Steve Pomerance

Colorado is now in a position to make a radical transformation of our whole system of generating electricity. Wind and solar have become so cheap that we can shut down all our coal plants, shift to more renewables, and still pay less for electricity, as recent studies by the Sierra Club and Vibrant Clean Energy confirm. The key is to dismantle our century-old model where the regulators (the Public Utilities Commission) operate in a reactive mode and so end up “captured” by for-profit investor-owned utilities. We need to replace this model with one where decisions are made independently and solely in the public interest. We have efforts in many states to learn from. We can see that going only halfway and leaving the investor-owned utilities with a significant decision-making role is guaranteed to perpetuate the struggles that we have here in Boulder. We will be shifting to more electric cars and heating systems, so demand for electricity will significantly increase. So we should...

Congratulations to the four new Boulder City Council members! You have a great opportunity to make a contribution to the Boulder community, but it will take a lot of work to do it responsibly; the learning curve is pretty steep. Here are some suggestions for you (and other Council members) that may help improve the process. Read the Charter. It is the document that governs how you, city staff, and board and commission members operate, and how you relate to each other. It defines the limits of your and their power, and can only be amended by a citizen vote. You don’t have to remember every word. But just knowing what’s there makes you more self reliant and less at the mercy of others’ opinions. For example, relative to the recent meeting discussion over diversity, the council does  not  have the power to suspend the rules as to when the mayor is selected. Charter Section 14 specifies, “The mayor shall be chosen by the council from its own number, upon the convening of t...

Why are we chasing Denver’s density? A friend asked me what I knew about Boulder’s plans for increasing density. She was concerned about the push for Boulder being “inclusive,” a catchall phrase currently bandied about that means pretty much whatever the person hearing or reading it imagines. Certainly there has been a lot of verbiage about “densifying,” like forcing neighborhoods to accept multi-unit buildings or high-rise developments right next to or replacing single-family houses, schemes that the current Boulder City Council seems to have abandoned, at least temporarily, because of public outcry and anger. So I can understand her concern. Since at some level this is a numbers game, I did a bit of research comparing Boulder to Denver. Obviously, Boulder is smaller than Denver, but I thought the ratios would be interesting: Per the 2018 Boulder Community Profile, our city occupies 27.3 square miles, had a population of 108,507 people, and had 100,148 jobs when the data was ...

As Boulder’s election season cranks up, there is a lot of noise around Boulder’s sacred cow of affordable housing. Fast-growth candidates seem to assert that building more market rate housing will somehow solve “the problem.” Slow-growth candidates seem to be more measured and consider other dimensions to the issue. But the problem is still ill-defined: Is this something that can actually be solved, or a concern that will persist irrespective of the actions taken, or a surrogate for other agendas, or what? Leaving aside this lack of clarity, the main difficulty we face is that our current affordable housing program relies financially to a large extent on growth of one kind or another. Each new housing development must provide 25% on-site affordable units or pay fees-in-lieu for off-site units. Business development pays jobs-housing linkage fees that cover a bit less than a quarter of the cost of providing housing for workers who need it. A minor portion comes from local taxes and ...

According to the 2018 Boulder Community Profile, since 2000 job growth has been about 50% faster than residential. Excluding kids and retired folks, jobs likely grew at more than double the rate for resident workers. We now have well over 60,000 in-commuters. As a result, traffic congestion has dramatically increased. Unless we make some significant changes, it will just get worse faster, because we have exceeded the capacity of almost all our intersections. Even secondary streets are now heavily congested. Water, Boulder’s prized resource, may finally come under pressure. We get a significant portion of our supply from the Colorado River via the Big Thompson project. Given the multi-decade drought induced by climate change and the Colorado River Compact constraints, at some point, probably sooner than later, we will be forced either to buy out farmers’ water rights or live with a lot less. More people means more big buildings, more views blocked, more open opace trampled, more ...

Albert Einstein said, “ We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them. ” Boulder is supposed to be one of the most educated cities in the country, so you’d think that we wouldn’t just commit the same follies as every other high tech town. But we’ve been headed that way for a long time. Boulder’s own Comprehensive Plan states that Boulder is an “employment center,” and for the last quarter of a century our government has encouraged jobs to be added as fast as the space could get built. Even Boulder Junction, started in 2004, would add about as many new jobs as new residents. Boulder has supported spending state tax credits to encourage companies to come to town. Boulder’s city manager unilaterally applied to have much of east Boulder designated an “opportunity zone,” which grants unnecessary huge tax breaks for developers in this supposedly “economically depressed” area. Affordable housing programs have been implemented, but they couldn’t keep u...

Councilmember Sam Weaver made some pretty strong promises to neighborhoods in his 2017 re-election campaign material, “I support sub-community planning, which includes neighborhood-level stakeholder engagement to explore what the local desires are regarding the potential for additional density through zoning changes.”… “I believe that any policy changes that enable increases in neighborhood density must be created in close partnership with the residents of the neighborhoods they impact.” ( sam4council.wordpress.com/responsible-planning ). Councilmember Mary Young also strongly supported direct involvement by affected residents in the Daily Camera story on her re-election campaign. The Camera said: She’s for “thoughtful redevelopment” that’s informed by sub-area planning in neighborhoods. Where some would argue this approach gives veto power, or something close to it, to neighbors resistant to change in largely single-family zones, Young sees it another way.  “I believe that w...

Proposition CC, on the ballot this November, would allow the Colorado state government to keep all tax revenues above the population-plus-inflation limit approved by Referendum C in 2005, which got rid of the ratchet effect of the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, or TABOR. The state forecasts that Prop CC would allow the state to keep about $310 million for 2019-2020 and $342 million for 2020-2021 that otherwise would be refunded to the taxpayers. House Bill 1257, which put Prop CC on the ballot, says this money is for public schools, higher education, roads, bridges and transit. As KC Becker, Speaker of the House and a Boulder representative, commented in The Colorado Sun, “Is this the long-term fix to any of the state’s long-term issues? No, it’s not,” but “I think it’s a necessary, important part of it.” But the real problem is that most of Colorado’s huge unfunded needs are caused by growth and development not paying its way, and Prop CC fails to implement any of the necessary fixes....

In the June 20 Camera, Mayor Suzanne Jones is quoted instructing citizens who came to speak about the huge senior living complex proposed for 311 Mapleton, “The decisions are whether it meets the criteria, or not, not whether or not we like it.” I appreciate Mayor Jones’ thoughts, but Boulder’s site review process, which is used to evaluate such large projects, is fraught with subjectivity, fundamentally because the “criteria” lack objective standards and limits. The first step is that the council must agree that, “the proposed site plan is consistent with the land use map, and the service area map, and, on balance, the policies of the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan.” But as was noted in the recent consultant’s review of the BVCP, policies can be found that support whatever anyone wants, making this policy requirement meaningless. And each “land use” allows multiple zoning categories, so existing zoning can be changed, as this proposal requests. (I have serious questions as to w...

I just returned from the annual International Energy Economics and Finance Association conference, where people from all over the world gathered to discuss global warming and climate change. I was on a panel discussing “securitization,” a financial tool that uses borrowing to reduce the cost of paying off utilities to shut down coal plants. Interestingly,  an op-ed I wrote  in April on the Colorado securitization bill was referenced by some people to illustrate their various perspectives. Our discussion ended up boiling down to a fundamental choice: Are we willing to pay whatever it takes to get utilities to shut down their coal plants? Or are we going to force some utilities to take a financial beating, because they invested in coal in the face of global warming? What really amazed me was how many people were aware of and inspired by Boulder’s struggle to create a clean energy municipal electric utility. I also received reports about utilities that were shifting to clea...

In last November’s election, Boulder voters passed a number of charter amendments related to Boulder’s elections. They mostly addressed the provisions related to direct democracy, which occurs through initiatives, referenda and recalls. Direct democracy ensures that when citizens are not satisfied with the actions of their elected representatives, they have independent paths on which to proceed. (So it’s clear, charter amendments can also be done through initiatives, but the rules are in state law and cannot be changed locally.) The initiative process, referenda and recalls have long been paper processes: Citizens first write up what they want to do. City staff members then review the draft and provide technical feedback. Then the final version is printed, typically over a hundred copies, and circulated by regular citizens or paid circulators for months to get the requisite number of signatures. Gathering signatures has gotten harder, as many private property owners seem less wil...

The latest Colorado energy bill,  HB19-1313 , was apparently drafted for (and presumably by) Xcel Energy, though its language allows other utilities to choose to come under its provisions. Here is the bill’s fundamental requirement: “By 2030, the qualifying retail utility shall reduce the carbon dioxide emissions associated with electricity sales to the qualifying retail utility’s retail electricity customers by eighty percent from 2005 levels. For the years 2050 and thereafter, or sooner if practicable, the qualifying retail utility shall seek to achieve the goal of providing its retail customers with energy generated from one-hundred-percent clean energy resources so long as doing so is technically and economically feasible, in the public interest …” The bill only covers “retail sales” and does not include “sales for resale.” These constitute about a fifth of Xcel’s total sales. It only regulates CO2, but not other emissions, like methane. So the bill allows much more green...

I just reviewed the 2019 Legislature’s bills related to our critical need to reduce emissions of greenhouse gasses. I’m very pleased that finally we are really moving forward, thanks in large part to our elected representatives from the Boulder area. But the process is not complete, and some legislation is missing important pieces. Here are some brief comments on some of the bills: HB19-1261 — Climate Action Plan To Reduce Pollution This far-reaching bill requires an overall statewide reduction in 2025 greenhouse gas emissions by at least 26 percent from 2005 levels, 2030 greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50 percent, and 2050 greenhouse gas emissions by at least 90 percent. Additionally, it requires regulated investor-owned utilities (IOUs) to create “clean energy plans” to meet an 80 percent reduction target for their emissions by 2030, though the language is somewhat confusing re: actual performance. In exchange, these utilities apparently get relief from future carbon taxes...