May 16, 2013 07:58 AM UTC

Will Hickenlooper Sign Senate Bill 252?

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• by: Colorado Pols

It's one of the last remaining questions from this year's legislative session, reports FOX 31's Eli Stokols:

On Tuesday, Hickenlooper met with both Vestas, the world’s largest wind turbine manufacturer that has several facilities in Colorado and supports the measure, and with Tri-States Generation and Transmission, which provides electricity to 18 state energy co-ops and has been the bill’s most outspoken opponent.

After those meetings, Hickenlooper’s Chief Strategist Alan Salazar told FOX31 Denver that the governor is “still gathering information.”

…S.B. 252 would require rural co-ops with more than 100,000 meters, and utilities that generate and supply electricity on behalf of member co-ops, to get 20 percent of their electricity from renewable energy sources by 2020.

The Longmont Times-Call reports from last night's anti-252 rally in Johnson's Corner:

A rally at a windy parking lot behind the landmark Johnson's Corner Café and Truck Stop in Johnstown late Wednesday drew about 40 local residents and a half dozen lawmakers who fought against the bill.

Members of the General Assembly from Larimer and Weld counties, all of them on the short ends of votes that sent the measure to the governor's desk, took turns at a microphone on a flatbed trailer to fire up the small crowd, telling them their messages needed to reach the governor.

The Durango Herald's Joe Hanel:

The company that supplies coal-powered electricity to rural Colorado is waging a media campaign to try to convince Gov. John Hickenlooper to veto a renewable-energy bill.

It’s the biggest political advertising blitz since last fall’s election, and it included a full-page ad and half-page ad Sunday in The Durango Herald…

In one of the most controversial claims in the ads in the Herald, Tri-State says complying with the bill will cost billions of dollars.

“Senate Bill 252 would impose billions [Pols emphasis] in increased electricity costs on rural Colorado consumers and individuals,” the ad says.

Like so many other issues this legislative session, the rhetoric over Senate Bill 252 has escalated to an over-the-top fever pitch, to the point where opponents seem to be relying on arguments that aren't intended to persuade Gov. John Hickenlooper, or for that matter any rational person–it seems more to fire up the conservative base with even more hyperbolic nonsense stories of impending doom wrought by Democrats this year.

Some might interpret a shift to the irrational from opponents as evidence that Hickenlooper isn't buying it.

Gov. Hickenlooper has been widely criticized, even in the context of a session where liberal Democrats were made very happy, for his deliberate work to undo numerous oil and gas reform bills this year. Signing Senate Bill 252, what is in fact a moderate increase in the renewable mix for large rural co-op utilities, won't invalidate the criticism that Hickenlooper has richly earned on this issue–but it would give him something affirmative to point to in response to it. From a purely political perspective, it would seem rather pointless for Hickenlooper to bow to a minority of hysterical voices and veto SB-252. Critics of SB-252 aren't going to support Hickenlooper no matter what he decides, so there's no political gain from again poking environmental groups in the eye.

Many sources have told us that Hickenlooper has been personally stung by the criticism he has received from his positions on fracking. We think this is a chance he should, and probably will take to walk some of that back.