The House Energy & Environment Committee killed two major energy bills on the same day: HB 26-1278, which would have required local government approval before utilities could initiate condemnation for transmission projects, was postponed indefinitely 7-4 after emotional testimony from Elbert County landowners; HB 26-1124, which would have created a grid-resilience task force to assess geomagnetic threats to high-voltage transformers, was also postponed indefinitely 8-5 over concerns about duplicative federal standards and fiscal impact.
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Will Tor (Colorado Energy Office) argued the bill 'does the opposite' of speeding transmission, making it 'both slower and less likely to be constructed,' and that Section 3 'eliminates the ability to appeal transmission permit denials by an IOU to the PUC.' Holly Velasquez Horvath (Xcel Energy) argued that if the bill were in place it 'would ultimately never even really happen for us' because condemnation access is needed to conduct surveys required for 1041 applications. Rep. Richardson countered that the bill only governs timing of compulsory condemnation, not voluntary negotiations, and cited Lance Ingalls's testimony that 'more than three years of delay' in the Elbert County case 'has nothing to do with the county' — Xcel chose the preferred line in 2021 but did not apply for a local permit until November 2024.
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“Right now, it's theoretically possible for a utility to acquire the entire route for a project through condemnation and then arrive at a local government's door with the practical message that the land is already secured. So the outcome is inevitable. A local public hearing still needs to take place. If what we're setting up and setting in motion is simply the rubber stamp of somebody else's actions, the input of our citizens means nothing, and the input of our citizens should mean everything in the work that we do.”
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Sign in to subscribeThe Energy and Environment Committee will come to order. Welcome everybody. Ms. Falco, please call the roll. Representative Barone? Excellent. Goldstein. Here. Jackson. Here. Joseph. Right here. Pascal. Here. Rudino. Here. Saw. Excused. Smith. Here. Wilford. Here. Woog. Excused. Velasco. Excused. Mr. Chair, I'm here. We've got a great show for you here, folks. Today we got three bills we're going to start off with. House Bill 1278 brought to you by Representative Richardson. Representative Richardson, whenever you're ready, tell us about your bill. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I've got a fairly lengthy opening presentation. It's not going to be. It hopefully will not put anyone to sleep. But this is a very a bill that's pretty simple in concept, but it touches many areas our citizens, their property rights, local government processes, puc, utilities and the courts. So I want to make sure that it's kind of properly framed before witnesses do come up. But as most of you know, I spent eight years as a county commissioner in Elbert county and served on a planning commission Beforehand I have had energy projects come through and been part of the approval process for transmission, utility scale, solar and wind…
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