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3 weeks ago | 
bigpivots.com | Allen Best
by Allen BestCar buyers took the bait when Colorado dangled tax credits of $5,000 on top of federal tax credits of up to $7,500 for electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids. Sales took off. EVs alone constituted 24.7% .of all new car sales in the final months of 2025. TEven in early 2025, when Colorado’s tax incentives ramped down to $3,500, EVs were still responsible for about 21.1% of all sales.
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3 weeks ago | 
bigpivots.com | Allen Best
by Allen BestHigher electricity rates? In Colorado as elsewhere, that’s the given if the U.S. Senate adopts the recent budget reconciliation bill passed by the House of Representatives that would end a whole host of federal tax credits. Tax credits shorn by the bill include those now available to consumer who purchase electric vehicles and plug-in hybridsHow exactly will that impact Glenwood Springs-based Holy Cross Energy?
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1 month ago | 
bigpivots.com | Allen Best
by Allen BestThis was originally published in the Boulder Weekly on April 16. Fred and Wilma (not their real names) take climate change very seriously. For the last several years, they have been members of Citizens’ Climate Lobby, an organization that advocates for a tax on greenhouse gas emissions. Yet like most of us, they were burning natural gas to heat the space and water in their 2,800-square-foot house near Niwot. Last year, they decided to live their values.
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2 months ago | 
bigpivots.com | Allen Best
by Allen BestDevelopers of data centers in Colorado already have a 10-year red carpet in the form of reduced costs of electricity paid to investor-owned utilities. HB25-1177, a bill being heard on Wednesday afternoon at the Colorado Capitol proposes to lengthen those incentives to 25 years. Proponents at the House Energy and Environment Committee surely will have a hard time keeping a straight face while declaring that these carrots will be needed.
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2 months ago | 
bigpivots.com | Allen Best
by Allen BestElectrical cooperatives in Colorado were informed before Joe Biden left the White House that they would be getting about $3.5 billion from the federal government via programs funded by the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. Will they?
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2 months ago | 
bigpivots.com | Allen Best
by Allen BestMatters of little consequence often get major time and attention. And vice versa. Two energy bills in the Colorado Legislature this year, one about nuclear energy and the second about electrical transmission, illustrate this. The first bill, HB25-1040, which is now law, declared that nuclear energy is clean. It proclaims that utilities can meet clean-energy targets with nuclear. It also allows private projects access to financing restricted to clean energy development.
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2 months ago | 
bigpivots.com | Allen Best
by Andrew CarpenterI’d never heard of “net metering” until my electric bill hit $600 last February. Desperate for a way to reduce utility costs that skyrocket in the winter because we use electric heaters, I started getting quotes for rooftop solar power. That’s when I learned about a state law that requires Colorado utilities to credit homeowners who send power back to the grid at the same rate they would pay to buy power from the power company.
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2 months ago | 
bigpivots.com | Allen Best
by Allen BestFederal funds for climate-change-related projects in Colorado have started arriving in almost perfect concert with the spring thaw. Among the applications for the hundreds of millions of dollars will be:energy efficiency work in southwestern Colorado communities,curbing methane emissions from old coal mines west of Carbondale, and,preparation of a climate action plan for the Yampa Valley. Among the smaller grants, $187,605 went to Salida and Chaffee County.
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2 months ago | 
bigpivots.com | Allen Best
by Dave MarstonWhen La Plata County in southwestern Colorado needed a director of emergency management in 2021, they found a winner in Shawna Legarza. An experienced firefighter, her career has spanned battling big fires on the ground to overseeing federal firefighting across several states. Now, she’s helping Durango, population 19,000, and others in the county to prepare for the inevitable approach of wildfire.
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Mar 12, 2025 | 
bigpivots.com | Allen Best
by Allen BestThe Ray Nixon Power Plant south of Colorado Springs burns both natural gas and coal, and the coal component was scheduled several years ago to close by 2030. That would have allowed the operator, Colorado Springs Utilities, to meet Colorado’s 2030 emissions reduction goals for the electric sector. Now, CSU – as the utility is known – has initiated talks with state officials about keeping the coal portion of the Nixon plant open for a few more years.