are impacting our communities. They're getting into our communities. And I'm committed to making sure they're known in all communities of the state, especially in our hard to reach rural areas. in particular and that they are designed to be beneficial and utilized with as minimal barriers as possible but while still being extremely responsible with these funds at the end of the day So I'm happy to field any questions, but I appreciate the time today and thank you all for your service as well to our communities and our state.
Thank you, Ms. Goetz. Members of the committee, are there any questions for our appointees? Senator Catlin.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Boney, we wondered what happened to you in Montrose. So where did you end up?
Well, I still have the farm in Montrose and a condo and steamboat. So one week a month I'm still in Montrose, and the rest of the time I'm living the ski bum life in my late 60s.
Well, anyway, it's good to see you. I'm glad that you're on this board, and thanks for your involvement.
Thank you, sir.
Any other questions from our committee? I'll just say, Mr. Boney, thanks for making the long drive down here for this committee hearing. We all appreciate it. And you are now in the great Senate District of Senate District 31, which is my district, happy to host. And I hope you get a chance to have some of the delicious food that we have here in Denver.
I'm looking forward to my state-sponsored lunch tomorrow as our board.
Glad we could oblige. If there are no other questions, is there any objection to moving these appointees as a group? Seeing none, do we have a proper motion? Senator Linstead.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move to the full Senate with a favorable recommendation, the appointments of Paul Boney and Laura Goetz to the Community Access Enterprise.
That is a proper motion, Ms. Forbes.
Oh, and let the record show our Chair, Senator Cutter, is here. Ms. Forbes, will you please call the roll?
Senator Baisley. Aye.
Catlin. Aye.
Exum. Aye.
Winstead. Aye.
Mullica. Yes.
Helton R. Aye.
Sullivan. Aye.
Ball. Aye.
And Madam Chair. Aye.
The motion to move our appointees to the full Senate with the favorable recommendation passes 9-0.
Is there any request for the consent calendar? Senator Linstead.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I request that this be added to the consent calendar.
Any objection? Seeing none, these appointees will be added to the consent calendar, and thank you again for coming here today. Thank you. We will now proceed to hear Senate Bill 002 with our own Senator Exum and Senator Kipp. Yes, I do have one. Thank you. So you guys get settled and let us know when you're ready to begin. Thank you Thank you Welcome, and who would like to begin?
Senator Exum. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Committee. I want to start by acknowledging that the amendment before you represents the significant pivot from the bill as we originally introduced. The introduced version proposed creating a separate energy rate and dedicated to affordability through conversations with utility advocates and other stakeholders. it became clear that that approach would not move forward this year. So rather than walking away from the issue of affordability, we returned to the table and worked with a wide range of stakeholders, including Energy Outreach Colorado, Black Hills Energy, XL Energy, and Labor Partners. The Strike Blow Amendment reflects that collaboration. Instead of creating a new affordability rate, the amendment codifies an affordability structure for utility bills tied to household income. It draws from the existing model used by utilities while improving transparency and oversight so the structure works more effectively for both customers and regulators. Since 2012, utilities have offered affordability programs called Percentage of Income Payment Plans, or PIP. These programs limit the participating household annual energy costs to a set percentage of their income, so bills still remain affordable. Any amount above that affordability threshold is covered through the bill credits funded by surcharge that utility customers already are paying. The bill builds on the proven PIP framework while improving accessibility and consistency to how these affordability protections are implemented. Importantly, it does not create a new charge for customers or establish an entirely new program. Instead, it clarifies and strengthens the income-based affordability structure modeled on programs that have already helped Colorado families for years. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Senator Exum.
Senator Kipp? Thank you, committee, for hearing our bill today. So this original bill started from a simple principle. Governments grant monopolies to investor-owned utilities, so in exchange, utilities should help share the responsibility for energy affordability. Today, most assistance programs are funded by taxpayers or rate payers, even as investor-owned utilities continue to support strong profits. For example, XL Energy reported $903 million in operating profit in 2026, while also seeking hundreds of millions in additional rate increases. Utilities are not under financial distress, yet many Coloradans continue to struggle with rising energy bills. That's why it is reasonable to expect utilities to be part of the solution and contribute a portion of shareholder profits towards affordability. In fact, the testimony before the PUC last November, Excel Energy committed to contributing $10 million in shareholding funds to the PIPP program in 2027, which we really appreciate. Excel stated the company believes that shareholder contributions are an appropriate component to help make energy assistance more affordable and available for lower income and higher burdened customers Despite that acknowledgement requiring shareholder contributions face significant opposition from utilities this year, so we decided to continue that conversation outside of the spill. Rather than letting that opposition stop the effort entirely, we made the decision to pivot and focus on strengthening an affordability program that already exists, that is PIP, and improve how families access it. Right now, many households who qualify for PIP are not aware the program exists or face unnecessary barriers when trying to enroll. This amendment improves access by making information easier to find, creating clearer pathways to apply, and requiring utilities to notify customers when their application is approved or denied. These are practical changes, but they can make a real difference in whether families receive the help they qualify for. The bill also keeps an important signal in place. Utilities are encouraged, though not required, to contribute shareholder funds to support affordability programs. and any such contributions cannot be passed on to ratepayers. What this amendment does is codifies an affordability structure for utility bills tied to household income while improving access for the families who need it most. For Coloradans struggling with affordability and energy costs, this progress matters. We really appreciate your time and attention today and ask for your guest vote.
Thank you, Senator Kipp. Committee, any questions for our sponsors? I should just indicate that we will be speaking today to the strike below, which is L-005, and then later we will be bringing L-006 to L-005, just to be clear on what we're doing. Thank you. Thank you very much, Senator Kipp. Okay, then we will proceed to the witness testimony. For the first panel, I have Taiki James, which looks like Mr. James is in person. I have Chuck Patterson, Claire Valentine, and Bianca Jaquez. If you are online, you'll need to accept your promotion to panelist. There we go. Good afternoon. While they're popping in, why don't you introduce yourself and begin? You'll have three minutes.
Thank you. Good afternoon. Thank you, Chair and members of the committee. My name is Tykee James. I serve as the Senior Environmental Justice Campaign Manager at Conservation Colorado, the state's largest environmental advocacy organization. And I urge a yes vote on Senate Bill 2. Affordable energy is not a luxury. It is key to health and climate resilience. As we have seen energy markets react to extreme weather and geopolitical events, it's imperative that low-income households have measures in place to support them as the cost of living rises all around us. For too many families, it can be the difference between avoiding a power shutoff and putting food on the table. And for households that rely on electricity for medical equipment, a shutoff can quickly become a life-threatening emergency. Colorado's percentage of income payment plan PIP was designed to cap monthly utility costs at 6% for low income households served by the four major gas and electricity providers, XL, Black Hills, Colorado Natural Gas, and Atmos Energy. These investor owned utilities are for profit companies operating as regulated monopolies with oversight from Colorado. Public Utility Commission. The PUC authorizes how much each utility can charge for its electric rates and returns on equity. Despite careful regulation, electricity bills in Colorado continue to rise while these private investor-owned utilities earn record profits. The average monthly household costs for electricity spiked by $60 from December 2021 to December 2022. 2, in April of last year, more than 60,000 customers from Excel and Black Hills had their electricity disconnected because they could not pay. As amended, Senate Bill 2 is an important step forward for ensuring the PIP program remains available to low-income Coloradans for years to come. Protecting the program now provides continuity and certainty for implementation, keeping more families connected and safe in their homes. When energy prices suddenly spike, the PIP program keeps families from being thrown into medical risk or further into poverty. The program is funded by other ratepayers, not the families themselves, and I urge everyone involved to explore creative opportunities to expand the PIP program without passing on cost to other ratepayers. For the reasons stated, I urge a yes vote on Senate Bill 2, and I thank you for your service, and I thank you all for your time.
Thank you so much, Mr. James. All right. Online, I will go to Ms. Valentine. Are you ready to begin? You'll have three minutes.
Yes, thank you, and good afternoon, Chair Cutter, Vice Chair Ball, and members of the committee. My name is Claire Valentine, and I'm a Senior Policy Advisor at Western Resource Advocates, or WRA, where I advocate for policies that accelerate transitioning power generation to clean resources while maintaining affordable and reliable electricity for Coloradans. WRA has worked for more than 30 years to ensure our communities thrive and balance with nature and economic growth. WRA thanks Senators KIP and Exum for bringing this bill forward. At a time when affordability is at the forefront of many Coloradans' minds and technology and electricity are vital to everyday life, we know that we must continue and expand our support for community members with the greatest economic need. WRA supports SB2 because it does just that. It looks out for Coloradans who may be in the precarious position of having to choose among paying their utility bills, putting food on the dinner table, or buying life-sustaining medication. These are choices that no Coloradans should have to make. Accordingly, we support the bill and amendments that will be presented today. As amended, the bill codifies the percentage of income payment plan program or PIP program, which ensures that participating income-qualified customers only have to pay a reasonable percentage of their income toward utility bills. This program is critical for ensuring that electricity service is affordable for these customers to meet their basic needs, and SB2 improves the accessibility and transparency of the program. As such, SB2 is an important step towards ensuring that people on the lowest end of the income spectrum are able to access electric service, which has become a foundational part of all of our lives. We urge you to vote yes on SB2 and Amendment L-005 to preserve Colorado's progress toward a modern, cost-efficient, reliable, and safe electric system that serves all Coloradans. So thank you to Senator Kipp and Senator Axel for bringing this bill forward and to the Together Colorado team for launching the idea, as well as to Energy Outreach Colorado for your subject matter expertise on this bill. So thank you, committee members, for your time and attention today.
Thank you, Ms. Valentine. Appreciate testimony. Mr. Patterson. Oh, I apologize. Dr. Patterson. You'll have three minutes. It looks like you're on mute.
I got it No thank you There you go Welcome Thanks My name is Chuck Patterson and I here today asking you to vote yes on Senate Bill 26002 Energy Affordability, with the amendment as proposed by Senator Kipp. I've lived in the San Francisco Mobile Home Park since 1975. As a retired educator with health issues keeping me from any work, I've struggled to pay my increasing grocery, medical, housing, and utility bills. Leap has really helped me since 2023 at least, and it was very easy to sign up for. However, the information was right there on my Excel bill. However, I could have used more help over these past few years, and I had no idea that PIP exists. Just improving access to PIP, even knowing that it's there, would have helped me quite a bit. And I've heard that by – I use Leap, and I've heard that by being awarded Leap, I can automatically qualify for PIP. So it seems like a highly profitable company, a utility like Excel, whose rates and profits go up every year, should at least help make it easier for the folks like me who struggle with these bills to give me assistance we can. I'd like to add that I use a medical device to stay alive, and I live next to the Massify Zone, a very windy place. Every time Excel shuts power off to me, and I live in this area, those of us who rely on electricity for medical reasons are endangered. Some of Excel's huge profits should go towards burying its electrical lines to keep people safe instead. But I support the bill because I know how many of my neighbors and I need as much assistance as possible without ever increasing mutual aid in bills. Easy, streamlined access to the PIP program is necessary right now. Thank you for your time, and please vote yes on SB 2602.
Thank you. Thank you so much, Dr. Patterson. It looks like we still do not have Bianca Jaquez online. Okay, then we will go. Thank you so much. We'll go to questions. Anyone have any questions for these witnesses today? Members, no? Okay. Seeing none, thank you so much for your time this afternoon. Okay. All right. Thank you. So we'll call up the next panel of, let's see, Ms. Matilda Parker, I believe, is in person. Ms. Melina Taya. Shana Oliver, and some of these are remote. I'm going to go ahead and call up the last two, Faith Ryan and Tim Barnes. So welcome. While everyone else is loading up, okay, they're starting to pop in there. Why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself and begin. You'll have three minutes.
Hello, my name is Matilda Parker. I'm an economic student at the University of Colorado Boulder. I did non-partisan economic analysis of this bill. Electricity is a necessity. Households can't easily change how much heat they need in the winter or whether they refrigerate food. Because of that, how electricity is priced matters much more for low-income households than for higher-income households. In Colorado, investor-owned utilities such as XL and Black Hills Energy provide electricity about 70% of the state's population. Within each service territory they charge a uniform residential rate Everyone pays the same price per kilowatt hour From an economic perspective the pricing structure is simple but it not neutral When a basic good is priced uniformly the cost absorbs a much larger share of income for low households even when average prices are relatively low. This is the distributional problem Senate Bill 002 addresses. Electricity provision is a natural monopoly, with high fixed costs and low marginal costs. Under cost-of-service regulation, utilities cover these costs through uniform average cost pricing. This ensures financial viability but does not account for differences to pay. As a result, uniform pricing places a disproportionate burden on low-income households. The FAIR Act directly intervenes in this structure through redistribution embedded in rate design. For income-qualified households, a minimum block of electricity covering essential needs will be priced at marginal cost rather than average cost. This means the most basic and unavoidable uses will be billed at the lowest economically efficient price. Importantly, the bill explicitly prohibits utilities from shifting resulting revenue losses onto other ratepayers. Instead, the economic incidence falls on utility shareholders to reduce profits. Redistribution is therefore explicit and transparent. Value is shifted away from regulated capital return and towards households with the greatest need. This creates an asymmetric impact. Residential electricity only represents 20.7 of total electricity consumption in Colorado, so the effect on utility profits is quite likely to be manageable. For income-qualified households, however, the benefits are substantial because lower prices for essential electricity directly reduce energy burdens and financial strain. One key implementation issue is that the bill delegates the definition of minimum electricity allotment to investor-owned utilities. The size of the allotment will determine the strength of both the redistributive impact and the revenue effects. A second critical design choice is enrollment. Experience with programs like LEAP show that eligibility alone does not guarantee participation. While over 450,000 renter households could qualify, if enrollment requires active application or extensive documentation, take-up will be lower and therefore the redistributive impact will be muted. Automatic enrollment using existing income or assistance data would ensure that households a policy that is designed to help actually receive the help. Economically, the bill is not about lowering average electricity prices. It's about redistributing costs within a natural monopoly where uniform prices produces unequal burdens. With careful oversight of both the minimum allotment and enrollment design, the policy represents a targeted and economically coherent approach to improving energy affordability. That was on the nose.
Three minutes. Well done. Thank you so much. Okay, Ms. Oliver online. Please introduce yourself and begin. You'll have three minutes.
Can you guys hear me? We can.
Thank you.
Monskling Air Force acknowledges that the lands now known as the United States are the ancestor lands of more than 575 federally recognized tribal Indian nations and many more who remain unrecognized. Today, we acknowledge that we are on the ancestor lands of 48 tribal nations of Colorado with two federally recognized tribes, the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe and the Southern Ute Indian Tribe. We also honor the ancestor lands of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Nations, which today is home to many communities of the metropolitan. Thank you for taking my comments. I'm Shana Oliver, Field Coordinator for Colorado Moms Clean Air Force and Outreach Coordinator for ECO Madres. We're a national organization of over 1.5 million parents and caregivers united for our children's health against harmful air pollution and climate pollution with over 44 Colorado members We urge you to support Senate Bill 002 Families and elders must be supported in a time of deep uncertainty as our country struggles to address energy sources and the challenges of climate change I'm an indigenous Diné mother of four and we're descendants of the genocide of the Indian Removal Act, known to the Diné as the Long Walk of the Navajo. As a tribal affiliate of the Navajo Nation, I know from lived experience that tribes are historically and disproportionately impacted by the harms of environmental injustice through unjust policies and laws. Because of these environmental injustices, Black, Brown, Indigenous, and low-wealth communities have seen a disproportionately impact on health, environment, and equitable access to affordable energy. As climate change accelerates, the federal government has stripped environmental justice resources from frontline communities and rescinded the endangerment finding, a rule that gave voice to disproportionately impacted communities. at the same time demands to expand expensive coal-powered energy will leave families and elders stranded with access only to unaffordable options. Colorado's extreme temperatures and unpredictable weather already place significant financial strain on families and communities. Moms Clean Air Force Colorado parents urge your leadership to ensure families and elders are protected from financial impacts of climate-driven weather events on energy and affordability. Support Senate Bill 002, Fair Service for Families, Elders, and Vulnerable
Populations. Thank you. Thank you very much, Ms. Oliver. Ms. Ryan, are you ready to begin?
Please introduce yourself, and you have three minutes. Yes. Hi, everyone. Thank you to the chair and the committee for hearing my comments today. My name is Faith Ryan, and I'm an energy policy analyst for the city of Westminster, and I'm speaking today on behalf of the Communities for Climate Action. CC4CA is a coalition of 47 local governments representing one-third of Colorado's population. Dealing with increasing energy demand and increasing costs for energy can put decision makers between a rock and a hard place. Local governments are very familiar with this kind of conflict as we are constantly balancing serving our residents' basic needs with avoiding increased regressive taxes. CC4CA supported Senate Bill 2 as introduced because it avoided this constant push and pull, meeting the energy needs of Colorado's lowest income residents without causing rate increases for everyone else. We have not had time to assess the new amendments, but we wish to express our disappointment that the original proposal will not be considered. Approximately 27,000 Coloradans owe money on their electricity bill, a service that people simply can't live without. The lowest income residents in Colorado can face energy costs as high as 12 percent of their income, which is considered severe and impacts their ability to pay for other basic needs. Within my jurisdiction, Westminster, 7.31 percent of residents live below the federal poverty level and even more face high housing costs. In today's world, electricity lets us eat, drink, stay warm, work, and stay cool. Especially as high heat days increase with worsening climate change, the ability to turn on an air conditioner can be the difference between life and death and prevent expensive hospital visits. Colorado needs to respond to these impacts of energy costs. CC4CA is eager for successful conversations leading to the adoption of the program originally proposed in Senate Bill 2. Thank you.
Thank you very much. So let's see, we have Mr. Barnes. Are you ready to begin? Introduce yourself, and you'll have three minutes.
Thank you. Thank you, Chair Cutter and committee for hearing my comments today. I'm Tim Barnes, the new Mayor Pro Tem for the City of Lafayette, speaking on behalf of my constituents. Like many communities in Colorado, Lafayette's experience increasing cost of living from expensive housing to rising food prices. As a man for time, I think about Lafayette's low-income residents all the time. All levels of Colorado government must take action to ensure that Coloradoans don't have to choose between paying their bills and feeding their families. I'm disappointed to see that the Senate bill, as it was introduced, is no longer moving forward. The initial bill was a common-sense measure that measures the public good without cost to ratepayers. The bill would have allowed income-qualified customers to buy a limited amount of energy from their utility at the rate that it costs the utility to produce. The bill simply asked public utilities companies to do what they were created to do, serve Coloradoans basic energy needs. Excel's profits have increased enormously in the last decade. The company's Colorado Gas and Electric Operations, which Xcel Energy calls its, quote, largest and most lucrative, unquote, subsidy, produced $678 million in profits for shareholders in 2025. Meanwhile, in April 2025, more than 16,000 customers of Xcel Energy and Black Hills Energy had their electricity discontinued due to inability to pay. I look forward to future conversations on the reasonable program proposed in the introduced version of this bill. Thank you, Chair.
Thank you very much, Mr. Barnes. And does anyone have any questions for these witnesses?
Senator Baisley. Thank you, Madam Chair. This is a question for anyone on the panel that wishes to respond. This bill involves the Public Utilities Commission from Colorado to require this program, the FAIR program, to be submitted for the PUC's Utility Commission's approval. But it directs only to the one area that the PUC regulates, which is electricity. Would any of you propose or like to see a similar application towards natural gas and water, which are also utilities that the PUC regulates and that people are dependent on? Does anyone want to take that? Ms. Parker, please go ahead.
I do believe that could be beneficial. I did do another analysis of HB 261129, which was residential emissions. So that's how the PUC aimed to decrease costs for residential natural gas customers. So I believe it could be beneficial if they're not cutting corners like they did with residential emissions, so opting out of the clean heat plans. So, yeah, I think it could be good.
Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Any further questions, committee? No? Seeing none, thank you so much to our panel. I'm going to try, thank you. And thank you, that's impressive, the work you've been doing. Thank you. Thank you for being here. Let's see, I'm going to call again Ms. Melina Taya. Do not see her. Let see if she lurking online And Blanca Jaquez and I will now read these very tiny names with my glasses because I was mispronouncing your name and I apologize I believe Blanca's online. Can we get her? Okay. And Ms. Taya is not online? No? Okay. All right. Please begin, Ms. Jaquez. Introduce yourself, and you'll have three minutes. While we're kind of waiting to see if she can come up online, the last remaining witnesses we have are Rebecca White. Are you there?
Hello? Yeah. I just couldn't connect myself.
Okay. Please begin. You'll have three minutes.
Okay. Good afternoon, Chair Cutter and members of the committee. My name is Blanca Huckes, and I am here today asking you to vote yes on SB 26-002 with the amendment as proposed by Senator Kip Nassim. I am a mother of four children. They are 14, 8, 2 years old and 2 months old. My family has lived in the San Salzi mobile home park for about two years. Before that, we lived in an apartment, but the rent kept going up so fast that it couldn't become really hard for me to afford basic things like food and clothes for my kids. Buying a home at San Salzi was the best decision from family. My bills are still high, but now we have a home that is big enough for my kids and much safer. When I first moved in, I thought the furnace didn't work earlier this past fall. When I was about to have a baby, the house was getting very cold. At my daughter's school, through the Family Resources Program, I learned about programs that could help me with my furnace for several months. I talked to people in the city of Boulder and then with the county, and finally, one of these people put me in touch with someone from LEAP. Just days before I brought my newborn baby on December 31st, the LEAP program helped me replace my furnace and started helping me buy my Excel bill without LEAP. I honestly don't know what I would have done, but I had never heard about the PIP program. I spoke to the people from the city of Boulder, the county, and the people who work with LEAP, but no one ever told me about it. My kids still need food and clothes. My electricity bill keeps going up every year. Supporting my family is so hard. If I had known about PIP earlier, it will have helped easy as lots of stress about those big Excel bills. SB 26-002 helps families like mine. It makes information about the program easier to find so people understand how it works and how to apply. Families shouldn't have to go through many different places just to learn about the health benefits. This bill also creates more ways to apply for PIP, not only through LEAP. That matters because applying for programs like LEAP can be complicated has to be done against every year SB 26 0 dash 0 0 to reduces barriers prevents gaps in coverage and helps more eligible families to get the support they need thank you for your time please vote yes and SB 26
00 to thank you thank you so much miss Hockes does anyone have any questions no seeing none thank you very much for your testimony today And I will call up our last panel Ms White Rebecca White and Andrew Bennett Please come on up. Welcome, Mr. Bennett. Okay, whoever, Ms. White, how about you kick us off here and you'll have three minutes.
Welcome. I found it. Good morning, Madam Chair, members of the committee. My name is Rebecca White. I serve as Director of the Colorado Public Utilities Commission. So while Colorado is fortunate to have energy rates below the national average, energy affordability is very much in the eye of the beholder, and many Coloradans struggle to pay their bills, as you've heard today. The percentage of income payment, or PIP framework, codified by this bill has been in place for over a decade. Combined with the federal LEAP program for heating costs, PIP serves as the foundation of ensuring Coloradans served by our regulated utilities have an energy bill they can afford, regardless of income. The PUC sets the rules by which PIP programs currently operate today. Senate Bill 2 takes this foundation and improves it. And while the PUC is here today testifying in an amend position, our suggestions are intended to enhance and bolster the intent of the bill with which we agree. First, we would recommend extending the bill to all four investor-owned utilities to ensure consistency and equity through all investor-owned utility territories. That would also avoid confusion as many customers receive gas from one company and their electricity from another. This bill is currently drafted, has only two of the four investor-owned utilities included, and yet our PIP rules today require PIP be in place for all four IOUs. Second, we recommend adding language to allow the PUC to pilot or implement other affordability models and adjust affordability percentages to improve and modernize the PIP program as needed in future years. Third, we recommend adding additional reporting provisions to allow the PUC to have oversight into the utility's application and implementation process. This oversight will allow for greater transparency and insurance that customers are receiving assistance in a fair and timely manner. We understand that the sponsors and proponents are planning on accepting some of these amendments today in committee, and we are grateful for their partnership. We look forward to further discussing some of the other enumerated points with them soon as well. In closing, Senate Bill 2 strengthens an important safety net for income-qualified customers to receive bill assistance, and we hope these suggestions will ensure it is as transparent and equitable as possible. Thank you for your time.
Thank you so much, Ms. White. Director White, I apologize. And Ms. Long, if you want to introduce yourself and begin. Good to see you.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Good afternoon, members of the committee. My name is Laura Long. I'm representing Energy Outreach Colorado, playing the part of Andrew Bennett, who unfortunately has a cat emergency at the moment. Energy Outreach Colorado was created by this body over 20 years ago. We work with over 100 partner agencies all over the state to provide direct energy assistance. We also do emergency furnace interventions energy audits weatherization projects for both single and multifamily residential and non I want to first thank our sponsors, Senator Kip and Senator Exum, for working so diligently with us to, I believe, come up with a much stronger bill. We are in, I would say, an increasingly supportive amend position, and I think after today we may be reevaluating that. There are thousands of households in Colorado that are either moderately or severely energy burdened. You heard from a couple of folks from our client population today who testified that they did not even know about this program, And it is, I think, a really elegant way of getting people from one program onto this other program to increase their energy affordability. Our average customer is a single mom with two kids who makes about $24,000 a year. that's $2,000 a month for everything that she needs for housing and heat and food and medical expenses before she even begins to think about herself. So we believe that policies like this are important, and again, we're very grateful to the sponsors for bringing it and for working with us to improve the draft. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Ms. Long. Committee, any questions for this panel?
Senator Sullivan. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you both for being here. Ms. White, you say that this PIP program has been going for at least a decade, and as you say, we heard from several. I mean, Ms. Jaquez, she's got four kids. They're living in a trailer. I mean, clearly, daily life is a struggle for that family. How is it, and what can we do better, that they don't know about programs like this that are set up specifically for families like that? And again, I mean, you've been in the business, not you specifically, but the business has been there for 10 years, and these people can't find out. I mean, what are we doing wrong? Because I'm having a concern finding what it is exactly we're doing right for these people. Director White.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Senator Sullivan, excellent question. so you're correct on many fronts today enrollment in PIP reaches as low as 20% of the folks who are eligible for that there are a few different reasons for that from what I've discovered one, the primary way that people are referred into PIP is they first apply for LEAP, which is the Federal Heating Assistance Program that program will only refer people who are eligible for LEAP obviously, which means they have to be U.S. citizens they can't live in section 8 housing there's a series of other sort of criteria that kind of rule them out and that has been the primary pipeline to get people into PIP programs we've been trying to shortcut that at the PUC we set up a program called utility bill help that is reaching out to people directly instead of having them come through LEAP. We also work very closely with Energy Outreach Colorado. They're here today, and they provide another way to get people into PIP. We also launched a program called the Colorado Energy Savings Navigator that has all the affordability programs available all on one site. We have that fully translated. I've been trying to push that out. But part of the reason I like this bill, and there's a lot to offer here, is I think it'll make the PIP program even stronger, allow us to work more closely with utilities and try to get more people into these programs because there is work yet to do. You're absolutely right.
Thank you.
Any further questions from the committee? I actually have a question for Ms. Long. What would you like to see amended? Is there some other specific thing that you are requesting?
Thank you, Madam Chair. things have been moving so quickly that I would like to read it first. And I believe there is a provision in there that would currently dollars are rolled into a line item on a customer bill that is for services and facilities. I believe in the amendment there's a line that says that this should be taken out. I think that that's going to be confusing to customers who've been paying this all along, and we feel like that might be the wrong message to send. It's going to make it look like we're putting something new, and I don't think that that is the best way to support this program. Okay, thank you.
Any further questions from the committee? Seeing none, thank you both for being here today and for your testimony I'll make one last call, are there any witnesses that have not signed up? Anyone that would like to testify that has not signed up? Nope, then sponsors Come on up I believe we have your amendments
Thank you, Madam Chair. I move amendment L005 to Senate Bill 2.
That is a proper motion. We could do L6 first since it's amending L5. Okay. Senator Exum, let's have you do L6 first since that's amending L5.
So yeah, you have to withdraw L5.
Okay.
Thank you, Madam Chair. my motion for Amendment L-005.
Duly noted. And you have another? Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair.
I move Amendment L-006 to Senate Bill 2.
Okay. Thank you. Would you like to explain the amendment?
Sure. So L-006 is making a couple of, taking a couple of suggestions from the PUC and putting them into the strike below.
Wonderful. Committee, any questions? Any objections to this amendment? Okay, seeing none, L-006 is adopted. I need to do that. And continue. Okay.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I move amendment L-005 to Senate Bill 2.
Thank you. Did you want to go ahead, Senator Kipp?
Yeah, L-005 is a strike below that we have been talking to. So basically we have been working with all of the stakeholders on the original bill and trying to bring them into a good place on this bill The strike below is a result of that work Basically, we're codifying the PIP program and trying to streamline it and make it easier for people to access.
Thank you. Committee, any questions about that amendment? All right. Seeing none, any objections to that amendment? Then that amendment is adopted. Any further amendments from the sponsors? No more amendments. Any amendments from the committee? All right. Seeing none, the amendment phase is closed. Sponsors, would you like to begin your wrap-up?
Senator Exeman. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, committee, for listening. I'll just reiterate a couple of points I made in my opening statement. Since 2012, utilities have offered affordability programs called Percentage of Income Payment Plans, or PIP, and these programs limit a participation in households' annual energy costs to set percentage of their income of such bills so bills can remain affordable. Any amount above the affordability threshold is covered through the bill of credit funded by the surcharge of utility customers already paying. And we're hoping that if this bill moves forward that it will strengthen income-based affordability structure modeled on programs that already helped color our families for years. And I would ask for your aye vote.
Thank you. Thank you, Senator Exum. Senator Kim?
Thank you. Thank you, committee, for hearing our bill today. And we really appreciate everybody who came to testify in every position today. You know, right now, many households who qualify for PIP are not aware that the program exists. They face unnecessary barriers when trying to enroll. This amendment will improve access by making information easier to find, creating clearer pathways to apply, and requiring utilities to notify customers when their application is approved or denied. These are practical changes, but they can make a real difference in whether families receive the help they qualify for. So we would ask for your yes vote today.
Thank you. Thank you, Senator Kipp. Committee, is there any comments? Wrap up. Yes, Senator Ball.
Thank you, Madam Chair. And thanks for bringing this bill. Thanks for all your hard work on this bill to get it into a good place. I just wanted to add one comment, picking up off something that Senator Sullivan mentioned about enrollment in the program. And it strikes me that we actually could fix that pretty easily if we required regulated utilities to notify the people who are eligible for the program that they are eligible. So I don't have any amendment language now, but would love to continue conversations with the sponsors on the floor if that's something we could add here to potentially bridge that gap.
Committee, any further comments? Yes, Senator Catlin.
Thank you, Madam Chair. My question would be to either one of the sponsors. Who will be taking the applications for people filing for PIP?
Go ahead, Senator Kipp.
So my understanding is generally they are handled through an organization such as Energy Outreach Colorado, but they do go eventually to the utility to make sure that they are qualified, and that would probably be an excellent question for Ms. Long because she is the person who is, um, really engaged in that.
Thank you. Okay. Um, committee, any further comments? I will I will um just say that I really appreciate all that you two have invested in bringing this bill and the advocates that have worked on this bill I fully support the concept and I believe it was in a good place a long time ago So I'm sorry. I'm personally sorry that you had to change it so dramatically. but I appreciate you wanting to make some kind of change and doing what you needed to do to get this through and do something good for our constituents. So thank you very much. And with that, Ms. Forman. Oh, we need a motion. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but Senator Reagan. Yeah, yeah. About props. Okay.
Yeah. Thank you, Madam Chair. I move Senate Bill 2 as amendment to the Committee on Appropriations with a favorable recommendation.
That is a proper motion. Thank you. Ms. Forbes, please poll the committee.
Senators, Baisley.
No.
Catlin.
No.
Exum.
Aye.
Lindstedt.
Aye.
Mullica.
Yes.
Pelton R.
No.
Sullivan.
Aye.
Ball.
Aye.
And Madam Chair.
Aye.
Aye.
That passes 6-3. Congratulations. You are on your way to appropriations. Okay. Next up, we have a presentation on the electric vehicle plan and greenhouse gas reduction roadmap. So let's call up Mr. Mike Salisbury, if Mr. Salisbury has made it here, the Director of Transportation Programs at the Energy Office. There we are, Mr. Salisbury. And Ms. Stephanie Shoup, the Office of Innovation Manager in the Air Pollution and Control Division at CDPHE. Welcome to T&E. Who would like to, do you need a minute to set up the presentation? I think I have slides that I'm sharing in the meeting. Let's give ourselves a minute then to see if we can bring up the slides. Thank you. Thank you Thank you Okay, looks like we've got the presentation up, so who would like to begin? Mr. Salisbury? Thank you very much. I'll hand it over to you. Please proceed. Great. very much. I appreciate you having here in our presentation today. My name is Mike Salisbury. I'm the Director of Transportation Programs at the Colorado Energy Office. We are here today to provide an annual update to your committee on the progress that Colorado has made towards our electric vehicle adoption goals as well as greenhouse gas emission reduction goals. This is all per Senate Bill 21-260. So I'm going to dive right in. Just a couple a little bit backward on EV plans in the state of Colorado. We have done three of them. The first one came in 2018. There's an update in 2020 and another update done in 2023. What we are kind of discussing today is the update that happened for fiscal year 25, so July 1st, 2024 to June 30th, 2025, all the actions and the progress the state has made in that space over that period of time. and we'll just be discussing some of the very high-level findings. There's a whole lot of information in the EV plan update that we could go into, but these are kind of some of the high-level findings and progress we made. So the first thing to talk about is just some of the EV adoption goals. These are the big ones, really. So looking at, you know, we have a goal to have 940,000 EVs on the road by 2030, 2.1 EVs by 2035, up to 100% by 2050. We have other goals around the adoption rate, the number of EVs sold per year. And so I'm going to just share some data showing kind of where we're at today. So this is the EV sales percentage of light-duty vehicles in the state of Colorado over the last six years. We're up to just around that 25% mark for 2024 and 2025, so kind of meeting that one target we had. I would like to say that we've been doing great work in this space with EV sales. These numbers in 2024 and 2025, Colorado was tied for the top EV market in the country. So right there parallel with California's EV sales for these two years. Then another snapshot of the same kind of data is cumulative EV sales. At the end of 2025, there are 210,000 EVs on the road, and we sold 50,000 EVs in 2025. down a little bit from 2024. There's a lot of EV headwinds in 2025 with the change in the federal administration that we're still working on adjusting to in the EV market. Another set of goals we focus a lot on at the Colorado Energy Office is the number of charging stations available to make charging convenient, affordable, feasible for Colorado residents who might want to purchase and use their EV as much as possible. So we had goals around the deployment 1,200 DC fast charging stations, 5,800 level two stations, as well as goals around us as an office having awards for up to 1,000 grants or 1,000 ports for our different charging station grant programs, Charge Ahead Colorado, Fleet Zero, and then DC fast charging plazas. And I'll talk more about the NEVI program in a minute. The other goal that I wanted to highlight is we came very close to the electrification of the Colorado scenic and historic byways. Our goal was 23 by the end of 2025. We got to 20, still working on that goal as well. So this is just a snapshot over the last few years of where we've been as far as cumulative addition of charging station ports in Colorado. We've added a lot since 2022. We've almost doubled the number of Level 2 ports and more than doubled the number of DC fast charging station ports in the state of Colorado. It came just short of our original goals of 5,800 for Level 2, 1,700 for DC fast charging. But we're very optimistic. We have a lot of charging station ports awarded. As I mentioned, we had a goal of 1,000 ports awarded per year in 2024 and 2025. We exceeded 1,700 ports awarded in each of those years. So there are a lot of projects in the pipeline that we expect to see, both from supported by our work, but also just private sector funded ports as well. Just want to touch briefly on NEVI, or the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Program. It's a federally funded program, really meant to support the deployment of high-powered DC fast charging stations on major highway corridors. So probably if you were aware, there's a lot of litigation happening with this program in 2025, went back and forth trying to get our allocation that we had originally gotten from the federal government. We're now, I think, clear of that and feel very confident we're going to be able to spend the full $56.5 million we were obligated or allocated for that program. So just to date, we've awarded 42 sites of $22 million. There's already eight of these fast-charging plaza sites that opened at the end of the fiscal year, and at least four more had opened by the end of the calendar year. So we're up to 12 sites total, and these are kind of spread across the state. Very briefly on the text on this slide, but we also have goals around medium and heavy-duty vehicle, electric vehicle deployment in the state. So our goals have 30% of medium and heavy-duty vehicles be new sales, be electric by 2030. We're at about 12% today and have 35,000 on the road. We're about just over 8,000 today. We also have goals around different kinds of bus technologies, transit buses, electric buses, and there are programs through the Clean Transit Enterprise run by CDOT and the Clean Fleet Enterprise run by CDPHE to support the additional deployment and providing grants for agencies, local governments, school districts, et cetera, to purchase these electric buses. One region or one focus area that Colorado has been a real leader on has been the support and adoption of electric bikes. I think we been a real leader in this space from a policy point of view from a programmatic point of view We had a goal to get via state programs 10 new e on the road by 2025 We have over 23,000 via the state program, so almost 8,000 e-bikes purchased through an e-bike rebate program that the state provided. And then the state also has an e-bike tax credit that at the end of fiscal year 25 had resulted in over 15,000 e-bikes being purchased. so doing great in that space. Another mobility focused program is the Community Accelerated Mobility Project. This provides funding to local governments, nonprofits who are interested in deploying electrified mobility programs like e-bike sharing or e-car share. Another area I want to just briefly touch on is the state's own efforts at fleet electrification. So it's very important that we lead and walk the walk with what we're doing. So we've made again progress. The blue bars are the greenhouse gas emissions from the state fleet. We have a goal to get that down 32% by 2034. I think we're down to 12%. We've seen a 12% decrease from 2019, so making progress in that space. And that's also at a time when we're adding vehicles and the state fleet is also becoming larger. So a lot of this decrease is then also resulting from getting EVs into our fleet. At the end of this calendar, last year we had 866, adding more kind of every day to get to our goal of 1250 by 2027. And then we have a lot of charging ports to support these vehicles in the state provided by SB21230 funding. And then the last slide I have today is just really focusing on how this work does really try to address equity as well. There was a goal in the EV plan that at least 40% of the funding coming from these new enterprises created by SB21260 would be focused on equity. So that would either be the projects would be located in disproportionately impacted communities or the funding in the program would be directly providing funding to low and moderate income Coloradans. So the goal is 40% and all three of the enterprises have, I think, far exceeded that goal. So we're very pleased that we are really focusing these resources as much as possible into disproportionately impacted communities and also supporting low and moderate income Coloradans as we try to make it easier for them to adopt these new electric vehicle technologies. I think that is my last slide, and I'm going to turn it over to Stephanie Schaup. Thank you for that. My name is Stephanie Schaup. I am the Deputy Director for Regulatory Affairs with the Air Pollution Control Division. And my portion of this is to talk a little bit about the greenhouse gas emissions inventory and the work that happens, we compile an inventory every other year. And at this point in time, we have just started publishing the 2025 greenhouse gas inventory, which goes through the 2023 calendar year and includes emissions through that year. And so we are responsible for making sure we are looking at our emissions across the state and that we are building this inventory so that we can compare emissions all the way back to 2005 through current time. And we also include projections of what we anticipate emissions will be in the future So I want to focus a little bit on the transportation sector in particular And a little bit of information the population in Colorado has grown pretty significantly since 2005, reaching 5.9 million people in 2023, so a 27% increase. We've also seen a corresponding increase in vehicle miles traveled. However, what we have also seen is that the vehicle miles traveled, or the amount of use of our cars is not necessarily gone up in proportion to the population increase, which means that people are driving a little bit less than they were 20 years ago. And so that is giving us some benefit to reducing our greenhouse gas emissions and also aiding us as we take care of our roads and every other thing that we have to take care of. You'll also see in the transportation sector emissions overall, The bulk of these emissions are going to be from gasoline-fired vehicles with diesel engines coming next, jet fuel and then natural gas down there kind of at the bottom. We've seen a decrease in the amount of emissions coming from gasoline-fired vehicles and natural gas specifically with a slight decrease in jet fuel and diesel emissions. We also saw a dip there with jet fuel and gasoline there in 2020, and I think you saw that on the previous slide as well. There's a pretty significant dip. Everything has kind of come back into a normal state now, and so we are seeing things about the same or in the same general area. All right, and the next one. And so a last little bit of information about our transportation sector emissions. There are a couple of things you can kind of look at here. One way of looking at this is in blue, which is what we call the business as usual, which is we didn't really do anything more and things just kind of continued and there weren't any other pressures that were pushing this downward. That's where we would see emissions going in the transportation sector, and that's for a lot of different reasons. The roadmap baseline is all of the policies that we've already put into place. So that's the yellow line. And then the near-term actions are anything additional that hasn't already been put into place. So those are things in green. So you see that is driving that line to go down just a little bit, and we are seeing a more significant increase of emissions over the next several years from the transportation sector. A little bit of information, the 2030 target is represented by that red star. and so you can see that this is the hardest sector to actually get our emissions down in a fast time frame. Vehicle turnover is something that takes a long time, and so this is definitely something where we are not going to probably meet our goal in 2030, but we are still projecting that we are going to meet that goal later in the century. And that is it. So if you have any questions for us, we're happy to take those. members of the committee any questions that picture do we know where that picture was taken looks beautiful good place to charge your car Maybe while we thinking about that I do have one question The goals that you laid out at the beginning are pretty ambitious. I think it was 70% by 2030. Do you expect that we're going to hit those goals? Mr. Boney? Mr. Salisbury. I thought you were probably talking to him. Looking at the wrong name. Thank you, Senator. You know, the 2030 goal, it's ambitious. I think if you'd asked me a year ago, are we going to hit it, I would have said confidently, absolutely. I think as I briefly alluded to, we've seen a very big shift in the electric vehicle market nationwide over the course of 2025, with both the expiration of the federal tax credits going away with the kind of uncertainty around California's ability to continue to set zero emission vehicle regulations. So we've seen some very big hits to the ED market. So what we're seeing, we saw 2025 kind of plateau a little bit from 2024 levels, which is not the trajectory we need to be on right now to meet those 2030 goals. I think we are expecting, we've seen, I would just say speculatively, like you've seen markets previously, for example, Germany several years ago took away their kind of federal EV tax credit and kind of saw a drop off in a year, but then they rebounded relatively quickly. So we're kind of thinking that that situation could also happen here, given that there's a lot of strong EV markets still pushing things forward. We think they're going to see a rebound. It's going to be a challenge, though, to kind of recover that lost ground. But I'm still watching the monthly reports coming in, seeing what the data is showing us about what the new normal is for EV sales. Along those same lines, is it too early to tell what 2026 will look like? Do you expect a rebound from 2025, or do you think the uncertainty is going to hold flat or even decrease? Thank you, Senator. It's probably still too early right now. I've just seen one month of data from 2026 to January sales, getting February data soon. You know, I think it's probably going to be a challenging year. You know, we also saw in Colorado our tax credit went down from $3,500 all the way down to $750 in this calendar year. So not only are the federal incentives going down, the state incentives are going down. We've made some efforts to adjust. We have our vehicle exchange Colorado program that provides rebates for lower income Coloradans to buy EVs. But I think it's my guess, my crystal ball is it's going to be probably a tough year. I would be beyond surprised if we don't see lower sales happening in 2026 than we saw in 2025 in Colorado. But again, I also would say that we're still, as hard as that is, we're still also a leader across the country. It's not like I think we're going to see that same pushback, pullback across the country in California and other leading EV states. Understood. Members of the committee, any other questions? Seeing none, thank you so much. That concludes this portion of our agenda and concludes all of our business here at T&E. This committee is adjourned. Thank you.