Category Archives: Environment

If you don’t like the facts, change ‘em!

Posted on July 13, 2008 by | Leave a comment

Leave it to that dastardly Dick Cheney to leave out facts because they don’t jive with the admnistration’s policies:

Seeking to play down the effects of global warming, Vice President Dick Cheney’s office pushed to delete from congressional testimony references about the consequences of climate change on public health, a former senior EPA official claimed Tuesday.

The official, Jason K. Burnett, said the White House was concerned that the proposed testimony last October by the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention might make it tougher to avoid regulating greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere. (via Yahoo News)

Yeah, who cares about the truth, anyway! Ignore whatever doesn’t work for us!

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Posted in Environment, President, Republicans, The Universe

Governor Ritter’s running with the ball

Posted on April 30, 2008 by | Leave a comment

When now-Governor Bill Ritter was running for office, he promised to make a number of changes in Colorado, centering around education, health care and renewable fuels. We’re about four months into Ritter’s first term, and we are already seeing a couple of major initiatives on Ritter’s part, including:

College scholarships funded by the oil and gas industry: This is a very interesting initiative: basically this would recoup the tax credits given to oil and gas companies, and use that money for a few specific purposes. 60% of this money (or around $120 million a year) would be used to fund scholarships. This has to be approved by voters, but it sounds damned good to me.

The state budget for 2008-2009: Ritter’s first budget has some very interesting and promising allocations. The most encouraging of which is an increase of alomst 10% for higher education, increases in both the Chidlren’s Health Plan (enough to cover an extra 11,000 children) and programs for the developmentally challenged.

All in all, I am loving the way that Ritter is already trying to implement his campaign promises here in Colorado. Things are going to be very different – and a whole lot better – in just a few years.

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Posted in Democrats, Environment, Local politics, The Universe

Lucrative wind blowing into Colorado

Posted on May 17, 2007 by | Leave a comment

9News.com is running an article about wind power in Colorado. For those of you from outside the state, our current Democratic governor Bill Ritter ran his campaign based heavily on the promise of renewable energy. He said that he would go out of his way to make Colorado a leader in renewable energy, including wind and solar. And he’s already making a difference:

“Why come to Colorado? At some point, it’s a risk-reward game for us. To spend more time and more money and maybe not get a wind project in a state in the northeast or on the west coast, we’re going to come to a place where we can spend capital and affect public policy in a postive way,” said O’Sullivan.

In other words: Colorado was chosen because our political climate is friendly towards companies that are going after alterantive energy. FPL felt the change in the air here since Ritter moved into office, and decided this is where they could make money.

So what exactly is Florida Power & Light Enegry going to do here?

The project includes the construction of 267 wind turbines creating enough energy to power 120,000 households. FPL will construct a 78-mile-long transmission line to connect the Peetz facility to Xcel’s Pawnee substation near Brush. Up to 350 people will be hired to help build the wind farm and transmission line. Afterwards, 20 full-time workers will live in the community to keep it operational.

In the end, this is going to be good for just about everyone. FPL will make a lot of money, Xcel will make a lot of money, there’ll be jobs created here in Colorado (and in a small town like Brush!), and Colorado will take a step forwards toward becoming an alternative energy giant.

I love stories like this!

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Posted in Democrats, Environment, Local politics